Seattle Chamber Music Society plans move to Benaroya next summer

Perfect music for a perfect summer.

That's what the Seattle Chamber Music Society has been offering at the Lakeside School this July — and what the organization has offered every July, perfect weather or no, since the festival was founded by cellist Toby Saks in 1982.

The festival has been Lakeside-based since its founding, except for a temporary construction-related move in 1997. And the whole Lakeside experience — preconcert picnicking on the lawn, funneling into the confines of St. Nicholas Hall for performances, or staying outside to hear the concerts on lawn speakers at sunset — has been inextricably twined with the music.

So the news that this is SCMS's last summer at Lakeside is disconcerting.

Not to worry, says SCMS Executive Director Connie Cooper. Next year's move has both the musicians and SCMS happy. The staff at Benaroya Hall — where the 2010 Summer Festival will take place — are pleased to be hosting the festival, too.

SCMS got the heads-up that the move might be necessary a few years ago when Lakeside's administration notified the organization that plans were afoot for an expansion of the school's summer academic program. A hard date for that expansion came last year, prompting SCMS to search all over town for a suitable venue for its 2010 Summer Festival.

SCMS had its own reasons to move. The concerts at 425-seat St. Nicholas Hall sell out regularly, and a bigger hall has long been needed. Four years ago, SCMS started an Eastside series at Overlake School, where the hall has 350 seats, to meet audience demand. But that didn't solve the problem of St. Nicholas Hall's limited capacity.

The search was on.

"What we found," Cooper says, "was that Seattle has a wealth of 250-300-seat halls. But those were too small for us. We needed something in the 500-600-seat range."

Benaroya Hall's Nordstrom Recital Hall, with its 540 seats, seemed the most promising candidate. For last 10 years, SCMS has held its Winter Festival there, and Benaroya was eager to have additional summer fare on its calendar.

Every day in summertime, Cooper was told by Troy Skubitz, director of operations and services at Benaroya Hall, out-of-town visitors come to the box office hoping to sample the hall's acclaimed acoustics. But too often during tourist season the answer to the question, "What's happening at Benaroya tonight?" has been "Nothing."

The move downtown, Cooper anticipates, should draw residents of Queen Anne, Capitol Hill and other central Seattle neighborhoods who have trouble getting to Lakeside. Benaroya Hall is easily reached by public transit — the new Link light-rail stops right underneath it — and its proximity to the ferry terminal should be handy for Bainbridge Island and Bremerton residents.

The outdoors aspect of the Lakeside experience will be preserved in the Garden of Remembrance, on the Second Avenue side of Benaroya. The garden is already hooked up for sound — classical-music CDs play from speakers along its walkways every day — so it's just a matter of switching a few wires to connect it to Nordstrom Recital Hall, Cooper says. Wolfgang Puck is slated to provide outdoor food service, or you can bring your own picnic.

"There aren't acres of grass," Cooper admits, "but there's so much about it that will give it a real urban music festival feel." She points out there are lots of nearby dining options for SCMS patrons wanting to make an evening of it.

It won't be possible to duplicate Lakeside's free parking, but SCMS is working on obtaining "very reasonable parking rates" for concert patrons. The two-week Overlake School concert series will continue as is.

All in all there are no hard feelings at being booted out by Lakeside's expanding summer-program needs.

"They're a school," Cooper says. "That's their mission."

And there's considerable excitement about taking the 2010 Summer Festival to the stage at Benaroya: "Our musicians absolutely adore playing in that hall. It's superb acoustically."

In the meantime, the 2009 Summer Festival continues at Lakeside School this week and moves to Overlake School Aug. 5-14.

Michael Upchurch: mupchurch@seattletimes.com