My favourite seat at the Esplanade Concert Hall
I'm a classical music lover in Singapore, so I'm rather familiar with the Esplanade Concert Hall. My favourite seat is at the corner of the last row of Circle 3. It is probably the highest seat in the hall. Here's the view from it:
And here it is on the stage plan. For brevity, I shall call it C3HH7.
Hol' up, isn't this probably the worst seat in the hall?
Well, it certainly is (often) the cheapest:
But acoustics-wise, there is nothing cheap about the experience. The music won't be soft nor muddy - ensuring that sound reaches all parts of the hall with sufficient volume and clarity is pretty much a minimal requirement of a modern concert hall anyway.
In fact, the acoustical properties here are quite interesting:
Because of the distance from the stage, you don't hear "impurities", such as the sound of strings slapping on the fingerboard on strings instruments, clicking of keys on woodwind instruments, the rustling of sheet music during page turns, accidental tapping of shoes on the stage, etc.
Being high up puts you in closer proximity to the architectural features that are responsible for enhancing reflections and reverberations - elements that have been studied and proven to create the perception of being enveloped by sound. Sitting near the source increases your sensitivity towards them, you might even start to notice the subtle differences between the sound from the reverberation chambers and the reflections from the canopy and the side walls.
Under-balcony seats, especially those that are deep behind, are physically shielded from vertical reflections and overall reverberation. This somewhat reduces the impact of the above point, but in a way that increases clarity of the music. Clarity can be objectively measured using the ratio of "early energy" - direct sound from the stage and early reflections (there's still plenty laterally) - versus "late energy" - later reflections and diffused reverberations.
Note that neither of these are inherently good or bad features. To me, listening to music from here is like tasting a consommé - an atas, clarified, thickened soup.
I've always loved acoustics because it takes such a clinical approach to studying subjective experiences and uses engineering approaches to enhance them. My first job out of university was a brief stint as an acoustics consultant at Arup. I recall a meeting with Tateo Nakajima - a veteran in the field who had a hand in designing the Esplanade Concert Hall - where he said he loved this hall because there's something unique about every seat.
Last Friday, I watched the Singapore Symphony Orchestra perform Sibelius' Violin Concerto (featuring the legendary Maxim Vengerov) and his Symphony No. 2, under the baton of Okko Kamu. Both pieces are known for their vivid imagery and luscious soundscapes, and SSO brought them to life with a rich tonal palette. The experience from C3HH7 was immersive, and I was able to discern the nuances of virtuosic passages with remarkable clarity.
Esplanade Concert Hall will be closed till March 2025 for some upgrading works. When it reopens, on days when you feel like purchasing the cheapest ticket there, remember to give this seat a try!
Disclaimer: taste is subjective, so you may dislike this seat. But hey, at least it's cheap. 🤷
Disclaimer 2: the acoustics of this hall is configurable, so YMMV.