The last film shown before the orchestra moved in was The Sound of Music. Powell Hall at 718 North Grand Boulevard in St. Louis's Grand Center arts district began life in November 1925 as the St. Louis Theatre, a 4,100-seat Rapp and Rapp vaudeville and movie palace, and has been home to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra since 1968. The Symphony Society bought the building in 1966 for 500,000 dollars - a gift from benefactor Oscar Johnson Jr. - and spent 2 million dollars converting the ornate house into a concert hall. It reopened on 24 January 1968 named for shoe executive Walter S. Powell, whose widow's 1-million-dollar trust helped match a Ford Foundation endowment grant, giving the second-oldest orchestra in the United States its first permanent home. The Versailles-inspired interior and Late Gothic Revival shell joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and the hall anchored the Grand Center redevelopment that also restored the neighbouring Fox Theatre and Sheldon Concert Hall through the 1980s. The building's second transformation closed it for two years from 2023: a 140-million-dollar renovation and expansion designed by Snohetta with acousticians Kirkegaard reopened in September 2025 - the orchestra's 146th season and the hall's centennial - under a new campus name, the Jack C. Taylor Music Center, honouring the late Enterprise founder whose foundation anchored a fundraising campaign that passed 173 million dollars. The project added a 64,000-square-foot expansion with a new arched entrance evoking the curves of string instruments, an education and learning centre, expanded backstage facilities for the SLSO's four ensembles, and a re-seated auditorium of 2,150 places keeping the signature red but adding legroom and accessible positions. The Powell Hall name survives on the original 1925 building at the heart of the complex - a movie palace that has now spent longer as one of America's admired symphony halls than it ever did showing films.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: 718 North Grand Blvd, St. Louis, United States, 63103

Website: https://slso.org

Cover Charge: 1

Capacity: 2150

Opening Date: 01/11/1925

Accessible