Venue: Hill Auditorium
Town: Ann Arbor, US

Hill Auditorium is a concert hall in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The auditorium is located on the Central Campus of the University of Michigan, and is managed by the university's School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. Hill Auditorium seats approximately 3,500 guests, and regularly hosts musical performances, lectures, and graduation ceremonies. The auditorium was named in honor of Arthur Hill (1847-1909), who served as a regent of the university from 1901 to 1909. He bequeathed $200,000 (equivalent to $7.2 million in 2025) to the university for the construction of a venue for lectures, musical performances, and other large productions. Opened in 1913, the auditorium was designed by Albert Kahn and Associates. It was renovated by the same firm beginning in 2002 and was re-opened in 2004. Carol Rose Kahn, the architect's granddaughter, recounted that her grandfather had set out to develop a hall with perfect acoustics. The brief was to design an auditorium that would seat five thousand people, where they could hear from every seat. The only known previous example was the Mormon Tabernacle where it was said that one could hear a pin drop from the stage to the top balcony, although the chamber suffered from excess reverberation. Albert Kahn wrote to Hugh Tallant, partner of Henry Beaumont Herts, asking if it would be possible to build an auditorium for five thousand people, where they'd hear from every seat. Tallant responded, but only after several months had elapsed, to the affirmative; so Tallant designed the acoustics. The result was an auditorium in the shape of a megaphone. The granddaughter said: "Hill Auditorium was nearly finished when I was fourteen or so. My father [Albert Kahn's son] and I went out to Ann Arbor. Father stood up in the last seat of the second balcony, and I went down on the stage. On my word of honor, I dropped a pin and he heard it." The University of Michigan website that describes the US$33.5 million (equivalent to US$51.3 million in 2022) Hill Aud