Venue: Severance Hall
Town: Cleveland, US

Severance Hall, also known as Severance Music Center, is a concert hall in the University Circle neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, home to the Cleveland Orchestra. Opened in 1931 to give the orchestra a permanent home, the building is named for patrons John L. Severance and his wife, Elisabeth Huntingdon DeWitt Severance. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of Cleveland’s Wade Park District. In addition to serving as the Cleveland Orchestra’s home and as a commencement site for Case Western Reserve University, Severance Hall is available to rent for concerts, weddings, corporate events, and receptions. On Severance Hall’s ground floor is Reinberger Chamber Hall, a separate 402-seat auditorium that is frequently used for more intimate performances and pre-concert lectures. Founded in 1918, the Cleveland Orchestra first performed at Grays Armory in downtown Cleveland and moved to the Masonic Auditorium for concerts during the 1920s. But both buildings also hosted other types of events that occasionally created scheduling conflicts for the Orchestra, including, most famously, twice when the ensemble had to find an alternate location because of a poultry exhibition. The Orchestra’s administration soon came to realize the advantages that having a permanent concert hall would bring to the ensemble's performances, rehearsals, and radio broadcasts. After encouragement from Cleveland Orchestra founder Adella Prentiss Hughes and music director Nikolai Sokoloff, plans for Severance Hall began to emerge based on a plot of land offered by Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University) at a leasing cost of $1.00 per year and potential funds contributed by the general public and local philanthropists. During a gala concert celebrating the Orchestra’s tenth-anniversary, Dudley Blossom, an early benefactor, announced that John L. Severance, president of the Musical Arts Association, and his wife, Elisabeth, had pledged $1 million to the