A thank-you note

The Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall’s debut performance Sunday turned out to be love at first sound for audience and performers alike. One of the highlights was when the audience, made up of workers who helped build the new hall, whistled along with the theme made famous in the movie “The Bridge on the River Kwai.”

Steve and Luanne Zajicek of Huntington Beach adored the concert, and especially the hall, which has a very intimate feel even for the smallest of performances.

“It was a great idea,” Luanne Zajicek said.

Steve Zajicek, who worked on the project as an electrical engineer, said the show was a great preview of what to expect from the hall. He added he would love to come to another show.

“We’ve been waiting for this a long time,” Steve Zajicek said.

Called the “hard hat” concert, the event honored Fluor Corporation employees responsible for the graceful look and resounding sound in the hall that has near perfect acoustics, some say.

Receiving an exclusive concert from the Pacific Symphony was a just a small thank you to those responsible for the hall’s timely and superb completion, symphony President John Forsyte said.

“The potential in this hall for artistic growth is truly tremendous,” Forsyte said. “We are proud to be performing for the Fluor Corp. employees.”

The entire orchestra stood at one point in the show and applauded the group for their work in completing the hall.

The hall is scheduled to open Sept. 15 with a concert featuring singer Placido Domingo and the Pacific Symphony.

The show opened with “The Star Spangled Banner,” and continued with varied coverage of English composers.

The first half of the show began classically, but it closed in a more contemporary style, finishing with film scores that included music from the Austin Powers movies and the James Bond theme.

Before the show began, center president Terry Dwyer, Darrel Waters, the project’s director, and Harry Segerstrom applauded the crowd of more than 1,200 Flour employees and families for their hard work and dedication to the project.

“I think it’s fantastic that so many people brought their children and parents,” Dwyer said. “It’s a very multigenerational group and it gives one confidence about the future of the center.”

He saw the hall blossom with each step in the building process, but had not fully anticipated the force it would be until everything came together with the orchestra playing, he said.

Segerstrom Hall has been dubbed the new residence of the Pacific Symphony, and by the sound of things they already feel quite at home in the new surroundings.

What they are surrounded by is new technology that will help the smallest of concerts reverberate with the same intensity as the larger concerts.

Acoustically speaking, the hall was so finely tuned that the whistling of the audience during “Colonel Bogey” could be heard in almost perfect clarity in harmony with the orchestra. Conductor Richard Kaufman called the audience the first soloists of the hall, and asked them to join him in the song, which he first heard on the film “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” as simply a whistle.

For more information visit www.ocpac.org.