Reid Concert Hall

Reid Concert Hall, aka Reid Concert Hall with Ahrend Organ (from 1977). aka Reid School of the Theory of Music, aka Reid Music Class Room, aka University Music Class Room.  
Take a tour of the Reid Concert Hall.

The University Music Classroom (now the Reid Concert Hall) was the first Edinburgh University building built outside Old College.  The foundation stone was laid on 13 February 1858 and the Music Class Room opened for classes in December 1859.
The building was the main home of the University Music Department/Music Faculty, the Reid Music Library and the Museum of Instruments, for over 100 years. 
The Department of Music became the Faculty of Music in 1894 and the first Dean of the Faculty of Music was Professor Frederick Niecks.
The building was called variously the University Music Class Room and the Reid Music Class Room and the address was, from 1858, Park Place.  
In the late nineteenth century it was the last remaining building in Park Place as other adjacent buildings were demolished when the University expanded the estate to build Teviot Row House, the University Medical School and the McEwan Hall.

The University Music Class Room was now located next to the Student Union building, Teviot Row House, Teviot Row, built in 1889 and the address of the Reid School of Music/Reid Concert Hall was changed from Park Place to Teviot Row. 
In the mid-twentieth century the Music students and staff also used rooms at 18 Buccleuch Place (The Tovey Memorial Rooms) and at 45 George Square.
In 1958 the staff. students and alumni celebrated the centenary of the School of Music building.
In 1964 the Music Faculty moved most of its teaching from the Music Class Room and additional space at 45 George Square to Alison House, 12 Nicolson Square, Edinburgh EH8 9DF where they shared a building with the Computer Science department and Dentistry
The Reid School of Music was still used for lectures and concerts and came to be known as the Reid Concert Hall.
In 1977 the address changed again from Teviot Row to 14 Bristo Square, when the square was created that year.
In 1977-78 the Ahrend Organ was built in the Reid Concert Hall and the venue after that time is shown on this database as 'Reid Concert Hall with Ahrend Organ'.

The Faculty of Music celebrated its centenary in the academic year 1993-94.
In 2003 after 109 year the Faculty of Music became once again known as the Reid School of Music.
The Reid School of Music subsequently became part of Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh.
The Reid Concert Hall is used for concerts, rehearsals, lectures and as a recording studio.

The Renovation of the Reid School of Music, 1993.
During the summer of 1993 the Reid School of Music (the Reid Concert Hall, as it is more commonly called these days) disappeared behind a jungle of scaffolding.  Redecoration was due, and in view of the forthcoming centenary celebrations, the Master of Works, Vice-Principal Wilson and a number of other influential people in the university were happy to be persuaded that something more than the proverbial "coat of paint" was called for.  New wiring, better fitted to the demands of the performance of electronic music and of recording, new lighting, and a rethinking of the whole scheme of decoration seemed to be called for; and with that in mind Fiona McLachlan, a lecturer in the Department of Architecture, who with her husband Ewan has an architectural practice in the city which specializes in interior work, was consulted and invited to draw up some proposals.  In preparation for this, the McLachlans set about investigating the early state of the hall.
Its architect, David Cousins, together with the then Reid Professor of Music, John Donaldson, prove both to have been moving spirits in the Aesthetic Club of Edinburgh.  At the time of the building, another member of the club, David Hay, had recently published a book called 'The Laws of Harmonious Colouring', in which he investigated, with Donaldson's assistance, the relationship between colour and musical harmony.  In the broadest terms Hay believed that each of the seven colours of the spectrum could be seen as analogous to the seven notes of the diatonic scale, and that each might be used in such a way as to form the visual equivalent of a key, with its own proper range of related and contrasting tones. The Reid was originally decorated (at the expense of the Professor - a precendent we shall not be following!) to demonstrate the effectiveness of these supposed correspondences.
While no attempt has been made to reproduce the original colouring of the Cousins-Hay-Donaldson scheme (for the Reid, with its Ahrend organ and its 1960s seating is of course no longer a simply Victorian interior), something of the spirit of their ideas has been retained.
                 [Written by Professor David Kimbell, Faculty of Music and printed in the programme of the Faculty Centenary concert, February 1994]

Further refurbishment, redecoration and rearrangement of the fixed seating in the Reid Concert Hall took place between March 2015 and October 2016 and all University concerts were relocated to other local venues including City of Edinburgh Methodist Church, Greyfriars Kirk and the Playfair Library Hall, Old College.

Organ recitals in the McEwan Hall were not possible between November 2014 and October 2018 during the refurbishment of the building and were also limited in the Reid Concert Hall as a result of the work taking place in the McEwan Hall, relating to noise and access.

Keyboard instruments used in University recitals

Specifications of Instruments from the Musical Instruments Museums at the University of Edinburgh (MIMEd) and organs used in concerts at this venue.