TheBoston Music Hall was aconcert hall located on Winter Street inBoston,Massachusetts,^[2][3] with an additional entrance on Hamilton Place.^[4]

One of the oldest continuously operating theaters in the United States, it was built in 1852 and was the original home of theBoston Symphony Orchestra. The hall closed in 1900 and was converted into a vaudeville theater named theOrpheum Theatre.^[5] The Orpheum, which still stands today, was substantially rebuilt in 1915 by architectThomas W. Lamb as a movie theater.

The hall has no connection with Boston's "Music Hall", a theater which is now known as theWang Theatre.

The Boston Music Hall was built in 1852, thanks to a donation of$100,000, made by theHarvard Musical Association, for its construction.George Snell, assisted byAlpheus C. Morse, was the architect.^[6] TheHandel and Haydn Society performed at the hall's inaugural concert. The world premiere of thePiano Concerto No. 1, byPyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky took place here. The hall was the first home of theBoston Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1881 and was also the birthplace of theNew England Conservatory of Music. After being threatened by road building and subway construction, the Music Hall was replaced as the home of the Boston Symphony in 1900, bySymphony Hall.

In addition to concerts, the hall presented important speakers of the time.Theodore Parker preached here, and his congregation, the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, worshiped here from 1852 to 1863.^[7] Methodist ministerHenry Morgan lectured in the hallc. 1859.[8] On December 31, 1862, the eve of the day theEmancipation Proclamation took effect, Northern abolitionists gathered at the Music Hall to celebrate as the clock struck midnight.Frederick Douglass,Wendell Phillips,Harriet Beecher Stowe,William Lloyd Garrison, andHarriet Tubman attended.Oscar Wilde lectured here in 1882.^[9]

The Boston Music HallOrgan, installed in 1862, was the first concert pipe organ installed in the United States. It was commissioned in 1857 and built in Germany byE.F. Walcker and Company of Ludwigsburg. It was the largest in the US at the time, containing 5,474 pipes and 84 registers.

The organ was removed from the Music Hall in 1884 to provide more performing space for the Boston Symphony. Initially put into storage, the organ was rebuilt and installed by the Methuen Organ Company in theSerlo Organ Hall inMethuen, Massachusetts, which was built to house the organ. The organ was later rebuilt again and augmented by the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company. Today Serlo Organ Hall is known as theMethuen Memorial Music Hall and concerts are regularly presented on the organ, still considered one of the leading instruments in the US.^[11]

When the Boston Symphony moved toSymphony Hall in 1900, the Boston Music Hall closed. It was converted for use as a vaudeville theater in 1900 and operated under a number of different names, including the Music Hall and the Empire Theatre. In 1906, it was renamed theOrpheum Theatre. In 1915, the theater was acquired by theLoew's Theatres chain and reopened again in 1916, rebuilt with a completely new interior, designed by architectThomas W. Lamb.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toBoston Music Hall.

• Photos of the Boston Music Hall and Orpheum Theatre at The Boston Historical Society:[1][2][3][4][5]

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  Clara Louise Kellogg concerts, 1869
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  John S. Rarey's lectures and exhibitions of horse taming,c. 1865
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  Musical festival, to be given by the pupils of the Public Schools, in honor of H.I.H., thePrince Napoleon, and thePrincess Clothilde, 1861
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  National Sailors Fair benefit, 1864
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  1869
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  Redpath's Lyceum. Boston Music Hall, Tuesday evening, Oct. 20, 1874. The mystery of emotion, an illustrated lecture byJames Steele MacKaye.

42°21′22.4″N71°3′39″W / 42.356222°N 71.06083°W /42.356222; -71.06083

• Commercial buildings completed in 1852
• 1852 establishments in Massachusetts
• 1900 disestablishments in Massachusetts
• Concert halls in Massachusetts
• Music venues in Boston
• Theatres in Boston
• 19th century in Boston
• Boston Symphony Orchestra

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