Melbourne Recital Centre is the creation of intense collaboration between music industry leaders and the Design Team led by acclaimed Melbourne-based architect, Ian McDougall of Ashton Raggatt McDougall and Arup Acoustics.

Designed as a lively hub, Melbourne Recital Centre provides the vision, facilities and resources that fill the gap in Melbourne’s cultural infrastructure. The building’s expansive glass façade is like a beacon, welcoming, accessible and glowing with expectation revealing four levels of public spaces, but it is the 1,001-seat Elisabeth Murdoch Hall that is the centrepiece. The classic shoe-box shaped hall is a uniquely Australian space reflecting the energy, innovation and creative spirit of Melbourne.

The hall’s perfect fusion of acoustic and architectural design with state-of-the art technology is as grand as it is intimate, with its own special sound and atmosphere. It is designed specifically for the performance and recording of chamber music, jazz, new music, chamber opera, world music and popular song.

The smaller performing space, the Salon, is designed for more intimate performances such as soirees, cabaret, pre-concert talks or functions. It is also a recording studio, providing an exciting, challenging space for the creation and re-creation of musical ideas of all forms.

Both halls, and the building in which they are housed, have been planned and designed with one predominant thought in mind: the presentation and furtherance of fine music in a dedicated, purpose-built centre that will allow freedom of expression in the best possible form.

Melbourne Recital Centre will serve as a fulcrum for a continually active programming policy – for the local music industry as a valuable education resource – that includes not only concerts by established hirers, but its own programs, designed to entertain, educate and stimulate audiences old and new.

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall is not a multi-purpose hall, it is a hall, purpose built for small ensemble music. Its programming will inspire new directions and thinking about music performance, nurture emerging musicians, educate from early age to third age students and in doing so, build new audiences.