For nearly half a century, the Royal Conservatory, Canada’s venerable music education institution, has occupied a distinctive late-19th-century masonry building at the northern edge of the University of Toronto campus on Bloor Street, one of the city’s major east-west thoroughfares. But in 1991, simultaneous with an administrative split from the university, the conservatory began an ambitious master-planning exercise, led by Toronto’s own Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects (KPMB), developing a scheme that included renovating McMaster Hall — its deteriorating 50,000-square-foot Victorian home — and expanding it to accommodate the school’s aspirations to both enhance its academic programs and play a greater role in the cultural life of the city.

For the centerpiece of its new complex, the client desired an approximately 1,100-seat concert hall that would serve the institution’s primary mission of training musicians. It wanted the space to have acoustics suitable for a wide variety of musical presentations, including vocal soloists, small ensembles, and full orchestras. But the conservatory also envisioned Koerner Hall, as it is now called, as a state-of-the-art venue that would attract international-caliber talent. And it appears that the room has more than met these aspirations. Since opening in late 2009, Koerner’s acoustics have been widely praised and it has featured such artists as mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and jazz pianist Chick Corea.