Its downtown sits at water’s edge. It neighbors a foreign country. Its people support fewer major sports teams (one versus nine, countywide) and more military bases (nine versus three).
And instead of tucking its sleek new outdoor music venue into a fetching fold in the foothills, as the Hollywood Bowl’s builders did in L.A. a century ago, the San Diego Symphony plopped it down on the waterfront. At the edge of downtown.
So when you sit in one of the red folding chairs or flop on the artificial grass of the Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, you may be distracted by passing sailboats to your left. Or jutting skyscrapers to your right. Or the sun sinking into the harbor.
You don’t hear many helicopters or sirens (well, I didn’t on the May night when I caught the orchestra playing works by Grieg, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Bacewicz). A breeze comes off the water. The Shell’s layout is flatter than the Hollywood Bowl’s, and simpler. And everything is closer together.
Opened last August, the Shell is now in its first full summer season. Besides its core of classical artists, the lineup includes guest pop artists Common, Boyz II Men, Jennifer Hudson, Bernadette Peters, and Pink Martini.
1. It’s Surrounded by Water on Three Sides
The Shell, designed by Tucker Sadler Architects, looks like a giant clamshell with LED lighting. It stands on a 3.7-acre finger of land that reaches from downtown’s convention center into San Diego Bay. A few blocks to the north stands Petco Park, home to the Padres. To the south, across the water, there’s the almost-island of Coronado (whose ferry will drop you next to the Rady Shell).The San Diego Symphony, which partnered with the Port of San Diego on this project, raised about 96 percent of its $85 million cost. The complex includes the performance venue and adjacent eating and drinking areas. Most of the park is open to the public most of the time, including morning yoga sessions.
2. There Are No Box Seats
The Shell’s seating is all folding chairs, which can be reconfigured (or carted away entirely) to accommodate crowds from 2,000 to 8,500, prices $20-$275. Over the venue’s first 28 concerts, average attendance was around 3,100. For the symphony performance I saw, the closest seats to the stage, the Marina area, were arranged with four-top tables, so people could eat before or during the performance. The price: $108 per person.The Lawn section in back, first-come, first-served, is an elevated grassy expanse where up to 300 visitors can lay out blankets or beach chairs. (It was $20 per person for the performance I saw.)
3. Unlike at the Bowl, You Can’t Bring Your Own Picnic
The symphony people are eager to sell you dinner. Choices include pizza (Biga) and tacos (Lola 55), which you can eat in venue-adjacent Prebys Plaza or carry to your seat. There are also food cart soups, popcorn, and picnic boxes. If you’re sitting in the Parkside or Marina sections, you can order in advance from a menu devised by chef Richard Blais and waiters will bring the meal, or drinks, to your table.
4. You Can Hear the Orchestra Rehearse for Free
The orchestra usually rehearses two or three times before a performance, and those rehearsals are usually free to the public, usually between 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. There are several scheduled through July 2.By the way, if you spot a conductor with wild hair, it’s not Gustavo Dudamel. The San Diego Symphony’s music director is Rafael Payare, born in Venezuela 11 months before the L.A. Phil’s Dudamel was. Like Dudamel, he is a graduate of El Sistema, that country’s much-vaunted program for cultivating talented musicians.
