Krannert Center

An industrialist's gift of sixteen million dollars built it. Herman C. Krannert, an alumnus of the University of Illinois, and his wife Ellnora endowed a performing arts centre for the campus at Urbana; Max Abramovitz, another alumnus, designed it, and it opened in 1969. Four auditoriums sit beneath one roof: the Foellinger Great Hall with 2,078 seats, the Tryon Festival Theatre with 974, the Colwell Playhouse with 674, and a studio theatre for 200. The Great Hall is the concert home of the Champaign-Urbana Symphony and the principal room of the university's school of music, and it has received visiting orchestras including the Chicago Symphony and the Vienna Philharmonic. The centre also runs the Ellnora guitar festival, held every second year since 2005. Opera and orchestral programmes from abroad appear in its seasons — Mozart's Symphony No. 40 and Requiem, and Bizet's Carmen, among the works given.