02 · GALLERY
Five frames.
The Kitara is built into a park and reads as part of it. In October the maples turn red and the glass lobby pulls the colour into the room. The hall is shoebox-meets-vineyard, 2,008 seats arranged in terraced blocks, the orchestra in the centre of a deliberately small stage. The reverb is curated, the wood is honest, and the audience knows the rules. Concerts here are not events, they are sessions. Sapporo's classical scene is the under-rated counterweight to Tokyo's.
October is the listening month. The maple-red lobby is part of the concert experience. Buy a ticket weeks in advance, the Sapporo Symphony has a Friday-evening residency that rarely makes the tourist lists.
Northern Japan's beauty-of-the-room pick. Architecture and landscape together, the Sonic Paths thesis applied to an under-photographed hall.
Sapporo Symphony Orchestra subscription concerts run year-round, Thursday and Saturday evenings. Pacific Music Festival in July features international young orchestras at Kitara. October's autumn maples around the building are the most-photographed season.
Box office 10:00 to 19:00 daily. Concerts most evenings, free organ recitals on the first Sunday afternoon of most months (12:30). Closed New Year holidays.
Subway Namboku Line to Nakajima Koen, five-minute walk through Nakajima Park. From Sapporo Station, 15 minutes by subway. The hall sits inside the park, signed in Japanese and English.