Hitomi Memorial Hall

Hitomi Memorial Hall

Location	Showa Women's University, Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan
Owner	Showa Women's University
Type	Concert Hall
Capacity	2,008
Construction
Built	1980
Opened	1980
Website
hall.swu.ac.jp/

Showa Women's University Hitomi Memorial Hall (昭和女子大学人見記念講堂, Shōwa Joshi Daigaku Hitomi Kinen Kōdō) was built by Showa Women's University (昭和女子大学, Shōwa Joshi Daigaku) in Tokyo, Japan on its campus in 1980 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the foundation of its predecessor, the Japan Women's School of Higher Education (日本女子高等学院, Nihon Joshi Kōtō Gakuin). It is a concert venue famous for its great acoustics.

Many celebrated musicians have performed at the Hall, including; the Wiener Philharmoniker (under Karl Böhm), the Philadelphia Orchestra (under Eugene Ormandy), the Boston Symphony Orchestra (under Seiji Ozawa), the London Symphony Orchestra (under Claudio Abbado), the Concertgebouw Orchestra (under Eugen Jochum), the Leningrad Philharmonic (under Evgeny Mravinsky), the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (under Simon Rattle), the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra (under Vladimir Fedoseyev), the Orchestre de Paris (under Daniel Barenboim), the Orchester der Deutschen Staatsoper Berlin (under Takashi Asahina), the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (under André Previn), the Münchner Philharmoniker (under Sergiu Celibidache together with Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli) and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (under David Zinman).

However, such starry names are things of the past. Since the opening of Suntory Hall at Akasaka in central Tokyo in October 1986, the Hitomi Memorial Hall has been reduced to a cultural function venue for students and pupils.