Festival Hall

Festival Hall opened on Nakanoshima in 1958, built so that Osaka could host an international festival in the spirit of Edinburgh and Salzburg; the Osaka International Festival has been its signature event ever since. The original 2,700-seat hall was prized for its acoustics, often described as sound that “showers down” on the audience, and it drew rock and jazz as well as classical music: Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple played there, and Miles Davis recorded Agharta and Pangaea there in 1975. The old building closed at the end of 2008 and was torn down. A new hall with the same seat count and a similar feel opened in 2013 in the lower floors of the Festival Tower skyscraper. The Vienna Philharmonic, which has appeared at the festival, plays there on its tours of Japan.