The Conservatory's 50 Oak Street campus, the Ann Getty Center for Education, was built out from a historical Catholic Boys Club, while the Ute and William K. Bowes Center for the Performing Arts at 200 Van Ness Avenue garnered multiple architectural awards for Mark Cavagnero and Associates, the firm responsible for its design.
Our performance halls were engineered by Kirkegaard, an acoustics design firm who have also developed spaces for the St. Louis, Boston, and Antwerp Symphony Orchestras, as well as Strathmore, and the Universities of Chicago and Iowa.
A dramatic performance hall created in a renovated historic grand ballroom showcases the Conservatory’s orchestra. Internationally renowned visiting artists also perform and present master classes in this hall.
Ann Getty Center for Education | Seats 348
Barbro Osher Recital Hall on the 11th floor of the Bowes Center features floor-to-ceiling glass walls offering views overlooking a spectacular vista of City Hall, Davies Symphony Hall, the War Memorial Opera House, and other Civic Center landmarks.
Bowes Center for Performing Arts | Seats 160
This extraordinary, intimate modern hall is specifically designed for chamber music, small ensemble performances, and recitals by our faculty and students. Theatrical lighting and balconies enhance the staging of opera scenes.
Ann Getty Center for Education | Seats 131
The jewel-box Cha Chi Ming Recital Hall on the ground floor features sprung floors to meet the needs of dancers and performances that require high elasticity on the stage. Visible to all passers-by through floor to ceiling windows that extend to the second floor with views of Van Ness Avenue and Hayes Street.
Bowes Center for Performing Arts | Seats 100+
The Osher Salon is a versatile jewel box for student recitals, ensemble performances, opera staging and blocking rehearsals, classes and lectures, and special meetings and events.
Ann Getty Center for Education | Seats 100
The black box Technology Hall is a multipurpose performance and workshop space for multimedia projects and productions developed primarily by the Technology and Applied Composition department. The adjacent recording room includes state-of-the-art recording equipment that directly interfaces with all of the Bowes Center’s performance spaces.
Bowes Center for Performing Arts
"I am consistently wowed by facilities at SFCM! Everything a young or professional musician needs is right there: from the spectacular concert halls to the recording studio, classrooms, ensemble and rehearsal spaces.
Every space seems to vibrate with possibility and the permission to create. That's how great music is made."
Designed to accommodate the widest range of possible educational uses, SFCM's host of studios aren't just acoustically exacting spaces. They also house some of our prized instruments, like a Buchla synthesizer, theremin, and our collection of historical and Baroque instruments.
SFCM’s Technology and Applied Composition department offers state-of-the-art recording and production facilities.
Learn more about our studios ›
The percussion suite is located on the lowest level of the Conservatory to minimize the potential noise transfer to other areas of the building, and includes a large rehearsal room, studio and two practice rooms acoustically designed for percussion instruments.
Home of the Conservatory’s baroque music program, the Carol Pucci and Dixon R. Doll Baroque Studio includes the Baroque Ensemble room and the baroque instruments room, housing harpsichords, a clavichord, and an organ.
From our library to a terrace above San Francisco, SFCM's spaces can transform for a variety of needs, whether academic, social, or musical.
A library for students and faculty with a special collection room and study space accommodates the Conservatory's large collection of books, recordings, and scores. Floor-to-ceiling windows infuse a warm space with superb natural light and views of the city.
Learn more about the library >
The magnificent main entrance to the Conservatory features a grand staircase spanning several floors. Visitors reach the Concert Hall, Recital Hall, Salon and café through this visually commanding space.
A stunning outdoor space atop the building serves as one of the prime gathering spaces for the Conservatory community.
A terrace area, open to all residents, featuring stunning civic center views, sitting areas, and fireplaces.
Two and three-bedroom housing units on floors 3 through 11 of the Bowes Center, each acoustically isolated for practicing. One floor is dedicated to housing for San Francisco Ballet Students, an extension of the Conservatory’s unprecedented partnership with the nearby SF Ballet.
A hub for dining and socializing, this space is home to Student Life, Resident Advisors, and student mailing services.
Learn more about dining services at SFCM >
"If there is one thing I love about what an institution like the San Francisco Conservatory can do with... the Bowes Center, it is to create a safe space that actually gives the students, faculty, and larger family, the context for the pre-conditions of creativity…
You talk about imagination as one of the most important engines you want to foster for kids to develop the vision, but with clarity and hope, if you do that then this space is the best space in the world.”
