David M. Schwarz Architects is a Washington, D.C.-based firm that advocates a return to humanistic architecture and values, embracing elements of human scale, pedestrian-friendly streetscapes, and a comfortable setting for human interaction. The firm has a holistic approach to sustainability, working to preserve, reuse, and reinvent existing buildings, and designing buildings that create places in a community that continue to be reused and reinvented.

The firm’s performance hall projects notably include the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, Tennessee, the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Performance Hall in Ft. Worth, Texas— listed as one of ten greatest opera houses in the world by David Daniel in Travel + Leisure; the Chapman Cultural Center in Spartanburg, South Carolina, the Center for the Performing Arts in Carmel, Indiana, the Smith Center for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas, and the renovation and expansion of Severance Hall, the Cleveland Orchestra’s landmark home.

Akustiks is a firm that specializes in the acoustical design of performing arts facilities, including concert halls, opera houses, dance and drama theaters, recital halls, and multipurpose centers. The multidisciplinary team at Akustiks combines more than nine decades of design experience with backgrounds in music, acoustics, sound system design, architecture, engineering, and recording. The firm’s recently completed projects include the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, the renovation of Severance Hall, as well as the multipurpose theaters at the Oklahoma City Civic Center Music Hall and the Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center in Dayton, Ohio.

Fisher Dachs Associates, one of the world’s leading theater planning and design firms, has helped create hundreds of performing arts projects, from small academic theaters to major concert halls and opera houses throughout the world. The firm’s work has included iconic projects for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Guthrie Theater, the Canadian Opera Company, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, the Hollywood Bowl, and the renovation of historic Radio City Music Hall. The firm’s international work includes projects in Canada, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, and Spain.