William Rawn Associates has announced work on the initial concept plan for the future Sarasota Orchestra Music Center in Sarasota, Florida ahead of the project's public debut next spring. This project expands on the firm’s award-winning portfolio of performing arts spaces that dates to its 1983 founding and includes two venues for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood campus. 

The selection committee was thus impressed with the firm’s "listening first" philosophy and the ability of the team presentation led by principal Cliff Gayley to address seven key criteria. Work on the project’s development phase has already begun and will continue with HKS joining on as its executive architect. The firm says its new Music Center will be the first space purpose-built for acoustic music in the Sarasota region. The historic nearby Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall was recently closed indefinitely after sustaining a reported $7 million worth of damage during Hurricane Milton.