No need for balloons or fanfares. The new Kings Place provides its own architectural drama. Light streams in from all sides. The ripples of Regent’s Canal reflect on curvaceous glass walls. From the atrium, escalators plunge down to the concert halls, one seating 420, the other a studio for 220. These superb auditoria were baptised yesterday, the first in a five-day opening festival of 100 concerts of every musical persuasion. You could sample Schubert song or Schoenberg in the main hall, Indian drumming and Steve Reich in the studio. Despite a few extraneous noises, all went like clockwork.

The site, north of St Pancras, was a mystery until six months ago. Would it be office or art gallery, home of the London Sinfonietta and the Orchestra of the Age of Englightenment or —surely impossible — a new, state of the art chamber music venue?

Miraculously, it is all these. When a venture is the dream of one person, whether mad Prince Ludwig or, as here, decidedly sane music lover and entrepreneur Peter Millican, you can have whatever fantasy palace you like. He has followed his passions to inspired effect.

The larger Hall One, dressed in 500-year-old Black Forest oak, is comfortable, intimate and raked, guaranteeing perfect sight lines even for the more Lilliputian. Its columned upper level is cleverly lit to create an illusion of blue sky in a subterranean shoebox. Imagine one of De Chirico’s mysterious arcaded piazzas.

The adaptable acoustic is hyper lively. For the Endymion Ensemble in York Bowen’s E minor Piano Trio — piano fully open, acoustic curtain half drawn — the fortissimos were rather too bright, masking the cello, while quiet passages exposed every fidget or intake of breath.

Pianist Iain Burnside and friends found a better solution, in three programmes of song, with the piano half closed, acoustic baffle fully drawn. Roderick Williams was exemplary in Shostakovich’s Six Spanish Songs, every nuance audible even from the rear of the auditorium.

This event was about the building. Questions about programming — many independent principalities with no clear artistic ruler — can come later. Who was there? Enthusiasts. “Staying for tonight’s events?” asked one man of another. “No, I’m off to Wigmore Hall. Back here tomorrow.” Music lovers learn fast. Kings Place has already become a habit.
Festival continues until Sunday