Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods | |
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Location | Columbia, Howard County, Maryland |
Area | 51 acres (21 ha) |
Owned by | Columbia Association |
Operated by | Inner Arbor Trust |
Type | amphitheater |
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Genre(s) | music, performing arts |
Seating type | lawn |
Capacity | 10,000 |
Established | 26 April 2013 |
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Location | Columbia, Maryland |
President | Nina Basu |
Website | innerarbortrust |
Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods is a large central park in downtown Columbia, Maryland. The park includes the Chrysalis, a 2016 amphitheater with lawn seating. The Chrysalis has hosted musical performances, ballet, plays, Maker Faire, and numerous community events.
In 2013, former Rouse Company employee Michael McCall proposed county executive-backed plans to convert the wooded land into a destination park. McCall's company, Strategic Leisure, first proposed a $50 million publicly funded six-story parking garage at the Toby's Dinner Theatre location; later proposals included a 39-acre arts park with features such as an outdoor amphitheater called the Chrysalis, a 300-foot-long floating picnic table, and an 800-foot-long tube called the Caterpillar. [1] The new project was named the "Inner Arbor", a spin on another Rouse development, Baltimore's "Inner Harbor". [2] Artist William Cochran, Howard County native, was commissioned for artwork that includes horns up to 28 feet tall. [3]
The Chrysalis opened for its inaugural season in 2017. [4]
Howard County is located in the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 334,529. Since there are no incorporated municipalities, there is no incorporated county seat either. Therefore, its county seat is the unincorporated community of Ellicott City. Howard County is included in the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also part of the larger Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA Combined Statistical Area.
Columbia is a census-designated place in Howard County, Maryland, United States. It is a planned community consisting of 10 self-contained villages. The census-designated place had a population of 104,681 at the 2020 census, making it the second most populous community in Maryland after Baltimore. Columbia, located between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., is officially part of the Baltimore metropolitan area.
River Hill is the last and westernmost village to be developed in the town of Columbia, Maryland, United States, though some residents maintain addresses in Clarksville. The village is home to 6,520 residents in 2,096 housing units in 2014. The area was used as a game preserve by James Rouse to entertain clients and personal hunting during the buildout of the Columbia project. In 1976, County Executive Edward L. Cochran selected the 784-acre parcel owned by Howard Research and Development for an alternate location for a county landfill; a task force selected Alpha Ridge Landfill instead. Residential construction started in 1990. It is bounded by Maryland Route 108 and Maryland Route 32, and is centered on Trotter Road. The village is divided into two neighborhoods: Pheasant Ridge and Pointers Run, with about 6,500 residents.
Kings Contrivance is a village in the planned community of Columbia, Maryland, United States and is home to approximately 11,000 residents. It is Columbia's southernmost village, and was the eighth of Columbia's ten villages to be developed. Kings Contrivance consists of the neighborhoods of Macgill's Common, Huntington and Dickinson, and includes single-family homes, townhouses, apartments and a Village Center.
Merriweather Post Pavilion is an outdoor concert venue located within Symphony Woods, a 40-acre (160,000 m2) lot of preserved land in the heart of the planned community of Columbia, Maryland. In 2010, Merriweather was named the second best amphitheater in the United States by Billboard magazine. The venue was also ranked as the fourth best amphitheater in the United States by Rolling Stone in 2013. It was again ranked by Consequence of Sound at number 29 of all music venues in the nation out of 100 in 2016.
Howard County General Hospital is a 225-bed, not-for-profit health care provider located in Columbia, Maryland.
Hickory Ridge is one of the 10 villages in Columbia, Maryland, United States, located to the west of the Town Center with a 2014 population of 13,000 in 4,659 housing units. The village overlays the former postal community of Elioak. It was first occupied in 1974. Neighborhoods in the village are Hawthorn, Clary's Forest, and Clemens Crossing. The name Hickory Ridge is derived from the 1749 estate "Hickory Ridge" in nearby Highland, which later became the family home of the nephew of hospital and university founder Johns Hopkins.
James Clark Jr. was the president of the Maryland State Senate from 1979 to 1983.
Lake Kittamaqundi is a man made 27-acre (110,000 m2) reservoir located in Columbia, Maryland in the vicinity of the Mall in Columbia as well as Merriweather Post Pavilion. It is also adjacent to offices and visible from US-29.
Town Center is one of the ten villages in Columbia, Maryland, United States, first occupied in 1974. The Town Center is a non-contiguous, diverse area, and the most urban-like, ranging from multi-level high density apartments, homes and office buildings to single family homes.
Haysfield Airport - MD24 was an airport located in Howard County, Maryland
Clark's Elioak Farm, located along Maryland Route 108 in Howard County, Maryland, is a historic farm covering 540 acres. All of the acreage is part of county or state farmland protection programs, barring use of the property for non-farm development. The Clarks, a family with a tradition of farming in Maryland spanning seven generations, have owned the Elioak farm since 1927.
Charles E. Miller (1902–1979) was an American politician and businessman in Howard County, Maryland
Edward Leo Cochran Jr. was a chemist known for his work with free radicals. In 1956 he moved from Orange, Connecticut, to his hometown in Clarksville, Maryland, and began his career at Applied Physics Laboratory. He also served as the second county executive of Howard County, Maryland.
The David Force Natural Resource Area is a 221-acre (89 ha) wildlife area in Ellicott City, Maryland. It is located between Route 70 and 40 adjacent to the Turf Valley development in Howard County, Maryland, and operated by the Howard County Department of Recreation and Parks.
The East Columbia Business District is a section of the planned community of Columbia, Maryland, United States that features a number of large shopping centers and office parks. This district also includes the Columbia Gateway Business Park, which is home to more than 50 companies employing over 17,000 individuals. The business district provides shopping resources for much of Northeastern Howard County. Many locals refer to the area simply as "Dobbin" or "Snowden" due to the major roadways that serve it.
Toby Barbara Orenstein is an American theatrical director, producer, and educator. She has two honorable mentions for the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre. Orenstein was inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame in 2008. Selected by Eleanor Roosevelt for her federal education project in the Harlem, Orenstein taught Dramaturgy to students in a local public school in the late 1950s. In 1972, at the request of pioneering businessman and philanthropist James Rouse, Orenstein founded the non-profit Columbia Center for Theatrical Arts through which, the nationally acclaimed theatre troupe the Young Columbians was created for the United States Bicentennial. Later, Orenstein established the award-winning Toby's Dinner Theatre in 1975. Her commitment to the performing arts is considered legendary.
Columbia Center for Theatrical Arts (CCTA) is a Greater Washington D.C. Area regional theater school based in Columbia, Maryland. CCTA is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that is funded, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, and the Howard County Arts Council from Howard County, Maryland.
Nina Basu is a lawyer and the president of the Inner Arbor Trust, the organization that manages Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods. She is a resident of Columbia, Maryland, and native of Howard County.
James P. Howard, II, is an American mathematician at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, where he works as a data scientist and statistician.