Hi brownsfan, schubert and al - I must agree with al here. I would say mid-hall is the closest one should ever consider sitting to the stage, for almost any type of concert. The only reason a student sits up close sometimes would be to watch the soloist's hands or embouchure.
Sound travels up and back, and pretty much all concert halls are designed to take advantage of this. Sometimes in good halls, the best seats to close one's eyes and just listen are as far up and back as one can get. The nosebleeds are not always the very best sounding seats, but they are definitely better than the front row! If one wants a good balance between hearing everything that is going on, and still being able to see the players very well, then the best place to pick would be the lowest row of the gallery just above the floor, or the one above that if there are four tiers. That front row of the higher tiers often has more leg room than all the others, too, for those of you concerned with comfort.
If you are sitting in the front row, you are absolutely not hearing the correct balance - there is no way that is possible. The sound takes some time to cohere into the right blend and balance, and that happens after it hits the front row. When a conductor wants to really hear and understand the balance he/she is getting, they always go quite far back into the hall to do this. I have never ever in all my years seen one go out into the hall and stop in the first few rows - that just wouldn't make any sense.
So for those of you who have always sat in the first row, I'm sorry, but you have no idea what you are missing. You aren't really hearing the performance as it is intended to be heard. I cannot imagine a hall so bad that the first row is the best - even Avery Fisher isn't that bad!!
The only real exception to the farther back in general being better rule is that you do not want to sit under an overhang. Whenever I have the opportunity to go out and listen to my orchestra, which happily just happened this past week (because I didn't play on that piece), I don't take the time to go higher up off the floor, as the doors are usually locked anyway (and I might have to get back onstage quickly), but I go about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way back on the floor. This is also invariably where the cover conductors choose to sit. Other professional musician visitors to a rehearsal that are there merely to listen, and are not in danger of being called to the stage by the conductor on the podium like the cover conductor is, will almost always sit higher up in the hall as well as farther back.
I am truly dumbfounded that someone might actually believe that the first row has the best sound, and I strongly urge you guys to change those seats as soon as you possibly can. Take it from someone who has literally spent his entire working life in them.
