MUSIC/ Upbeat: Property boom

THEY go up fast, these new halls. With Manchester's well on the way, Basingstoke treated itself last Monday to a Sod Turning Ceremony as the mayor took the controls of an excavator and made the first official incision on the site of the town's concert hall. This one, seating 1,400 people, combines movable stalls, orchestra pit and proscenium arch with the new fashion of acoustic design, aiming for both clarity and generous reverberation. And it is all meant to be ready in 18 months: the opening is set for March 1994. That even beats the pace at Glyndebourne, where the rebuilt theatre has its first show two months later.