In 1838 the Accademia Filarmonica di Torino — founded in 1814 by a group of enthusiasts with the aim of promoting classical music and making musical education accessible — purchased Palazzo Solaro and made it its permanent home. The spacious, decorated rooms proved ideal for chamber concerts and musical evenings open even to those who could not afford private lessons.

To ensure acoustics worthy of the Academy's ambitions, between 1839 and 1841 a hall dedicated entirely to music was built within the palazzo: the Odeo, designed by architect Giuseppe Talucchi. On the evening of 19 February 1841, in the presence of King Carlo Alberto and the Savoyard royal family, the Odeo opened its doors. It is said that some young musicians performed 'by surprise', hidden behind curtains or in corners of the rooms, making music appear as if by magic in the middle of the evening.

In the corridor leading to the suites you can still admire some wooden friezes from the Odeo, recovered and preserved: a tangible fragment of that unrepeatable musical season that made this palazzo one of the centres of nineteenth-century Turinese cultural life.