School of Music plans to add more performance, rehearsal space

By Elliot Njus and Erica Zucco

Published March 4, 2008

At its annual Chancellor’s Concert, the MU School of Music unveiled plans for a new performing arts center.

The new facility would include more classroom and rehearsal space, a 325-seat recital hall and a 1,000-seat concert hall, School of Music Director Melvin Platt said. It would be located on the northeast corner of University Avenue and Hitt Street.

The new building would also consolidate the school, which Platt said operates out of five buildings on the MU campus.

“It will, for the first time since probably 1970, bring all elements of the School of Music together under one roof,” he said.

The school’s existing facilities in the Fine Arts Building also have climate control problems, Platt said.

He said the school’s temperature and humidity is unstable, which puts the school’s instruments at risk.

For example, he said, quick changes in climate could cause the soundboards in the school’s more than 100 pianos to expand and contract.

“If it does that frequently, inevitably, it will crack,” Platt said.

One time, Platt said, he walked into the school’s recital hall and the temperature had reached 85 degrees and 95 percent humidity.

The hall housed two pianos, one valued at $150,000 and one valued at $90,000.

“That’s not something you want to have at risk,” he said.

The school’s rehearsal rooms also have sound isolation issues, Platt said.

“Some nights, it’s almost impossible for a teacher to teach a lesson,” he said.

Rehearsal space in Loeb Hall has a 13 foot and 6 inches high ceiling, when such facilities normally have 26- to 28-foot ceilings.

Platt said this could result in damaged hearing.

At the concert, Arts and Science Dean Michael O’Brien played a 90-second clip showing the plans for the new facility.

“I hope this whets your appetite for things to come,” he said.

O’Brien said the building would cost about $100 million, making it the biggest and most expensive building on campus.

Chancellor Brady Deaton helped introduce the plan at the concert.

“We hope that our new building will extend our position as a land grant institution, extending opportunities for education and art to the community from the university,” he said.

Platt said the Arts and Science development staff are publicizing the project to look for prospective donors who could provide a major gift to fund the construction.

“That would kick off the public phase of the fundraising,” he said.

Platt said the 1,000-seat concert hall would provide a venue with capacity between that of a lecture hall, which would seat about 300, and Jesse Auditorium, which seats 1,750. He said smaller events held there often couldn’t fill the auditorium.

Platt said there isn’t a projected timeline for the project.

Once the school vacates its facilities, they would be gutted and refitted for use by the theatre and art departments.

Platt said the school has planned for one and a half times its enrollment once the new facility is built, but that is a conservative estimate.

He said schools building a new music facility often see a jump in enrollment rates.

But he said the school is using all the space it has available.

“We have, in the School of Music, used completely every nook and cranny we have,” he said.