When a Cambus with a sign “Music/Theater” clanked to a halt in front of Schaeffer Hall this week, there were no passengers inside.
The lack of music students laden with instruments marks progress made in finding facilities for the UI music program that are closer to the main campus, including in the University Capitol Centre.
“Last year, some students spent two hours a day on Cambuses, schlepping cellos and carrying tubas on their backs,” said Kristin Thelander, the director of planning for the School of Music.
The facilities in the upper floor of the University Capitol Centre opened to students this week. While sounds of jingling cash registers and the smells of fast food fill the lower level, upstairs the muted melodies of Chopin drift from a practice room.
The project cost approximately $4.4 million, partially funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Doug True, the UI senior vice president for Finance. The money went to finishing more than 20,000 square feet of space and purchasing equipment.
“I never imagined they would get this much done over the summer,” said UI music Professor David Gier.
One major feature is 44 Wenger rooms, which isolate sound so several people can practice in the relatively tight space.
“In stick-built classrooms — classrooms built with 2-by-4s and drywall — if you had four to five people playing, you simply couldn’t think straight,” Gier said.
The rooms also contain recording devices in the walls that allow students to record their playing and play it back immediately, he said. Then they can put the recording on a USB port and download it on laptops and computers.
And, with a touch of a button, Gier’s office and lesson room can simulate an auditorium, complete with echoes that sound through the speakers in the walls.
“It is so cool,” said Sidney Sun, a first-year graduate student who plays saxophone. “I’ve been to two different schools, but these facilities are the best.”
Thelander said the university may not keep the rooms once a permanent facility is built. But some students seem attached already.
“The sound and acoustics are much better than in the old building,” said UI senior Shirley Lam, found practicing on one of the black Steinway pianos housed in the mall.
Despite the new facilities, the music school remains spread out in around four to five primary locations, Gier said.
The university plans to replace the Hancher/Voxman/Clapp complex, which was heavily damaged in the 2008 flood.
Officials are considering one location downtown and one near the Levitt Center; both are considered safe from future flooding.
Officials are still debating the location, mulling issues such as proximity to the campus, parking, and atmosphere. Officials hope to have the project completed and the music school permanently settled five years from now.
