UCSC Review Winter 1995

Orchestrating the future

A prodigious growth spurt over the past ten years in UCSC's Music Department has left the program flourishing but cramped. When faculty, staff, and students realized that the department was going to outgrow its facilities, they joined together to orchestrate the future of the burgeoning program. Their plans for new facilities took on substance this past fall as construction began on UCSC's new Music Center.

The center is designed by world-renowned architect Antoine Predock of Albuquerque. The architect of the acclaimed Fine Arts Center at Arizona State University, Predock is known for creating buildings that blend in with their environment. He has designed UCSC's Music Center around inner courtyards, with a public-entry plaza that opens to magnificent views of downtown Santa Cruz and the Monterey Bay.

The Music Center will be built in several phases. This first phase includes a 400-seat recital hall, rehearsal spaces, instructional laboratories, teaching studios, and practice rooms.

If state funding is approved, construction of an addition to the center is scheduled to begin in the spring of 1996, just as the first phase is nearing completion. The addition is designed to include a gamelan room, an electronic music studio, and faculty and department offices. Those two phases will more than double the department's current space.

The second phase also includes improvements and additions to theater arts and visual arts facilities. The final element in the plan is a 1,500-seat auditorium.

"Once all the facilities are in place, we can extend our fine academic program to include a summer center for the arts that encompasses education, creative work, and performance of the highest quality," says Edward Houghton, dean of the Division of the Arts and a music professor. "These facilities will enable the university and the region to attract and support master artists, emerging artists, and students from around the world."

--Barbara McKenna