New Music Building: Star attractions and features
A new address in musical performance, teaching, technology and research opened at McGill University today. Thanks to private and public support, the $70-million New Music Building was transformed from a vision to a reality at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University.
Eight floors high, each evoking geological layers, the handsome structure was designed by architecture firms Menkès Shooner Dagenais LeTourneau and Saucier+Perrotte. The site was conceived to help foster new links between different streams of music studies — creative and performing musicians will now interact with researchers schooled in humanities and scientific-technological disciplines in close proximity.
"As an architectural landmark with a technologically advanced infrastructure, our New Music Building will support McGill in its mission to attract top-quality faculty and scholars involved in musical research that pushes both the disciplinary and creative envelopes," says Don McLean, Dean of the Schulich School of Music of McGill University.
Star attractions
A major component of the New Music Building is its scoring studio, which measures 60 by 80 by 50 feet high. The huge space — the world's finest — can accommodate 300 people or a full symphony orchestra and chorus. Artec, a leading acoustical firm, ensured the scoring studio would be vibration-proof by designing the space as a concrete box within a concrete box. Coupled with a five-floor machine room designed as engineering magic to prevent noise from the building's mechanical ventilation and lighting systems, the scoring studio is absolutely soundproof. The acoustical isolation ensures sensitive 21st-century microphones won't pick up external hums, making the site an attractive venue for recording production, the training of students for the recording industry, and for carrying out acoustical research.
Another welcome feature of the New Music Building is the 200-seat Tanna Schulich Recital Hall, which will take pressure off one of the busiest concert venues in the city: Strathcona's Pollack Hall. Named in honour of Seymour Schulich's wife, the intimate new concert and lecture space will delight Montrealers and students with its exquisite acoustical design.
For its part, the Wirth Opera Studio will be a dedicated rehearsal space outfitted with a sprung floor for ballet and movement classes, multimedia performances and research. Cameras and laser tracing units will facilitate the investigation of motion, whether by dancers or musicians, whose movements can be correlated with the sounds they make. Two remaining floors, when completed, will be dedicated to administrative and staff offices. In turn, space in Strathcona's east wing will be freed for badly needed classroom, studio and rehearsal purposes.
