The Frost School of Music has received a face-lift.
On Friday, the school unveiled its new Patricia Louise Frost Music Studios, which will serve as a space for music students and faculty to practice their craft. The 41,089-square-foot building includes 77 teaching studios and two classrooms.
The studios, featuring a LEED Platinum designation for efficiency and environmental sensitivity, provide an upgrade from the previous buildings used for classrooms in the School of Music.
“The school has grown both in its size and in the way that it provides education to the students,” Associate Dean Raul Murciano said. “…We have been in need of spaces like this really for about 30 years.”
The addition to the school will benefit Frost students with more space to play, Murciano explained.
“It will allow the School of Music to finally have facilities in the space that is commensurate with the kind of work that it does, in spite of the less-than-ideal space that we’ve had up until now,” he said. “We have been able to do more with very little then virtually anybody else. So now we will be able to do even more.”
The opening ceremonies included a performance of Joan Towers’ “Fanfare for an Uncommon Woman” by Frost students dedicated to Patricia Frost and a speech from School of Music Dean, Shelton Berg. The Frost Studios then opened for self-guided tours, with more than 300 guests from around the country present to tour the building.
Associate Dean Steve Moore stressed the importance of having rooms with the proper acoustic and recording capabilities for music compilation.
“You don’t just take a classroom and make music in it because it has to have acoustic properties and it has to have acoustic isolation,” he said. “So that’s part of the reason that you would want to make rooms specifically conducive to music learning, and that’s part of the reason why we needed the new studios.”
Murciano said the installation of the studios will enhance the image of both Frost and the university.
“The new Frost Studios will impact the university because it will continue to raise visibility in the School of Music and by proxy the university’s image will be enhanced by that,” he said.