Juan Valdez, Junior, Music Performance
Since a donor-funded renovation and expansion was completed in 2009, students and faculty members have put the MarAbel B. Frohnmayer Music Building to good use
Bob Ponto can vividly recall the first time one of his bands practiced in Aasen-Hull Hall, the rehearsal space in the MarAbel B. Frohnmayer Music Building. Added during a donor-funded expansion in 2009, it features excellent acoustics and a recording studio.
And it has room—enough for his bands’ more bombastic pieces, which had been off limits for the first 17 years of his tenure on the School of Music and Dance faculty. All of the old practice spaces were so small, he says, that the music would have overpowered the room.
“I learned that the hard way,” joked Ponto, an associate professor and assistant dean.
As his musicians began playing in the gleaming new practice and performance space for the first time, he stood there and took it all in—the fullness of the notes, the perfect level of reverberation, the pure feel of the music.
“I was like, ‘Ahhhhhh,’” said Ponto, grinning and arms spread wide. “We finally had the space that was adequate to hold the group and to hold the music.”
Elbow Room
Finally, enough space—it’s a common refrain from faculty members who know both the old and new music building. But the renovation (the first new construction for music in three decades) was also to make the school more functional, improve the technology and acoustics, and create spaces to serve students, teachers, and performers.
The transformation began in 2005, when generous benefactors and alumni Robert, BBA ’52, and Leona DeArmond, BS ’51, announced a challenge gift to provide a modern and more spacious facility for the school.
That gift inspired philanthropist and longtime university friend Lorry Lokey, along with Thelma Schnitzer, BMus ’40, and others to join the chorus, ultimately raising $10.3 million of the $19.3 million project.
At the request of Lokey, it was named after MarAbel Frohnmayer, a 1932 UO alumna who was known for her passionate support of music and the arts, and as the mother of then university president Dave Frohnmayer.
Two new wings were delicately grafted onto the school’s original brick buildings, creating a seamless appearance from its exterior and adding 50 percent more square footage. Once you step inside, however, you begin to get a sense of the tremendous change that came about because of the donors’ generosity.
Not far away from the iconic and stately Beall Concert Hall is the revolutionary Aasen-Hull Hall, and one of two state-of-the-art recording studios. Classic-looking original hallways lead to the futuristic and airy Foo Lounge. Out of sight is the high-tech infrastructure designed to adapt to evolving technologies, in addition to other renovations and updates. Musicians whose predecessors previously had to compete for stairwells or bathrooms to practice in now have dedicated rooms to choose from.
The once quaint yet constrained facility was upgraded to help prepare students forging music careers in the 21st century.
Top Brass
Juan Valdez’s practice demands are different from most music performance majors.
The junior tubist can’t plunk down just anywhere and play. He needs a bigger room, especially if he’s practicing with a
brass quintet or other ensembles.
Except for peak times at the end of the term, he’s had no trouble getting it. And the acoustics those rooms deliver is crucial for his work.
“When you are in a really nice room, after you cut off the note you get to hear this little overtone in the air from all the sounds,” he said. “Having that nice of a room—especially a big room with really good acoustics—you can’t get better than that.”
Reliable access to great spaces isn’t just convenient and pleasing to the ears. It also helps students with their career ambitions. Valdez hopes to play for a professional orchestra, and will go on to graduate school to further his studies.
“Having bigger spaces helps us play in bigger ensembles,” said Valdez, who earned a scholarship to attend the UO. “In the professional world, you’re going to have to do that. These facilities bring the school of music to a higher level, and make it a real-world experience.”
Raising Expectations
Two large computer screens sit on David Mason’s desk. He needs them both to schedule and keep track of everything that takes place in the practice rooms, classrooms, teaching suites, and performance halls.
It’s a delicate dance for Mason, the school’s director of facilities services, but it’s more than just scheduling space to him. It’s about making sure the students have the best opportunity to succeed, and to help them maximize their experience at the university. He earned his master’s degree at the UO in the 1990s, so he knows how far the school has come.
“The main difference between prior to 2009 and after 2009 is that we have some massive possibilities,” Mason said, “and we don’t know what some of them are.”
That possibility was first probed by Ethan Gans-Morse, who audaciously set out to compose an opera for his master’s thesis. He went on to write The Canticle of the Black Madonna, which premiered in Beall Concert Hall in 2013.
It not only received rave reviews, it showed what type of performances and music the new facilities enabled. The production would not have been possible, says Mason, without the rehearsal spaces added during the renovation and expansion. The new building also inspired others to dream big.
“The conversation to write an opera would never have happened before,” Mason said. “Now there are larger works, more significant art, we are able to do. We’re just now seeing what can happen.”
Playing in Time
Cellist Nora Willauer enjoys spending time in the Frohnmayer Music Building. A lot of time.
On top of her classes, the senior music performance major practices at least 30 hours a week, sometimes more than 40.
“I spend way more time in that music building than I spend in my house,” she said.
Despite all those hours, she says there’s always practice space available. She started playing violin at age three, then switched to the cello in high school. But a yearlong break from music made her realize how much she loved it. She first enrolled as a psychology major, and dabbled with the cello on the side. But she was drawn back to the instrument in full, due in part to encouragement from Steven Pologe, chair of the school’s strings department.
The school has everything she could want, and offers more than her friends at major conservatories have access to. She can let herself into the building, day or night, nearly all of her classes are contained in the building, and the school’s computer lab also comes in handy.
Add it all together and the Frohnmayer Music Building enables success, Willauer said.
“If you are excited about learning and excited about working hard, it’s super easy to do here,” she said. “Way more so than anywhere else.”
Teaching Tools
Toby Koenigsberg can speak to the challenges music undergrads once faced. He earned his bachelor’s degree here in jazz studies and classical piano performance in 1998, returned as an adjunct professor in 2000, and then again in 2003 as an associate professor of jazz piano.
He recalls when students lined hallways outside practice areas, ready to pounce the instant one became available.
“They used to close the school at 1:00 in the morning when I was a student,” he said. “A lot of people would come around then because we were sure we could find a place. I’d be here from 11:00 to 1:00 every night. We didn’t have a choice a lot of times.”
That’s no longer the case.
He then points out the two pianos and a keyboard in his office. His predecessor’s office—which Koenigsberg moved into prior to the expansion—could only hold one. “And it was a tight squeeze,” he said.
Now he can play a song alongside one of his students in his office or give one-on-one instruction without worrying about cutting into other students’ practice time.
“It’s so much better in every way,” said Koenigsberg.
The school’s high-profile jazz program also benefited greatly from the gifts, receiving a recording studio with sound booths.
“It’s really been a sea change because we have the facilities we always needed but never had,” he said.
New programs such as popular music and audio engineering grew out of the expansion, Koenigsberg added. The popular music and music technology concentrations are now two of the school’s most sought-after programs.
“I feel like we’re catching up a little bit with what the facilities provide us with in terms of innovation in the curriculum,” he said, “and it’s exciting to have opportunities there.”
—Jim Murez