Last Wednesday, a group of professional music consultants from Theatre Projects Consultants, along with an acoustician from Akoustic, examined Arms’s Buckley Recital Hall to formulate suggestions for improving the venue in the short-term.
The decision to renovate Buckley comes on the heels of a 40-page report that Marshall Nannes ’09 and Jonathan Salik ’09 authored and released last year in an effort to raise awareness on the “growing inadequacy” of the entire music facility, Nannes and Salik assessed the music facilities of rival colleges before recommending how the College should proceed.
When the Center was built in 1968, Buckley was intended to serve the needs of Amherst’s various choral groups. Due to the College’s expansion over the past 40 years, the College now uses that same space for theatre shows, chamber music ensembles and the Orchestra, among many other kinds of performances. Each different type of performance requires a distinct acoustic setting, to which Buckley cannot adjust. The Hall has undergone no renovations since its opening.
“For use by jazz ensembles and combos, the space has an incredible boominess and/or echo that really hampers our ability to get any ‘finesse’ with regard to articulations, dynamics,” explained Director of the Jazz Ensemble Bruce Diehl. “This lack of clarity can be perceived as a lack of quality—something I don’t wish to see as we stack up among our colleague groups in the performance area of our department It almost seemed, upon reflection as a department when we met with the renovation consultants, that Buckley has the same sort of live and dead spots that, for instance, the old Boston Garden parquet floor had.”
Buckley’s acoustics aren’t the only problem. Because the venue is not completely soundproof, sound frequently seeps through the walls and protrudes into other parts of the building. Lighting is a concern because the current system only permits changing light bulbs every three years. Additionally, Director of the Orchestra Mark Swanson has requested an orchestra pit for the musicals and operas that he and Professor Jenny Kallick conduct in Buckley.
The consultants and acoustician listened to the orchestra, jazz ensemble, and concert choir last Wednesday night to aquaint themselves with Buckley’s acoustics. The consultants are expected to complete their analysis and submit a report detailing their recommendations to the College over the next several weeks. Ideally, their suggestions should be implemented by the end of next summer.
Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Music Department believes Eric Sawyer believes that renovating Buckley is merely the beginning of greater things to come. “This is only a short-term thing meant to give current music students as good an education as possible until the College is able to overhaul the entire facility,” said Sawyer. The Music Department has been trying to get the College to modernize the building for years, and Sawyer remarked that Nannes’ and Salik’s report may have played a role in persuading the administration to pursue renovations.
While Nannes and Salik are delighted with the steps the College is taking to renovate the Arms Music Center, they feel that the “changes need to be kept in perspective.” Their main concern is that the College might not want to proceed beyond the changes to Buckley, thereby leaving the rest of the building in its current state for years to come. One of the goals of the report, they said, was to “get Arms inserted into the conversation of the other renovations that are ongoing.” They don’t believe that it is fair that Arms has been neglected while other buildings are constantly being reconditioned. When asked about how their report might have influenced the administration, Nannes and Salik said that they would “not take credit for anything.” They explained, “The Music Department has far much more to do with what’s currently going on than we do.”
In addition, some other parts of the Arms Music Center have already undergone renovations. Several rooms primarily meant for listening to LP records were transformed into three private practice rooms last summer. A generous alumnus’s donation helped replace a number of pieces of outdated furniture in various parts of the building.