“Arias coming from the opera program at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music are about to be raised a few decibels,” writes Molly Glentzer in Monday’s (12/19) Houston Chronicle (Texas). “The school announced Monday that it will break ground in September on a new music, theater and opera building designed by Allan Greenberg Architect LLC. that will be connected by a plaza to the school’s existing Alice Pratt Brown Hall. The combined facility, to be called the Rice University Music and Performing Arts Center, will further energize the west end of the campus, where the new Moody Center for the Arts is nearly completed, to create ‘a real hub of arts activity,’ Shepherd School dean Robert Yekovich said…. The 84,000-square foot facility will house a three-tiered, 600-seat, European-style opera theater with an orchestra pit for 70 musicians…. The facility will be used by the entire university—including … orchestral and chamber music programs…. Joshua Dachs of New York’s Fisher Dachs Associates … is designing the theater. The Chicago-based firm Threshold Acoustics … will create the state-of-the-art ‘pin-drop’ acoustic experience.… University officials … project a July 2020 opening. Yekovich said the school has raised $90 million of the projected $100 million-plus cost.”
Posted December 21, 2016
