PROVO — BYU’s School of Music is going solo.
And it’s going in style.
The university’s board of trustees approved plans recently for construction of a new Music Building, the school announced Thursday. The decision removes music from the Harris Fine Arts Center, where it has been housed for 55 years with five other departments in the College of Fine Arts and Communications.
The highlight feature of the new building will be a 1,000-seat concert hall. The hall will be built like a terraced vineyard, a style in which the musicians perform in the center of the hall with the audience rising above them in tiers.
“While this spatial approach was primarily developed with optimal acoustics and line of sight in mind, BYU’s concert hall will also serve a distinct pedagogical purpose, as it will allow students and patrons alike to have a clear view of performer technique,” Ed Adams, dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communications, said in the news release.
“The venue will be the first of its kind in the Intermountain West, marking a significant achievement in musical innovation and excellence in the region.”
Construction is scheduled to begin late this spring along 900 East in the south end of the parking lot east of BYU’s J. Reuben Clark Law School.
The Music Building will have four levels. Practice rooms that were in the basement of the Harris Fine Arts Center will now be on the upper floor of the new building when it opens in fall 2022. The building will have 170,000 square feet and include additional midsized spaces for practice and recitals.
The building also will include academic space.
“We are humbled and thrilled with the board’s support of the College of Fine Arts and Communications,” Adams said. “The church has a long history of supporting music and the arts, and this new building will expand upon the university’s commitment to producing inspiring and uplifting art.”
BYU’s board of trustees consists of the church’s First Presidency, four members of its Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and six other general authorities and general officers.
Architecture work is being done by HKS Architects. The general contractor is Big-D Construction.
The Harris Fine Arts Center is the most-used academic building on campus, according to BYU’s release. It presents more than 500 performances a year.