UCSD's new Conrad Prebys Music Center

UPDATE: I added the photo after visiting this building. As with many things UCSD, they have some extraordinary resources and people and extraordinarily ugly architecture. I cannot believe somebody thought that a world class recital hall venue built in the 21st century should look like this, but then again, it was probably commissioned to match the prison-block concrete warmth of the rest of the campus' buildings. Oh, and the "boldly-colored" smaller theater mentioned below is a generous way of saying they picked hot neon orange for the seats.

SD Union-Tribune

In the zone
Performers will find a perfect place to play at UCSD's new Conrad Prebys Music Center
By Will Bowen

2:00 a.m. May 3, 2009

Hungarian-born graduate student Katalin Lukacs was one of the first musicians to play in the state-of-the-art small concert hall in the new $53 million Conrad Prebys Music Center at UCSD. Lukacs sat down at the grand piano, carefully opened her Liszt score, and began to play. She played for one hour straight, as if mesmerized – transfixed and transported to other dimensions by the rapturous quality of the sound in the hall.

Soon the public will have the same opportunity to experience an acoustical environment that UCSD hopes, in the words of Rand Steiger, the music department chair, “will develop a reputation as being one of the best small concert halls in the world.”

The 400-seat Prebys Concert Hall, which opens Friday, is the centerpiece of the new Conrad Prebys Music Center. It's named after the Point Loma developer and piano aficionado, who contributed $6 million to ensure that the music center's construction, which was facing possible shutdown due to state budget cuts, could finally be completed.

“So far as I am aware, there is no other dedicated music facility – for presentation, exploration and learning – anywhere in the world that can match the CPMC facilities,” said Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and UCSD faculty member Roger Reynolds.

The Prebys Concert Hall is the brainchild of renowned acoustician Cyril Harris, who teamed up with his associate of 23 years, architect Mark Reddington of LMN Architects, based in Seattle, to produce a masterwork of acoustic design.

This is the last project and perhaps the crowning achievement of an illustrious career for the retiring Harris, who in June will turn 92. Harris, a legend in acoustics circles, has won numerous awards (including a 1997 Gold Medal from the Acoustical Society of America) and has authored many books (including the 1950 “Acoustical Designing in Architecture,” the bible of acoustical design).

Harris has been involved in the construction of more than 100 halls, among them the John F. Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C., the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego and the highly acclaimed Benaroya Hall in Seattle, upon which the UCSD concert hall is based. Some experts believe that with each project, Harris has gotten a little better. And his last one may be his best.Harris' assessment: “There is only one hall like it in the world.”

Architect Reddington listens to the needs of his clients rather than coming at them with an agenda. He disavows any stylistic labels, claims no heroes of architecture or buildings he trembles before. Rather, he is a man interested in building projects that serve people while minimally impacting the environment.

Reddington and Harris' design “demonstrates a mastery of basic principles, and elevates them by pushing their limits,” Steiger said. “This is possible only with the freedom for, respect for, even expectation for innovation. In a way, the concert hall is a physical manifestation of what this department has always stood for.”

The music center was constructed on the eastern part of the UCSD campus near the intersection of Russell Lane and Gilman Drive in what is known as the Arts District. Like its twin, the Theatre District, built around La Jolla Playhouse, it is part of UCSD's Neighborhoods Plan, meant to bring the feeling of community, warmth and a sense of belonging to a campus once known for its social alienation.

The new facility replaced the old single-story CRCA (Center for Research in Computing and the Arts) building. CRCA was fondly loved for its moldy carpets and at night its furry scampering creatures but also for great music, experimental performance and art shows, and the best receptions on campus. Many miss it.

The music center is a three--story, rectilinear, gray-colored modernist structure measuring some 46,880 square feet. It is mainly constructed of concrete and has open areas on the various levels offering expansive views. The basic theme is one of openness, transparency and access. There is much attention to detail with an artistic flair.

In addition to the concert hall, the center's first floor contains a 150-seat Experimental Theatre for multimedia presentations, a more conventional, boldly colored 150-seat theater/lecture hall, offices and a large orchestra practice room. The back wing is almost entirely devoted to the percussion department.

The second level houses a computer lab, recording studios, a conference room, faculty studios, and classrooms. On the third level, there are numerous practice rooms, faculty offices and a unique, artistically inspiring chamber music practice room.

Some may wonder if in these difficult economic times, with so many state cutbacks to education, if it was a bit extravagant for the university to spend so much money on a new music building.

Music department chair Steiger points out the building had been in the planning stages for more than 20 years, long before the budget crisis. The music department, which has 178 undergrad music majors and 85 graduate students, has been spread out in five locations. Its Mandeville headquarters, built in 1974, is hopelessly out of date and acoustically inadequate. To renovate Mandeville would have cost more than a new building, according to Steiger.

Steiger said the new building passed through two rounds of value engineering to cut costs, trim the fat and eliminate any frills. However, if not for private donations (not only from Prebys, but also $1 million from John Moores, $350,000 from Ann and Joel Reed, and others), construction would still have been halted due to budgetary concerns.

But putting all concerns about costs aside, what ultimately makes it all worthwhile is the concert hall. Ultimately, a da Vinci is worth it because of how it enriches the spirit. For this project, Harris was given complete freedom to design the physical manifestation of all his theories of acoustics. And Reddington said he set out to create something that would make patrons' hearts “beat faster upon first sight.”

The stage, although too small for a full symphony, is ideal for a chamber ensemble (the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus, which incorporates UCSD students, will continue to perform at Mandeville Auditorium). The ceiling and the walls are constructed of fitted triangular panels, attached to metal frames that are hung securely from the high ceiling on numerous hidden cables with shock absorbing springs. Thus, if a jet plane rumbles over, the sound will not penetrate the hall.

On the back wall are long strips of wood paneling that can be covered with fabric and can be adjusted to “tune” the room's acoustics. The effect of everything in the hall on the sound has been precisely calculated – from the absorption of sound by each seat to the glue on the paneling.

Harris points out that the key factors affecting sound quality in the room are reverberation (the length of time sound takes to fade) and diffusion (how sound moves through the room). When you have both, he said, “you hear the sound from all directions.” All the shapes, absorptive materials and reflective surfaces in the room have been precisely and scientifically constructed to produce the optimal reverberation time and the optimal diffusion of the sound across the spectrum, in an effort to create the best possible acoustics for music.

“The initial sound coming from the stage is clear and true, no matter where you sit in the hall,” Steiger said. “And the beautiful reverberation that follows creates a rich, enveloping sound without sacrificing clarity.”

As Reynolds puts it, “the sound blooms around you in a way you may have imagined, but have never experienced before.”

The Experimental Theatre is equipped with more than $150,000 worth of sound equipment from Meyer Sound of Berkeley. Steiger calls it the concert hall of the future. The actual acoustics in the Experimental Theatre are quite dead, but with a push of a button you can digitally alter the sound to create a virtual acoustic environment. Many of the faculty are as excited about it as the concert hall.

“My own interests are particularly in the Experimental Theatre and in the new concert hall,” Reynolds said. “Doing innovative work in the arts is inevitably challenging. This building removes many of the usual obstacles from one's path and leaves the responsibility exactly where it ideally should be: with the creative imagination itself.”

There is an old folk belief that to dream of a building during sleep is actually to dream about the self in a metaphorical sense. UCSD's now realized its dream of a new building; it should be the site for a new and renewed self for the department that will have far-reaching consequences.

Still, some days department chair Steiger stands by the large window of the Experimental Theatre and gazes at the vacant lot across the street. He dreams of an even larger symphony-sized concert hall along the same lines of the small one UCSD now has. Steiger is hoping that once people experience the phenomenal acoustics of the small hall, they will want more and they will find a way to fund an even larger hall.

Yes, Steiger is a dreamer, but he is a visionary who knows how to do the hard work to make his dreams come true. He is truly unique in that he is inspired to reach out of the closed elite circles that characterize many UCSD departments to touch humanity. He wants to share his music and his concert hall with all of San Diego and perhaps all of the world.

Will Bowen is a San Diego writer.