Caine School of Arts marks first anniversary
The new Caine School of the Arts has seen its share of changes during the first year. Visiting artists, new leadership and a better performance hall mark the anniversary of the newest addition to College of Humanities, Arts and Social Science.
One of the largest benefits is the collaboration between departments, said Gary Kiger, dean of the College of Hass.
“An excellent example of how we can work collectively is when English, the library and the Caine School of the Arts invited beat poets from San Francisco and New York, and then the museum put on an exhibit,” Kiger said.
There have been “occasional bumps with scheduling,” he said, and it is sometimes hard to get everyone’s schedule coordinated.
The Caine School of the Arts had been an idea that “developed and evolved for a number of years,” Kiger said, but it wasn’t until last year that it officially came into being with the Caine Recital Hall as the capstone building.
“We’re still exploring the possibilities,” Kiger said. “This is continuing and growing. I’m getting ready to look at the proposal for two years out, and we’re getting a sense that there are some very exciting projects to bring the cultural experience to students.”
While the School of the Arts has undergone some changes during its first year, Kiger said the departments are working to improve the organization.
One of the changes is in leadership. Kiger said Tom Peterson, former director of the School of the Arts and interior design department chose to “step down for personal reasons.” Peterson declined to comment on the anniversary of the Caine School.
The School of the Arts is now more of a collective effort, with the department heads “steering the school,” Kiger said.
“We offer opportunities students wouldn’t have otherwise,” he said. “It offers a rich visiting arts program and a lot of collaborative efforts. We’ll have actors from the London stage here in early November. It’s the new land grant mission.”
The newest addition to USU’s architecture, the Caine Recital Hall, has just opened again for performances.
The reopening has postponed the installation of the final part of the building, a large piece of artwork that is stainless steel and stone-covered wood, by Los Angeles artist Anne Preston.
The recital hall itself was designed to “reflect the environment,” said Ed Glatfelter, associate dean of the College of Hass. “The metal folds on the front of the building are meant to reflect the mountains,” he said.
Kiger said the recital hall is “one of the best acoustical performance halls in the state of Utah.”
The acoustics are controlled not only by the actual design of the building, but through adjustable banners that absorb the sound and can be raised or lowered to achieve the desired sound, Glatfelter said.
The floor of the stage is Douglas fir and is constructed of soft wood interlocking supports, he said, so it acts as a sound box to amplify the instruments played on it.
The warm-up and dressing rooms are separated from the performance side of the building with 2-foot concrete walls to prevent contamination of the sound, Kiger said.
The architect and acoustical engineers said there is not a bad seat in the house, Kiger said. And he said the world-renowned Emerson Quartet said the recital hall is one of the most amazing places they’ve ever played in.
Glatfelter said the hall has been used for a jazz chamber, music hall, dance stage or for poetry readings and has been well-used, with 41 performances in April alone.
“What does the Caine School of the Arts do for the university?” Kiger asked. “It gives it notoriety and focuses on the arts as being important. The recital hall will become a signature building that the campus will be known by.”
-dilewis@cc.usu.edu