Music Dept. Launches Drive for $3.5 Million

The Music Department is launching a $3.5-million fund-raising drive to enlarge Paine Hall and expand the department's staff.

The largest block of money -- about $1.2 million -- will be used to extend the library wing of Paine Hall, and add a floor to the building.

The Department also wants to build a special studio for the composition of electronic music in the library's basement. Leon Kirchner, Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music, who won a Pulitzer Prize this year for a composition involving electronic instruments, proposed the studio and will probably supervise its use.

The room will start with about $20,000 worth of equipment, including a Buchla electronic console -- capable of producing a variety of tones and pitches -- which Kirchner used in his prize-winning Quartet No. 3. The fund drive will also create a endowment for adding new equipment to the studio.

Faculty members and students in Kirchner's composition seminar will have access to the studio, which Kirchner also intends to use for his own work.

An engineer-composer will be employed to service the electronic machinery.

More Performers

The department also intends to hire a group of professional musicians to perform the works of young composers. At present, composers have to wait for special concerts of student pieces to hear how their music sounds; that usually means waiting until the end of a term, when most of the special concerts are scheduled. With the proposed group, students could test out their compositions at intermediate stages in their writing. The professional musicians will also provide live music for classes and seminars.

The department plans to create a new professorship if it can raise enough money for an endowment.

Nationwide

According to Nino Pirrotta, Walter W. Naumberg Professor of Music, the Department hopes to raise the required funds through a nationwide campaign directed at music-lovers and alumni with a special interest in music. The membership of the fund-raising committee has not yet been announced.

The new library space in Paine Hall will be used for a microfilm-viewing room and the Ishan Microfilm Collection, which is now stored in Memorial Church. The collection contains microfilms of rare or fragile scores and manuscripts.

Soundproof Paine

Expansion plans also include a new study carrels, piano practice rooms, and listening rooms. Paine Hall will be soundproofed, Pirrotta said, since it is often impossible to hold classes in adjacent rooms.

Pirrotta also announced that the Music Department has requested the Committee on Educational Policy to establish a new Ph.D. in composition. At present, Harvard has a Ph.D. program for musicologists.