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Designed by the New York office of Pfeiffer Partners Architects, the new Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts has significantly enhanced the performance, instructional, and rehearsal opportunities for students and faculty of the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music and Department of Theater. The acoustically beautiful 200-seat Don Buchwald Theater provides a gorgeous performance space for large ensemble concerts, including fully staged Opera Theatre productions, as well as chamber music and solo recitals. The Topfer Recital Hall, meanwhile, hosts more intimate concerts of smaller acoustic and electronic ensembles along with student recitals. The facility is fully equipped with new Steinway and Boston pianos. It is also the college’s first “green building” and has received LEED Silver Certification and awards as such.
The beautiful Art Deco 2,400-seat auditorium in Whitman Hall has been rechristened the Claire Tow Theater, in honor of the late distinguished alumna, and is one of the premiere concert venues in the New York City area and Brooklyn, in particular. As in years past, the theater will be available for rental for concerts and shows featuring world-class performers in a variety of genres, including classical, pop, ethnic, and children’s productions as well as other outside events such as graduations.
Studio 312 (90 seats) continues to serve as a venue for events outside the Conservatory’s main ensembles, such as Preparatory Center student and faculty recitals and master classes. With video projection capabilities and a Quad sound diffusion system, the studio is equipped with ProTools recording and two nine-foot concert grand pianos: a Steinway and a Yamaha Artist Series.
Studio 312 also serves as a recording facility. It is hard-wired for live or session ProTools recording and a 4.2 Quad sound system. The studio provides an excellent acoustic environment for recording voice, chamber, and jazz ensembles. The control room features a Soundcraft 24-channel Ghost mixer, HHB recorder, and Mackie HR 824 monitors.
Each classroom is equipped with a well-maintained piano and state-of-the-art sound system. There are several dedicated teaching studios, including two piano studios; both contain two seven-foot grand pianos, a Steinway and Yamaha in each. The percussion studio contains marimba, xylophone, drumset, and four timpani. There is also a dedicated voice studio.
The conservatory has 18 dedicated practice rooms, each containing an upright or small grand piano. There are numerous student lockers available in the practice room area, including ones for larger instruments such as bass, cello, and guitar.
There are also three dedicated practice rooms for percussionists, equipped with a full set of timpani, drumset, and mallet instruments.
In addition to the dedicated practice rooms, all classrooms are available for practice and rehearsal. Each classroom has an upright or grand piano.
The Don Buchwald Theater has a beautiful new Steinway D for its numerous concert and recital performances, while the more intimate Topfer Recital Hall has both a D and B. The Feirstein Rehearsal Studio, meanwhile, has a fine 7’ Yamaha. The Claire Tow Theater houses two Steinway grand pianos to serve our larger ensemble concerts. Studio 312 has one newer Yamaha and a Steinway grand. The conservatory owns two celestes, two harpsichords, a harp, and brass, string, and woodwind instruments used primarily for music education classes. The percussion instrument collection is one of the best in the New York area.
The Conservatory Concert Office produces more than 80 concerts per year, including all student recitals, faculty recitals, ensemble concerts, and guest artist presentations. The office is responsible for all aspects of concert production, including the booking of halls, arranging of recordings, and coordinating guest artists. In addition, the Concert Office oversees many of the conservatory’s other functions as well including rehearsal space, instrument rentals, equipment requests, student locker assignments, and many other administrative duties pertinent to the conservatory.
The new Tow Center has recording facilities with state-of-the-art ProTools audio and 4K video equipment that allows for recordings from performances, student recording sessions, and audition sessions in the Don Buchwald Theater, Topfer Recital Hall, and the Choral Rehearsal/Performance Room—all beautiful acoustic spaces.
The conservatory’s Recording Studio (still under construction) was designed as a state-of-the-art facility that includes a ProTools HD system for recording, editing, and mastering, 5.1 mixing, and Yamaha Rio high-performance I/O racks to connect the studio with all the previously mentioned performance spaces in the Performing Arts Center. Update forthcoming.
Studio 312 serves as both a performance venue and a recording facility for chamber, jazz, and vocal ensembles. The studio is equipped with state-of-the-art recording equipment, and professional-quality audio and video recordings are routinely made here.
Brooklyn College Library contains collections totaling one million print volumes and 669,000 electronic books and journals. The library adds approximately 15,000 new titles each year to its comprehensive humanities, social sciences, and sciences collections. The library serves 14,000 students and the entire faculty.
The library encompasses nearly 280,000 square feet of space. More than 2,300 seats and 6,700 shelf units (with an emphasis on advanced technology in library services) enhance the library’s role as the central information resource of the college.
The music library is located on the second floor of the Brooklyn College Library. Named in honor of its principal founder and first librarian, respected teacher and scholar Walter W. Gerboth, this library offers facilities for music study, research, and listening.
Established more than 30 years ago and augmented by substantial bequests, the collection comprises scores, collected works, phonograph recordings, tapes, compact discs, music and dance videos, CD-ROMs, playback equipment for on-site listening, and general and specialized books about music and dance as well as a fine selection of periodicals, yearbooks, and online reference works. Subject strengths lie in American music and performance scores. The collection is complimented by that of the H. Wiley Hitchcock Institute for Studies in American Music.
The Library Café is an around-the-clock study facility boasting 100 high-end Internet-connected PCs and Macs with a wide variety of popular applications. It is one of our students’ favorite meeting spots, with comfortable study and social areas, a knowledgeable staff, and a Starbucks coffee kiosk. The Library Café also offers free computer workshops every weekend to all Brooklyn College students, with subjects running the gamut from word processing to Internet exploration.
