School of Music Gala – A New Day
Joseph E. Steinmetz, Executive Dean and Vice Provost , College of Arts and Sciences
April 17, 2012
Let me begin by offering my heartfelt welcome to this evening’s gala, which is very aptly titled “A New Day.” We are all here because we care about music and how music and the rest of the arts awaken our imagination, enrich our lives, and compel us to think in new ways.
We are also here because of Marilyn and Don Harris, our Honorary Co-Chairs for tonight’s celebration. Their steadfast and passionate support of the School of Music was essential in making this celebration a reality. Thank you, Marilyn and Don.
While tonight’s event features our School of Music, “A New Day” can more generally be applied to our renewed efforts to strengthen the performing and visual arts here at The Ohio State University as well as our commitment to play a more prominent role in promoting the arts in the Columbus community.
I take very seriously the responsibility that comes with being executive dean of the college that serves as the academic home of the visual and performing arts. We are the College of Arts and Sciences. A major part of our mission as a comprehensive liberal arts and sciences college is to champion the arts and promote an atmosphere for our students and faculty that inspires creativity and excellence while providing opportunities for our faculty and students to share their many talents and scholarship with the university communities and communities beyond our campus borders.
I thought tonight I would share with you a couple of ways we are aggressively pushing ahead to promote and strengthen the arts – that is, why we consider this a new day.
The arts here in Columbus are alive and well due largely to the efforts of dedicated community organizations headed by visionary leaders with the support of community members who are actively engaged in promoting the future of the arts. One way we believe we can better support and invigorate the arts on campus is to strengthen existing ties and establish new ties with the outstanding performing and visual artists and arts organizations that make up the Columbus arts scene.
When Karen Bell, who formerly served as Ohio State’s Dean of the College of the Arts, retired from leading the Arts Initiative for the University, President Gee asked me to continue Karen’s great work by bringing this important initiative into the College of Arts and Sciences. We have asked Associate Dean Valarie Williams to head this effort, in part because she has been very successful in overseeing our downtown Urban Arts Space. The Arts Initiative will serve as a major conduit with the community – connecting our academic arts units with the variety of arts organizations and activities in the community. To facilitate this effort, in the very near future we will announce the formation of an Arts Initiative Advisory Board, made up of community and university members who have a simple shared interest – the advancement of the arts here in Columbus. This will be a true town and gown effort.
On a similar front, Mark Shanda, our outstanding Dean of Arts and Humanities, and I have begun discussions with the leadership of several arts organizations about how we can more effectively work together to make the arts here in Columbus as vibrant and successful as possible. Included in these discussions have been Bill Conner and Michael Petrecca from CAPA, Martin Ingles from the CSO and Charles Warner from Opera Columbus. In the near future we will announce a series of formal agreements that involve Ohio State University and major Columbus visual and performing arts organizations; agreements that are designed to foster cooperation and promote the arts here in Columbus. For example, we want to bring more students downtown to enjoy performances and exhibits and enjoy the Columbus arts scene. We want to bring the community’s talented musicians and artists to campus to share their experiences, talents and expertise with our students and to also interact with our world-class arts faculty. We want to find additional ways to effectively share and use our venues for the benefit of all. And, we want to find ways to get our community’s children interested in music and the arts at an early age through formal education programs.
In the end, we hope our collective efforts make the visual and performance arts in Columbus more vibrant, more energetic and more successful. This is a great city with a great university – it should be very easy for us to take our already excellent arts scene to new heights through our strategic partnerships. And, it should be possible through our collaborative efforts to ensure that the arts remain on firm grounds here for future generations of artists and art-lovers.
Our second major effort to invigorate the arts here on campus involves making significant improvements to our arts facilities. The area of campus near the intersection of 15th Avenue and High Street is our arts district – it’s where the world famous Wexner Center is located and where almost all of our academic visual and performing arts units are situated. High Street and 15th Avenue is the front door to the University. We need to celebrate this fact by making our arts facilities inviting, accessible to all, and maximally functional.
We have already begun making some improvements to our facilities; improvements that are much needed and long overdue. Hopkins Hall and Hayes Hall have gone though some renovations for our Department of Art and Department of Design. And, you might have noticed the fence around Sullivant Hall; It is undergoing a $30M renovation to make a new home for the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library, our top-rated Department of Dance, our Art Education department, the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD), and also home to our new Larry and Isabel Barnett Center for Integrated Arts and Enterprise.
So what’s next? The answer to this question is the main reason we are gathered here tonight. I am very happy to announce tonight our plans to invest at least $40M into renovations of our School of Music facilities. At least $20M of these funds will come from College of Arts and Sciences and The Ohio State University - we are committed to building a bright future for the School of Music. To complete the project, we hope to raise an additional $20M in private funds for this effort in a campaign we are calling "A New Day."
Our current plans call for an addition and renovation to Weigel Hall with a longer term plan to eventually redo Hughes Hall as well. We began the Hughes work last summer with $2.2M of renovations to some existing practice rooms. Things are markedly better in Hughes but far from great. Tonight, I want to talk about our plans for Weigel Hall. We recently commissioned a study by Westlake, Reed and Leskosky to assess the most pressing needs of our music students and faculty and how these needs might be addressed. For tonight’s event, we asked Westlake, Reed and Leskosky to provide some information and concept drawings of these new facilities and I am happy to share them with you.
To make this vision a reality we need your help. I ask you to give to this campaign if you can and to help us find other supporters of music and the arts to help us as well. I firmly believe that once we complete this upgrade of our School of Music facilities that we will be able to attract more outstanding students and faculty to join the great students and faculty who are already here. And, given the closer ties we are establishing with the greater Columbus music community, such as the collaborations I described earlier, I am certain that both town and gown will benefit from the investment we are making at Ohio State in our School of Music. What an opportunity we have here! We need to take advantage of it and truly make this a new day for music and the arts here in Columbus.
If you allow me a few more minutes, I want to close with some more personal remarks. I am dedicated and passionate about this cause. I think that only a few here know that music was a big part of my life. I played piano from the age of 5 and pipe organ from the age of 12. I was fortunate to grow up across the street from a Catholic church that had a Hook tracker pipe organ built in 1861; it was a convenient place where I could practice and play. I was perhaps more fortunate to have a maternal grandmother, Isabel Gould, who was an accomplished musician in an era when it was hard for a woman to succeed in the performing arts. She played piano and pipe organ and loved music. Many of my fondest memories are of her sitting next to me on a piano or organ bench gently and patiently helping me learn how to play. Music was a big part of our family. My mother played piano quite well and my four brothers and one sister all played at least one instrument.
Music teachers can be life-changers and I had two terrific teachers during the 13 years I took formal lessons – one an accomplished classical pipe organist, and the other an accomplished jazz and big band pianist and trombonist. To this day I appreciate just about any kind of music from classical to jazz to rock, mainly because my teachers instilled a love and appreciation of all music forms and styles. And, they were passionate about teaching music.
During high school I played that organ located in the church across the street every day and literally twice on Sunday and played in any band or orchestra I could find in the area.
I had to earn money to pay my way through College and music helped me do so. While in college I ended up playing in rock bands on Friday and Saturday nights and organ in church on Sunday.
Despite my grandmother’s influence and my teachers’ best efforts, however, I did not believe that I had the skills to remain in music as a performer. I chose science instead and have had a wonderful career as a behavioral neuroscientist and more recently as an administrator. But the many lessons I learned in music have never left me; lessons of discipline, creativity, collaboration and the sheer joy that comes from sharing your passion with others. This is why that in my current role as the executive dean of the college, the home to our great School of Music, I believe I have to do all I can to facilitate the education and careers of individuals who have chosen to enrich us all by pursuing their passion for music formally at Ohio State.
It’s important to have great musicians who teach –The Ohio State University continues to lead the country in training and inspiring great music teachers – our faculty is indeed at the top of their game. It is also important to have facilities that match the passion, skill and dedication of our students and faculty – as I have outlined tonight, we are working on this. And perhaps above all, it is important to keep music and all of the visual and performing arts strong, vibrant and accessible. The College of Arts and Sciences and The Ohio State University will work hard on this last goal by building facilities that will make us all proud and by forging stronger partnerships with performing and visual artists and organizations in the community.
I hope you agree with me that this can be and will be a new day! I hope you will consider joining us in our effort to ensure that music and the arts thrive here in Columbus for years to come. Thank you for coming tonight. I know you will enjoy the rest of the evening.