At TCU’s new Van Cliburn Concert Hall, the venue finally matches the musical talent
The most critical element of TCU’s new Van Cliburn Concert Hall is invisible to visitors.
Behind the sandy wooden paneling lining the walls, more than 6,000 square feet of curtains shroud the room to transform the space into a venue conducive to almost any musical production.
The hidden fabric can be adjusted — depending on the event — to control sound and reverberation.
“This hall sounds great for an orchestra with a chorus, or it sounds great for a solo pianist” said Richard C. Gipson, dean of TCU’s College of Fine Arts. “And it’s all possible because of the tunable acoustics.”
The acoustic capabilities of the Van Cliburn Concert Hall will be on display April 8, when the hall hosts its first public event, a performance by TCU’s men’s chorus, the Frog Corps.
The new hall, named for award-winning pianist Van Cliburn, is the crown jewel of the TCU’s new $53 million Music Center, which opened in the fall of 2020. The concert hall opening, however, was delayed nearly two years by the pandemic.
To provide enough space for students to social distance, the hall — which has the largest floorplan of any space at TCU — was used for non-music classes, like chemistry, business and geology.
“There were even periodic tables hanging from the side walls,” said Gipson.
It can seat more than 700 people on the first floor and balcony level surrounding the center stage.
With students and community members itching to get inside, the hall already has a robust spring schedule, including a performance by the TCU Symphony Orchestra with the Cliburn and Cliburn Gold Medalist Olga Kern on April 13. The TCU Symphony Orchestra is scheduled to perform with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra on April 14. Tickets are available on the TCU website.
The Van Cliburn Concert Hall will also host the preliminary and quarter final round concerts of The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in June.
From master classes with visiting artists to world-class performances, events made possible by the new concert hall will elevate music students’ education at TCU, Gipson said.
“For the last 20 years, we’ve had a really world class school of music. We finally now have a space where we can show it off in a way that it’s been deserved for a long time,” said Sean Atkinson, director of the School of Music.
This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 5:30 AM.
