Dancing About Architecture

The Cleveland Institute of Music is new once again

By David Budin
Photographs by Robert Muller

That quote from German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is a favorite of Charles Young, the architect who designed the Cleveland Institute of Music’s recent expansion and renovations.

There’s another, more recent adage that has been credited to British rock musician Elvis Costello (and others, including Frank Zappa) that goes: “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”

While Goethe’s saying can be easily applied to CIM, Costello’s was meant to be an insult aimed at music critics. His comment misses the mark in this case, because people at CIM practically are dancing about architecture.

“It’s really spectacular,” says CIM president David Cerone. “The recital hall is something that I think is just extraordinary. We tested it – we had some pianos brought in – and I’ll tell you, the clarity of that hall is just remarkable. You cannot play too softly; you can hear everything from that stage. And you can’t over-modulate it, either. So, you can put a good size chamber orchestra in there, and you’ll never overload that hall. That was part of our requirements from the beginning: We said it must be able to accommodate a [classical] guitar and brass ensemble equally.”

And if the new Mixon Hall sounds magnificent, it looks equally stunning. The acoustics-friendly shoebox shape and high ceiling are paired with a surprising, two-story all-glass wall behind the stage. Instead of a curtain or a plain wall, the window provides a backdrop of an outdoor garden setting. And the glass does not play havoc with acoustics, Cerone explains, because it is varied in thickness and because of other compensating factors in the hall’s acoustical design.

“I think we made a statement,” Cerone says, “by choosing the acoustician before we chose the architect.”

Acoustician Paul Scarbrough was also responsible for the recent renovations to Severance Hall, the Concert Hall at the Kennedy Center and the New Amsterdam and New Victory Theaters on Broadway. For more than 20 years, he has worked on many projects, including the Oklahoma City Civic Center Music Hall, Akron’s Inventure Place and Dayton’s Schuster Center for the Performing Arts. Among the orchestras he has worked with are the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony and Milwaukee Symphony.

Glass houses: The glass walls of Mixon Hall provide a natural backdrop for performances.The 300-seat Mixon Hall, which shares its new lobby with the existing 800-seat Kulas Hall, may be a focal point of the new construction, but it’s just one element of CIM’s new look. There is a new library with 24 computers, plus listening stations and more shelves for books and other materials. There is a remodeled front entrance on East Boulevard, and a completely new Hazel Road entrance. Where there used to be just a flat, utilitarian door is a sweeping walkway with park benches. A new building houses administrative offices, practice and teaching spaces, a student lounge and distance learning studios, which are essentially television and recording studios that, though small, technologically rival any state-of-the-art facilities.

Architect Charles Young spent about 25 years as a senior associate partner at I.M. Pei, where he worked on the original design of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (it was initially planned to adjoin Tower City). Now, Young is principal of Charles T. Young Architects, based in New York and San Francisco. The firm, founded in 1983, specializes in architectural design for performing arts facilities, and has designed major projects, including a new opera house for the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Young also collaborated on the planning, design and construction of such projects as the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati and the Performing Arts Center at the University of Missouri in St. Louis.

“CIM is a very successful, nationally recognized music conservatory,” Young says. “They’re among the top half-dozen in the country.” More than 3,000 students have graduated from CIM in the bachelors, masters, artist diploma, artist certificate, professional studies and doctoral programs. Eighty percent of its alumni perform in major national and international orchestras and opera companies while holding teaching positions around the world. Nearly 40 members of the Cleveland Orchestra serve on the CIM faculty.

The outside world’s a stage:
A musician in Mixon Hall.“They wanted to make a qualitative improvement in the facility,” explains Young, “and they felt they should have the kind of state-of-the-art performance and distance- media and teaching facilities that other institutions of their caliber had.” It was also important that the physical structure live up to the school’s reputation. “We wanted … a building of architectural distinction that would serve as a symbol for the school.”

Even though available space was relatively small, Young chose to create two new buildings, rather than put everything into one. Part of his challenge, he says, was that there already was a good building there. Unlike Young’s design for the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, where the new building more or less obscures the older building, CIM’s addition is smaller than its existing 1960s structure, which is of sufficient quality that it could be maintained. “We needed to recognize the existence of that building in the architectural solution, but then create a somewhat separate identity in each of the additions,” says Young. Each addition became a sort of pavilion, connected to the existing building in a discreet way.

“We didn’t try to encapsulate the existing building. As a pavilion building, one of its primary virtues is that every room can look out into the park-like setting in University Circle,” explains the architect, who also designed the connecting points between the buildings to create a flow between all of the structures.

So what made all of this necessary?

When the East Boulevard site was constructed in 1961, CIM had approximately 150 students. Now, enrollment is around 400. That’s not including the nearly 1,800 people, from pre-school age to adulthood, who come in for individual lessons and classes every week.

David Cerone became president of CIM in 1985. About 10 years into his tenure, it became clear the school would need to address both the amount of space available for students and the quality of that space.

“When I started, the enrollment was slightly under 200,” explains Cerone. “When it became closer to 350 in the conservatory, and the enrollment was balanced in a way that we could put together two orchestras, then it became apparent that we needed to do something about space in the building that was built for 150 students.”

By 1998, he had put together a wish list of what he thought the school needed. When he added up the estimated costs, it came to nearly $100 million. That was too high. “The number the trustees were comfortable with,” he says, “was $40 million, which, for our institution, is a mighty sum. We’ve never raised anything like that in our history.”

Cerone and his colleagues then prioritized their needs and pared down the list. In 2001, the board signed off on the plan and, Cerone says, “rolled up our sleeves and off we went. And I dare say, there were many skeptics who said, ‘How are you going to do this in this economy?’

“But, first of all, more than $11 million was contributed by the trustees alone. More than 1,000 people donated. And, sure enough, we raised $42 million. And that is such an incredible testament to the commitment to education and the arts in this city.”

And that’s something that Goethe, Costello and everyone here in northeast Ohio probably can agree on.

Open for business: The plaza between CIM’s new and original buildings.

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