By Peter Bernardino
The soon-to-be-under-construction Rita Anne Rollins Hall has brought immense change to Lovett this year, including the relocation of the band and orchestra classes. While these changes have been difficult to adjust to, the band and orchestra programs have been making the best of it.
“The windows make the room a lot prettier,” said seventh grader Matthew Spady while reflecting on the new orchestra room. “It’s a very confined space… but I think that we’re gonna have a great year.”
Located in the MAC, in a former conference room, the new, temporary orchestra room shines new light on the fine arts program (literally). Originally located in a windowless room, the new one is now filled with vibrant light and great soundproofing. So far, this temporary location amid the construction is going better than expected.
“This room is what we call a dead room,” Dr. Eccles, the orchestra program director, told me (that’s a good thing, by the way). “You’ll notice that there’s some major sounding proofing going on.”
Although the room is cramped and there’s less space for instruments, Dr. Eccles is still very satisfied with the room. Over the summer, Dr. Eccles had to move hundreds of pounds of equipment into storage in a chaotic manner and then move some of it back, so he’s happy to have things settled.
For the band program, it has been more difficult adjusting to and moving to their new space. According to Ms. Gransden, the upper and lower school band teacher, the program had to move 50 years of equipment in the span of a few months into US 200 where the band’s new room is. Unlike the orchestra, the band has to deal with percussion instruments, so combined with kids, the room is very cramped.
“It’s like when you go buy a house, you look at a room, and you say, ‘Oh, this is a big living room.’ Then you put your furniture in there, and you’re like, “No, that’s not big at all.”
Yet Ms. Grandsen still believes that the school did the best it could. Like the orchestra room, the new band room has excellent soundproofing and has a better humidity level than she expected. This is an extremely important factor for the room because instruments need humidity to function properly.
Another unexpected advantage of the new band room’s location is that middle schoolers get to walk through the high school. While this may seem awkward, Ms. Grandsen believes that it will help better prepare the students for high school. “It’s training them earlier to know how to act here. And it’s giving them a sense of urgency for self-awareness,” Ms. Grandsen stated. “They don’t know they’re slamming locker doors. Yeah. They don’t know that they’re talking that loud, but then they look around and there’s five seniors in a class… So I think they’re starting to mature.”
When I spoke to Reagan Williams, a sixth-grader in band, he agreed that the change has helped him mature. Reagan told me that he was originally intimidated by the size of the high school kids when they “would shake the ground.” However, after about a month, Reagan says that it has taught him how to act around older kids.
A larger inconvenience that comes with the relocation and construction is finding a venue for concerts and performances. With the destruction of the chapel and the inaccessible theater, Dr. Eccles and Ms. Gransden are shifting performances to churches such as Mount Paran and St. John’s. “It may be harder to move percussion over to churches,” Ms. Gransden said, “but at least we’ll be able to play in a warm, welcoming environment.”
Although all these changes have deeply affected the orchestra and band programs, I myself have found that they have made the programs better in some ways. As a member of Lovett’s orchestra, I have found the new room to be more inviting. When the light shines through windows, I feel more connected to nature and the campus while playing. This light is actually a hint of what’s to come. The new band and orchestra room in the Rita Anne Rollins building will be filled with natural light and, hopefully, no construction.
