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Facilities

The College of Music occupies five buildings on the northeast corner of campus.


The Housewright Music Building, the Kuersteiner Music Building, and the Longmire Building house faculty offices, classrooms, and recital halls. The Warren D. Allen Music Library and a state-of-the-art recording studio are also in the Housewright Music Building, while the Music Technology Resource Center can be found in the Kuersteiner Music Building.

Many undergraduate music majors choose to live together in the Music Living-Learning Community at Cawthon Hall. This residence hall, just a two-minute walk from the College of Music, houses nearly 200 music students who attend class there. The Music Living-Learning Community has a group piano studio and music technology resource center, plus classrooms and rehearsal and practice spaces.

The College of Music’s history dates back to 1900, when music instruction began with only one teacher of vocal and instrumental music. By 1911, the teaching staff had grown to six faculty members. That same year, Ella Scoble Opperman, for whom Opperman Music Hall is named, became the director of the school, and the first Bachelor of Music degree was awarded by vote of the faculty. By 1920, Professor Opperman had become the dean of the School and served in that capacity until her retirement in 1944. The College of Music proudly celebrated its centennial during the 2010-2011 school year with the re-opening of the completely renovated Ruby Diamond Concert Hall.


Performance Halls

Ruby Diamond Concert Hall

The college’s state-of-the-art, premier performance hall for opera performance and major concert productions.

Features

  • 1,172 seating capacity without seats installed on the pit
  • Proscenium – 55’ wide X 28’ high
  • Depth of stage – 39’ from the plaster line
  • Designed by Gilchrist Ross Crowe Architects with Acoustics and Theatre by Creative Acoustics and Theatre Consultants Collaborative, constructed by LLT Building Corporation
  • Movable orchestra shell
  • Height adjustable orchestra pit
  • Bio Channel Classic Sprung Floor by Robins

Contact for Booking

For student events – RSO Reservations
For all other events – RDCH Production Office – (850) 644-5541

Performance Halls

Opperman Music Hall

A 400 + 6 ADA seat concert hall located in the Kuersteiner building.

Opperman Music Hall is named for Ella Scoble Opperman, who served as the first dean of music from 1911 to 1944.

The hall can accommodate concerts ranging from solo recitals to chamber orchestra and band concerts, as well as opera.

The 1975, 34-stop Holtkamp Tracker Organ seen on the stage is used for recitals, concerts, and lessons. Other organs are available in the school to students for practice and performance.

Performance Halls

Longmire Recital Hall

The newly renovated Longmire Recital Hall seats 140 and presents a perfect venue for piano, vocal, string and chamber music recitals.

The historic Longmire building was constructed in 1938 and named in honor of Rowena Longmire, founder of the FSCW Alumni Association. Renovated in 1969, the building retains its architectural interest and integrity. Originally constructed for use by the Alumni Association, Longmire has, through the years, housed a wide variety of specialized areas from guest quarters and a soda shop to the music and law libraries.

The lobby and first floor offices still retain their original oak paneling, and the Beth Moor and Alumni lounges have hand-painted plaster ceilings and Gothic décor. One of two group piano classroom/laboratories (the other is in the Music Living-Learning Center at Cawthon Hall) is located on the fourth floor.

In 2008 the College of Music partnered with the Office of the Provost and the Office of Instructional Technology to renovate an old lecture hall on the 2nd floor.

Performance Halls

Dohnányi Recital Hall

A 215-seat facility used mainly for recitals and lectures located in the Housewright building.

Ernst Von Dohnányi, for whom this recital hall is named, was a composer-in-residence at FSU from 1949 until his death in 1960. A world-renowned composer and pianist, he was director of the Budapest Music Academy and held other important posts in his native Hungary until the outbreak of World War II. Many of his works are still performed throughout the world today.

Performance Halls

Lindsay Recital Hall

A choral rehearsal hall before it was renovated and named in 1989, Lindsay Hall is now used as a 100-seat lecture/recital space.

Lindsay Recital Hall, located in the Kuersteiner building, is named for Joe Lindsay, a retired businessman from Carabelle, Florida. His initial interest in music began as an adult when he started taking viola lessons with a member of the faculty. His support included many generous financial contributions to the College of Music, including a four-year scholarship awarded to an undergraduate string player.

Performance Halls

Owen Sellers Amphitheatre

The Owen F. Sellers Music Amphitheater is a unique outdoor performance space used primarily in the fall and spring.

Among many accomplishments, Owen Sellers served as the assistant dean of the College of Music from 1931 until 1973, and organized and directed the first band. The amphitheatre is situated at the north end of Mina Jo Powell Green, and is surrounded on three sides by the Kuersteiner Music Building and the Longmire Building, which creates a very effective acoustic music space.

Classrooms

Smart Classrooms

Spread across the Kuersteiner and Housewright buildings are a total of sixteen technology enhanced classrooms.

Each of these rooms contains a projector or smartboard, computer, document camera, Blu-ray player, speakers, and inputs for various laptops, tablets, and phones. The rooms utilize Extron touch-panel control systems to provide a graphical, easy-to-use experience and to provide a mechanism to request help when needed.

The rooms are a critical component of our educational experience and are designed to be broadly accessible to the diverse pedagogical needs of our faculty. Music offers a number of specific IT challenges in this way. First, there is a reliance on physical assets, such as books and musical scores which are coupled with the need for audio playback from a variety of sources. Viewing a score on the document camera while listening to a score from a portable device, classroom computer, or Blu-ray player is a common occurrence. Furthermore, specific programs such as Music Education also prepare our students by utilizing relevant apps on iPads as well as familiarizing this with the classroom use of smartboards. Therefore, the primary Music Education classroom in KMU 340 mirrors setups found in some of the local primary and secondary schools in the region where practicums occur.

In addition to the classrooms, our recital halls also have similar setups with projectors, computers, and document cameras, but are designed with the larger lecture classes and recitals that accompany these spaces. Furthermore, these spaces have audio recording setups to record recitals as well as multi-camera pan/tilt video recording setups for our two premier halls, RDCH and OMH. Most concerts are recorded and archived in the Warren D. Allen Music Library.

Classrooms

Music Technology Resource Center

A teaching facility and computer/music technology lab available to faculty, staff, and students.

The MTRC maintains 13 Apple iMacs and 16 Dell touchscreen computers, with MIDI keyboards at each station. Available software includes various Digital Audio Workstations or DAWs (ProTools, Cubase, Logic, Ableton), Microsoft Office, music notation software (Finale and Sibelius), Pyware 3D marching band drill software, Adobe Creative Cloud, and other productivity tools.

Similar to our smart classrooms, the MTRC also includes a presentation computer, HD projector, and studio-quality speakers for playback.

In addition to providing a common facility for students to work on papers, music notation, graphic design, and audio editing, the MTRC also hosts our music technology related classes, and is available to faculty and staff upon request for presentations and technology-related training classes.

Classrooms

Living-Learning Community

The on-campus dorm for first- and second-year music students, just minutes away from the College of Music.

Historic Cawthon Hall was built in 1949 and renovated in 2001. It is part of the Living-Learning Community program at FSU and is a dorm for first- and second-year music students. Cawthon Hall is positioned between the College of Music and the Strozier Library and is just a two-minute walk away from the College. Music-specific amenities in Cawthon Hall include three individual practice rooms, an ensemble practice room, and a computer/group piano room.

Classrooms

Instrument Library

Access over 600 instruments and accessories, accommodating the needs of ensembles and individual student lessons with daily check-out and long-term loan.

In addition to standard orchestral and band instruments, the Instrument Library also lends items such as early music instruments, mandolins, an original Fender Rhodes piano, banjos, and accordions to support the diverse ensembles in the College of Music. IL also maintains instrument lockers for student use and assists in overseeing operations of the adjacent rehearsal spaces in the Housewright building.

Classrooms

Practice Spaces

The College of Music contains many spaces for individual students and groups to practice.

Kuersteiner Music Building

  • 40 General Practice Rooms (most include an upright piano)
  • 8 Piano Major Practice Rooms (with small grand pianos)
  • Organ Practice Rooms
  • 3 Harpsichord Practice Rooms
  • 2 Small Ensemble Practice Rooms (sign-out required)

Housewright Music Building

  • 29 General Practice Rooms (all include an upright piano)
  • 3 Piano Major Practice Rooms (with small grand pianos)
  • 1 Small Ensemble Practice Room (sign-out required)
  • 6 String Bass Practice Rooms (assigned)
  • 6 Percussion Practice Rooms (assigned)
  • 3 Drum Set Practice Rooms (assigned)
  • 2 Harp Practice Rooms (assigned)

Classrooms

Recording Studios

Research Centers

Warren D. Allen Music Library

The library occupies 18,000 square feet of space within the Housewright Music Building.

As one of the major music libraries of the southeastern United States, the Allen Music Library includes an extensive collection of over 200,000 physical items, including more than 80,000 scores, 27,000 books, 42,000 albums and CDs, 2,000 video recordings, and thousands of volumes of periodicals and microforms, plus extensive online streaming audio and video options. The library’s special collections house many rare and unique items dating from as early as the 16th century.

Public access computers and equipment for sound and video playback are available for patron use. The library employs eight full-time staff, including four faculty librarians.