The Center for the Arts A Look Behind the Windowed Walls A Collection of Artistic Resources Housed in the College's Backyard

Author: Kate Prouty

Meet the CFA

If a liberal arts college encourages "that education take place both within and beyond the classroom," as Middlebury College's mission statement proposes, then having, and actively using, the Center for the Arts (CFA) is an integral part of the educational experience. Housing an impressive collection of artistic resources, the building stands unassumingly on the south side of campus as tangible proof of the College's commitment to artistic exploration and excellence. And yet, despite the caliber of the CFA, the majority (37 percent) of 242 students polled in a recent survey by The Middlebury Campus only visits the building, on average, one to five times a year.

Especially because the CFA is approaching its 10th anniversary next year, the building is primed for students to make it part of their regular routines during their four short years here.

But there certainly is nothing regular nor routine about the CFA. The building, which opened in 1992, holds some of the College's most valuable resources. Most notably, the curiously-shaped building that you pass on the way to the Fitness Center houses the College's own art museum, which boasts a collection of several thousand objects ranging from antiquities to contemporary art. The CFA also offers its visitors a black box style studio theater, dance theater, music library, 370-seat concert hall as well as a café and space for classrooms and rehearsals.

As stated on the CFA Web site, the Center's "primary purpose is to provide an environment for the creation of art and to expose [its] audience to local, national and international artists." Events at the CFA are the means through which the College is able to manifest its dedication to "active, creative and effective education in the arts, within and beyond the curriculum, and to the understanding that the arts play an essential role in the lives of our students and the future of our culture."

But how valuable are the CFA's resources if the average student does not use them on a regular basis?



According to the Admissions Office, student-led tours do not have time to show prospective students the CFA because the tours, squeezed between the guide's classes, are only an hour long. On a campus whose prospective students are not afforded the time to see the CFA, yet are ushered through the new Bicentennial Hall, students have to wonder where the College's priorities lie. Although it would be impossible for the College to devote equal attention to all of its educational opportunities on a one-hour tour, some find it discouraging to see that the importance of a building not even a decade old is not a highlight when we present our school to prospective students.

Simply stated, the CFA's resources are among the most indispensable that the College offers its student body and the surrounding community and they deserve to be recognized accordingly.



Architectural Intention

With architectural engagement foremost among its priorities, the CFA strives to integrate the importance of art into the daily lives of students. Fittingly, the CFA building itself is a product of considerable artistic thought and intention. The building is no ordinary structure, and yet its design is sensible in a way that allows it to be architecturally cohesive with the College community as well as with the Vermont landscape.

Framed by the Green and Adirondack mountains, the CFA's peaked roofs and triangular windows reflect the silhouetted summits of the distant ranges. At night, the triangular panes of glass, positioned intermittently on the roof of the building's Route 30 entrance, reveal warm, welcoming light shining from within the Concert Hall. Walkers passing by might wonder what international musician or performer is demonstrating his or her talent that evening. These windows, along with others found on the courtyard side, allow visitors inside the building to remain connected to the Vermont landscape but also provide for outsiders a glimpse of the world of art unfolding inside.

These sky-lit triangles are only the tip of the iceberg of an abundance of windows interspersed between rooms within the building. The solidity of wall space inside is frequently broken up by panes of glass that allow CFA visitors to peer into classrooms, rehearsal spaces and offices as they discover hidden nooks and cornered crannies. The internal space was designed with the purpose of revealing not only artistic products, but also the creative process. The College, which offers a popular course appropriately called "The Creative Process," has always emphasized the path to achieving artistic expression. The multitude of revealing windows thus opens otherwise prohibitive walls, transforming even the building's lobbies and patios into workrooms for artistic exploration.

Christian A. Johnson Professor of Art Glenn Andres characterizes the building as a "lively place where all of the arts [come] together." When asked what he thought were the building's major architectural intentions, he replied that, "The CFA was designed to enhance a dialogue among the arts and the people passing through the building. Each of the arts is given an identity with its own little building popping up through the overall building envelope. Inside and out, these sub-buildings have identifiable material and window patterns. They are set at angles to enhance their independence. This creates odd collisions of form, in which the architects reveled, because they wanted visitors to be challenged by the environment."

The building is very much concerned with being architecturally accessible to students. Andres asserts that, "[The architects] envisioned this as a place crawling with a mix of activities, with people mingling in a vital way in the lobby and seeing each other at work in their various spaces, with an informality rather than a monumentality."

Despite this last intention, Andres noted that the "closed character of the front façade" is somewhat inconsistent with the more engaging nature of the interior. Nonetheless, the CFA is still architectural distinct from the shadow-casting grandeur of Bicentennial Hall, the façade of which is linear and architecturally cold and hard.



Museum of Art

The Museum of Art provides students with a wealth of free artistic offerings right in their backyard. Although it is used as an interactive classroom for art courses, it is also, like any museum, a public forum for art appreciation. In addition to the entire student body, the Museum is also available to the surrounding communities in Vermont and New York.

Ranging from antiquities to contemporary art, the Museum's collection focuses on photography, 19thcentury European and American sculpture and contemporary prints. In addition to their permanent collection, the Christian A. Johnson Memorial Gallery, located in the Museum, changes temporary exhibitions throughout the year. These exhibitions make an effort to portray the artistic impact of cultures and artists that are not otherwise represented by the permanent collection.

The caliber of art that the Museum is able to acquire for these temporary exhibitions is astonishing. Specifically, this year the Museum found itself in temporary, and proud, possession of some of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's collection. The Museum was in this position through no small coincidence. Due to major renovations, the Smithsonian was looking to loan a significant portion of their collection to other museums in order to maximize the collection's availability. Competition to temporarily acquire part of this collection was fierce among reputable museums. The Middlebury College Museum of Art was the only site in New England chosen to display the Smithsonian artifacts. This achievement speaks to the standard of excellence the Museum maintains in all of its operations, easily placing them on par
with small museums throughout the country.

The Museum actively engages the student body by offering them employment opportunities, ranging from Museum office interns and receptionists to volunteers for the Museum Assistants Program (MAP), which has students help with tours, public programs and special events.

The Museum also has an annual exhibition that features work done by each year's graduating studio art majors. The artistic merit of student work is validated when it is displayed alongside the work of established professionals as a temporary exhibition in the Museum or when it is showcased alongside professional art throughout the building. Liza Sacheli, marketing manager for the CFA, expects the building to display even more student artwork upon its walls in the future. The student body will thus interact even more significantly with the building by being responsible for the production of artistic work for these displays of spontaneous art.



Music Library

Like the Museum, the Music Library, established 30 years ago, is concerned with being responsive to the needs of students. Its primary function is to provide music, in all forms, to encourage academic as well as personal enrichment. Boasting a collection of 23,000 recordings, 10,000 of which are CDs, the Library has definitely got its bases covered.

In addition to these recordings, the Library also offers books, periodical and electronic resources as well as VHS, laserdisc and, more recently, DVD viewing formats. Excluding movies and periodicals, all of these resources are available to be checked out as easily as you would check out a book from one of the College's threeother libraries.

Classical music makes up the majority of the collection, which is also particularly strong in opera. Although it may not be their primary focus, the Library is always expanding its CD collection of popular, rock, reggae and rap music. Recently, library administrators have been working on developing their jazz collection, which already ranges from early Dixieland and Louis Armstrong to Charlie Parker and Miles Davis.

In this way, the Library attracts not only students completing work for their music classes but also other visitors simply looking to expand their musical horizons. Or, even better, their CD collection. The Library has a CD "burner" available for public use during their regular business hours. Music Librarian Jerry McBride said the Library aims to "serve all students, faculty and staff at the College. Music is a vital part of everyone's life, and we hope that everyone in the College will make use of the Library."

In addition to the Library's main collection, the Ethnomusicology Archives provide a valuable resource relating primarily to New England folk song and dance. This special collection is one of the best collections of its kind in the entire nation and is thus only available for research through appointment with the Music Librarian.

The Music Library has made several recent moves to attract more visitors. They have not only spruced up the place with potted plants, display cases and a new study area with a futon, but also offered coffee and tea service. In the future, they plan to make more materials available on electronic reserve to improve their accessibility for students.

The College community is fortunate to have the Music Library, which is of very high quality especially considering the size of the College. Like the presence of the Museum, the Library stands as an affirmation of the College's commitment to artistic creation and education.



Performing Arts Series

Dating back to 1919 when it was called the "Entertainment Program," the College-subsidized Performing Arts Series brings 12 to 20 concerts of world-class performers to the College each year. Under the direction of G. Nye and A. Walker Boardman Professor Paul Nelson for close to 20 years, the series looks to present events of rich, multi-disciplinary character. Nelson has been particularly adept at finding artists on the rise, like Yo-Yo Ma, and booking them while the College can still afford to do so. Because the series is included in the College's established budget, it can afford to charge inexpensive ticket prices ($5 for students) that would elsewhere be five to ten times what the College asks.

Four events of particularly high artistic merit arranged by the series will occur before the end of the year.

This Friday and Saturday evenings, New York choreographer Tamar Rogoff will be showing her multidisciplinary performance piece at 8 p.m. in the CFA Dance Theater. "Daughter of a Pacifist Soldier" uses oral and written historical stories to investigate the experience of soldiering. Rogoff is concerned with engaging the community in which she performs, so the performance will include personal accounts from veterans in the Middlebury community. The otherwise incomprehensible world of the soldier is thus accessed through the mediums of experimental theater using movement, voice, video, music and text.

A week later, David Daniels, internationally-established counter-tenor, will grace the CFA Concert Hall on Sunday, March 17 at 3 p.m. In addition to being nominated for a 1999 Grammy, Daniels has earned two of the music world's most significant awards: Musical America's Vocalist of the Year in 1999 and the 1997 Richard Tucker Award.

The abundance of positive reviews for Daniels is enough to convince anyone to come see why on Nov. 10, 1997, The New Yorker noted, "the much sought-after 'next Pavarotti' may turn out to be a young man with tremendous onstage bravado who stirs inarticulate passions by singing very much like a woman."

Later in the semester, on April 19, Taiwanese pianist Wu Han will perform an all-Russian program. Although she is a repeat chamber ensemble performer at the College, this is Han's first solo recital. Han's popularity as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber musician extends worldwide. Reviewers have rewarded her with superlatives such as, "splendid technical and interpretive finesse," "fiery," "exhilarating" and "electrifying."

Finally, violinist Gidon Kremer and string quartet Kremerata Belterica will round off the Performing Arts Series on May 4. With a worldwide reputation, Kremer's repertoire is especially extensive, including all of the standard classical and Romantic violin works as well as music by twentieth century masters such as Henze, Berg and Stockhausen.

Ticket prices and availability as well as more information about all of these Performing Arts Series events are available at the CFA box office, by calling 802-443-MIDD or on the CFA Web site: http://www.middlebury.edu/~cfa.