Thomas Fine Arts
The Thomas Fine Arts Building, or TFA as it is known on campus, is home to the School of Music, Theatre and Dance and the Communication and Media Studies Department. Offices for the Department of Music are located on the first floor just inside of the main entrance.
Music students will spend a lot of time here in classrooms and specialized facilities, including:
- 2 large rehearsal rooms (instrumental and choral)
- Percussion Ensemble Room
- Chamber Ensemble Room
- 12 faculty studios
- 28 practice rooms
- Piano Lab (16 stations)
- multiple classrooms
- Instrumental and Choral Libraries
- several dedicated instrument storage areas
Reynolds Recital Hall
Reynolds Recital Hall is used for all departmental recitals and concert performances. The 300-seat concert hall is one of the premiere performance venues in the state of Michigan. Architecturally and acoustically, the hall provides an unparalleled musical experience for both listeners and performers. In addition to its exquisite natural acoustics, the hall's interior convex walls include a system of draperies which may be opened or closed depending on the type of music or ensemble.
Located in the Hedgcock Student Services Building, Reynolds Hall houses two 9' and 7' Steinway grand pianos and a three-manual Walker digital organ with 77 equivalent pipe ranks. It is named in honor of Phyllis and Max Reynolds, generous patrons of the arts.
Forest Roberts Theatre
The Forest Roberts Theatre or FRT, is one of the finest university theaters in the country. It accommodates 515 people in a continental seating arrangement, an orchestra pit and has its own scene and electrics shops, as well as state of the art costume facilities and dressing rooms. It is connected to Thomas Fine Arts for convenient collaboration with Theatre and Dance programs and performances. Many music majors perform in mainstage shows, while others get invaluable hands-on experience in sound, lighting and arts management.
Equipment and Instruments
Instruments
- In addition to the two concert Steinway grands and Walker digital organ in the Reynolds Recital Hall, the department maintains about a dozen other high-quality grand pianos in rehearsal rooms, faculty studios, and piano major practice rooms. Boston uprights are located in various music classrooms and other practice rooms. The class piano lab has Roland P125 digital pianos.
- A Roland Fantom G8 synthesizer and other synthesizers are used for performances.
- Percussion students study and perform on a full range of professional-level equipment, including new sets of Adams and Yamaha timpani.
- The music education classroom lab is outfitted with a variety of classroom instruments, including guitars, Orff instruments, auxiliary percussion, and hand chimes.
- The Department has an excellent collection of top-quality instruments for students to use when they are enrolled in instrument pedagogy classes, or if they are playing a particularly specialized instrument in an ensemble (Sousaphone, mellophone, baritone saxophone, etc.).
Practice Rooms
28 Wenger practice rooms are available to music students in the Thomas Fine Arts Building, and speaker systems enable students to use their laptops or mobile devices to practice interactively using recordings, specialized mobile apps, or other software. Students also have access to Reynolds Recital Hall when preparing for recital performances.