The first building at any SDA school built specifically for music was constructed at a cost of $6,000. The student body of 300, challenged to raise the funds in 30 days, responded by having all funds in hand one day ahead of schedule. The fact that music teaching, practice, and rehearsals until this time had been happening on the third floor of the administration building may have provided incentive for all students to help place them in a separate building!

The facility was built at a cost of $12,000, $7,000 of which was donated by an Adventist minister in Portland, Oregon, Christopher Johnson, in memory of his wife. Students raised $3,500 and the conference donated the rest. Two grand and thirteen upright pianos were purchased as the building was completed for an additional $3,750. In spite of its poor acoustics and small size, it continued in use until 1964.

Noah Paulin was the first person at PUC who, while still teaching, had a building named for him. On the campus since 1914, Paulin had distinguished himself as a violinist, teacher and chair of the music program. A charming facility with practice rooms and a small auditorium when new, it was adequate for the era but by the time a newer building was built forty-five years later, it was suitable for only a small segment of the program.

W. J. Hole’s land in Southern California became the site of what is today called La Sierra University. Hole was a businessman and sportsman whose philanthropy during the early years of the school included a gift of $10,000 towards the construction of what is one of the first actual auditoriums on an Adventist campus.

It continues today, following a major renovation in the 1970’s, as the primary stage for music department presentations on the LSU campus. A Casavant organ, the third largest pipe organ in that region, was installed in 1970. The building in which the auditorium is housed now serves as the university’s music facility.

Although the projected cost for the music facility was $45,000 plus 15,000 for furnishings, actual cost for the building alone was $87,000. The students raised $15,700 of the needed amount within four weeks of the beginning of the fundraising campaign in 1945.

The building, with its five studios, two classrooms, rehearsal area, 18 practice rooms and 100-seat recital hall, was connected to the nearby library building in 1967, with music occupying part of the connecting construction. A number of renovations were done in the 60’s and 70’s and, in 1985, music and art took over the entire music/library complex. It is named for Carl Engel, music teacher at UC for 32 years.

Located on the right side of a three-part imposing Colonial New England-styled facility, Machlan auditorium is named for the college president whose leadership led to AUC’s standing as a four-year school.

In planning from 1938, construction on the building began immediately after WW II, facilitated by a dramatically increased enrollment and cheap GI labor. It was completed in time for the school’s 70th anniversary. With its large stage and 1,000-seat capacity it is a center for music activities for both the campus and the region.

Constructed at a cost of $136,000 for a four-teacher, one-degree program, this three-story building was part of a post-WW II building program that would serve as a prelude to EMC’s transformation from a small college to a major force as Andrews University, home for the church’s seminary and its primary school for graduate study. The building was totally renovated in 1989 and, in 1995, named for Paul Hamel who had served as music department chair from 1955 to 1994 and had been a major force in other areas on campus, as well. Today, with its two rehearsal rooms, ten studios, 19 practice rooms, two organs, 19 pianos and the largest music library in SDA universities, it continues as home for an expanded music program offering several undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Completed in 1954, the first real music facility at SMC, with its seventeen practice rooms, seven studios, recital hall and music library, was hailed as a vast improvement over the cramped quarters music had occupied in the administration building for the past thirty years. An attractive building with Georgian-Colonial architecture, it became inadequate as the program expanded.

The second of six structures constructed at OC in the 1960’s, the music building includes seven teaching studios, two rehearsal areas, five practice rooms and four classrooms built around a 125-seat auditorium. It is named for George E. Peters, noted SDA African-American evangelist in the first half of the 20th century.

The first in a series of large comprehensive SDA music facilities to be built in the last third of the 20th century, the MKW fine arts center was designed to accommodate a small to medium college music program. Built at a cost of $650,000, the two-story building, has two rehearsal areas, ten teaching studios, 27 practice rooms, two classrooms, music library, and office, all clustered around a 300-seat auditorium. New instruments and equipment were purchased at a cost of $120,000 as it was completed. It is equipped with 17 grand pianos, 25 upright pianos, a harpsichord, and four pipe organs. An art gallery and art studios, classrooms, and offices occupy about a fourth of the building. It was named in 1996 for Melvin K. West, chair of the department at the time of its construction.

Constructed at the same time and within the same parameters as the fine arts center at Walla Walla College, the new Paulin Hall at PUC is strikingly different in layout and appearance. The two-story structure, constructed for over $500,000, includes two rehearsal areas, fourteen teaching studios, 28 practice rooms, two classrooms, offices, three ensemble libraries, and a 468-seat auditorium with a 48-rank Casavant pipe organ. There are three other organs in the facility, the largest of these being a 15-rank tracker, located in the organ studio. Other keyboard instruments include three harpsichords, and 25 grand and 22 upright pianos.

Under the leadership of Jon Robertson in the 1970’s the music program at AUC underwent a rapid expansion that necessitated a move from the oldest building on the main campus (the original administration building occupied since the 1950’s) to a nearby larger and older historically famous building, the Thayer Mansion.

Constructed in the mid 1800’s, expanded and refined in the 1880’s, and then completed in 1902 by the Thayer family, at that time one of the richest in the nation, the structure is regarded as a highlight of American Georgian architecture. Its interior includes rooms known worldwide as some of the finest examples in Louis XVI style, popular in that era.

In an earlier time, its setting in the midst of extensive formal gardens was the site for outdoor performances by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Bought by the college in 1942, it had served as an administration building and dormitory before Robertson spoke for it on behalf of the department, and then set about beginning a restoration that continues to this day.

A modern facility built at a cost of just under 1.5 million dollars, the building has two rehearsal rooms, seven practice rooms, offices, seven teaching studios, and a 180-seat auditorium. It is equipped with five grand and eight upright pianos and a Johannus electronic organ. There is also an art instruction room. The building is named after the major donor to the building fund.

A large music complex, a combination of older buildings and new, is presently being completed at MU in Mexico. When finished, it will easily accommodate both of MU’s large conservatory and university music programs.

Because of the school’s location in a mild climate, the building’s architecture combines the best elements of both enclosed and open areas. It is equipped with a number of new pianos and organs, all recently donated by Orland and Joan Ogden.

Sometime in the near future, Columbia Union College, located in the Washington D.C. area, will be constructing a new facility designed specifically for music, the first in the school’s history. The college’s music program, known for the extensive touring of its groups, is presently housed in three different buildings.

After many years of rehearsing in everything from tin-roofed buildings, cafeteria basements, to the chapel stage, a freestanding all-music facility clustered around a 600-seat auditorium was built at Forest Lake Academy in 1968. A large rehearsal area, six teaching studios, eight practice rooms and a computer lab for teaching music notation make it an outstanding music facility for a music program at the secondary level.

One of the oldest of freestanding, built-for-music facilities at the academy level, the music building at UCA was built in 1961. A three-story facility with separate rehearsal rooms for choir and band, three teaching studios and 17 practice rooms, it was completely redone in 1985 following a fire that extensively damaged the building. In 1998, the band rehearsal room was enlarged and a connecting passageway to the campus performing area, along with dressing rooms and another teaching studio, were added.

This article, with photographs, was printed in the Winter/Spring 2002 issue of Notes, a publication of IAMA