A donation from a longtime supporter of the arts will help pay for a new state-of-the-art music facility at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
The school says the new facility will be designed to meet the current and future needs of MIT’s music program and will house a new performance space.
It will be constructed adjacent to Kresge Auditorium, which has served for decades as the primary performance facility for MIT Music and Theater Arts productions and for student arts organizations.
With space for performance, practice, and instruction, the new building will further the Institute’s commitment to music education that ranges from conservatory-level training to classes that welcome complete novices.
The building’s centerpiece, a purpose-built performance lab, will provide a flexible, large-scale space for experimenting with various formats, including the ability to stage unconventional music events and employ flexible seating. In addition, the performance lab and a recording studio will offer professional-level recording facilities, a new resource for the MIT campus.
Other spaces that support the performance program include dedicated rehearsal rooms and additional student practice rooms. A music technology suite will include a classroom, research lab, and two student production labs.
In a typical year, more than 1,500 students are enrolled in MIT music courses, and music is among the most popular of the Institute’s 42 minors.
“MIT has such talent on campus, and it is thrilling to help create a space that allows students and the community the opportunity to excel in music and the arts as well as science and technology,” says donor Joyce Linde.
Linde, along with her late husband, Edward H. Linde, is a patron of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Tanglewood Learning Institute, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The couple previously endowed the Edward H. Linde Career Development Chair in MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning and, with their family foundation, contributed $25 million for undergraduate financial aid at the Institute.
