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CO N EWS 5 INSIDE MOREHOUSE. SEPTEMBER 2010 Ray Charles Performing Arts Center (continued from cover story) and energy within the More house community - energy that will radiate outward into the larger community.” An invitation-only ribbon cutting will be held on Sept. 29, followed by a Saturday, Oct. 2, open house from 1 to 5 p.m. that is open to students, faculty and staff. The building is named after Charles, a music legend who pushed the boundaries of rock and roll, gospel and rhythm and blues. The 12-time Gram my winner became involved with Morehouse nine years ago when he was invited to Atlanta to perform with the College’s jazz ensemble. Trustee emeri tus Bill Cosby opened that per formance. Charles, who received an honorary degree from More house, became a long-time friend and supporter of More house. He gave the College $2 million to seal a mutual com mitment to find, educate and inspire the next generation of music pioneers. Since then, the College has received an additional $3 mil lion from the Ray Charles Foundation. The spacious auditorium has a capacity of 653 and fea tures a motorized orchestra pit that can also be raised to pro vide additional seating. It was constructed with special atten tion to acoustical design. Music faculty and students will now use the 12 faculty stu dios, nine practice rooms, two rehearsal rooms (one each specifically designed for the Morehouse College “House of Funk” Marching Band and the Morehouse College Glee Club) and three academic labs. One of those is the David Geffen Keyboard Digital Music Laboratory. When the band isn’t using its rehearsal space, a wall can be raised up and outward to cover what becomes a stage for a performance lawn, seating approximately 300 people. Performances and reh earsals in any room in the build ing can now be professionally - and remotely - recorded from top-of-the-line digital/analog recording studio. “It’s almost unbelievable. It’s great,” said Glee Club direc tor David Morrow ’80. “We’ve grown and outgrown in the old space. So we’re glad to get this. It gives us a way to expand and it also gives us a performance space that is not as big and intimidating as King Chapel where students can do recitals and be in front of smaller audi ences which makes it much more intimate.” But the focus of the building will be on training musicians and vocalists, Brown said. “We wanted the [Music Academic Building] to be the laboratory and ultimately we would be presenting the fin ished project to the public in the performance hall,” Brown said. Music Department chairman Uzee Brown (1) stands in front of the Music Academic Building; (2) David Morrow teaches a class in one of the building’s state-of-the-art classrooms; (3) the view from inside the Ray Charles Performing Arts Center through the curved glass wall; (4) the Eugene Mitchell Performance Lawn; (5) a view of the campus from inside the Music Academic Building. BY IMF. NUMBERS RAY CHARLES PERFORMING ARTS CENTER AND MUSIC ACADEMIC BUILDING 76,000 - The total square footage for the Ray Charles Performing Arts Center and The Music Academic Building is 76,000. 1,232 - The center’s groundbreaking, with music legends and good friends of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones and Joe Adams in attendance, occurred on May 18, 2007, exactly 1,232 days before the facility's Sept. 29 ribbon-cutting cere mony. 553/653 - Total permanent seating inside the Emma and Joe Adams Concert Hall is 553, but the seating capacity goes up to 653 when the orchestra pit is raised and seats are placed there. 200 - There is space for approximately 200 people to sit on blankets immediately in front of the stage in the Eugene Mitchell Performance Lawn area on the backside of the building. 100 - The Glee Club Rehearsal Room not only serves as practice space for the 100-year-old group, but also serves as a small recital hall. 25 - From a concert grand piano to upright and baby grands, there are a total of 25 pianos throughout the facility. 16 - The David Geffen Keyboard Digital Music Laboratory will have 16 stations, as well as 16 electric keyboards. 1 - On the auditorium's stage is one nine-foot, Steinway D, the top-of-the-line performance concert piano used by piano virtuosos such as Segei Rachmaninoff, Vladimir Horowitz and, of course, Ray Charles.