CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State University has received a gift commitment from the family of the late Lynne Detrick of West Linn to build a new concert hall that will allow for more intimate music performances on the Corvallis campus.

The $2 million gift accelerates an initiative to develop a new $60 million arts and education complex on the Corvallis campus. The concert hall will be part of the complex, which will be created through the expansion of the LaSells Stewart Center.

The acoustically superior hall is expected to seat 400 to 600 people and will become the university’s primary space for public music performances by students, faculty and guest artists, including choir concerts, piano recitals,  chamber music, vocal recitals and more. The space also will double as a classroom. 

“We couldn’t be more grateful to the Detricks and are thrilled that the new concert hall will honor Lynne,” said Larry Rodgers, dean of the College of Liberal Arts. “She cared deeply about making the arts accessible to everyone, and she was determined OSU would have facilities that match the excellence of our music program. With the help of this very generous gift, we will do so.”

Detrick, a teacher and writer who graduated from Oregon State in 1968, co-founded Music and Arts Partners (MAP), an organization that supports arts education in the West Linn-Wilsonville School District. 

She and her husband, George, also made gifts supporting OSU’s music programs, investing in instruments, technology, arts entrepreneurship and athletic bands. Lynne Detrick passed away in December 2016, six months after being diagnosed with cancer.

The concert hall, which will be named for Lynne Detrick, will provide the university with an intimate space designed for music performance that is unlike any existing space on campus. While the 1,200-seat Austin Auditorium in the LaSells Stewart Center is suited for large ensembles such as the Corvallis-OSU Symphony, most choir concerts are held in venues off campus. 

“We want Lynne Detrick Hall to be recognized up and down the coast as one of the most beautiful places to hear music, both visually/aesthetically and acoustically,” said Steven Zielke, the Patricia Valian Reser Professor of Music and director of choral studies at Oregon State. “It will be a space that encourages students to make music, and that encourages audiences to hear it and be changed by it.”

The new arts complex, expected to open in 2022, will bring together music, theater, digital communications programs and the visual arts to form a center of creativity infused with science and technology. 

Austin Auditorium will be enhanced, and plans include spaces for theater classes and performances. Other areas will be devoted to classrooms designed for a media-rich environment; practice rooms and spaces for choir, symphony and band rehearsal; shop space equipped for work with sound, lights, animation and video; faculty offices and seminar rooms. 

More than $27 million has been raised toward the $30 million fundraising goal for the arts and education complex. The university will seek future approvals for $30 million in state bonds, providing a total of $60 million for the initiative.

Story By: 

Michelle Klampe
541-737-0784

Source: 

Larry Rodgers, 541-737-4581, [email protected]; Jill Cassidy, 541-737-6126, [email protected]

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