Arkansas Symphony officials expect the orchestra's $11.75 million Stella Boyle Smith Music Center, under construction on land between the Heifer International headquarters and the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock's East Village, to open on time and on budget.
Orchestra CEO Christina Littlejohn, during a tour of the facility on Tuesday, said the "secret weapon" in the progress has been Bailey Construction, which is building the 20,000-square-foot center that will house the orchestra's youth music and education programs, a recital-rehearsal hall, a recording studio and the organization's first permanent administrative headquarters.
Littlejohn said the building should be functionally complete by summer, giving orchestra personnel time to furnish and fine-tune the interior in advance of grand opening to the public this fall. The orchestra has been describing the facility as "a radically welcoming hub of musical activity for all Arkansans."
Project architect Benjamin Gregory of WER Architects described the building's facade as a way of connecting the interior performing spaces with the street outside, using tessellated metal panels inspired by rippling curtains and framing window spaces into what will be a wood-lined recital hall through which patrons will have a view into downtown Little Rock.
Music Director Geoffrey Robson showed off the space that will become the new recording, streaming, and broadcast studio, which is also linked to the recital hall and big enough to hold a grand piano and up to six performers. The space houses a control room that can also project sound throughout the building as necessary or desired.
Littlejohn noted that the studio will enable the orchestra to better serve audiences throughout the state through educational programs among other offerings, and recalling that the orchestra created pandemic programming, including its online "Bedtime With Bach" segments spotlighting orchestra players, which reached about a million viewers worldwide.
The building essentially has two wings, branching off the Irene and Gus Vratsinas lobby.
On one side are classrooms, practice and rehearsal rooms, teaching studios, a music library and administrative offices. On the other: the Susie and Charles Morgan Hall, where the full orchestra and Youth Orchestra will rehearse, and which will provide space for smaller-scale concerts, including the orchestra's River Rhapsodies chamber series, with seating up to 300; instrument storage, including a separate room for the orchestra's prized 9-foot Steinway concert grand piano; and a still-unassigned "shell" space for which Robson said orchestra personnel have been coming up with "all sorts of creative ideas."