performing arts center

n the grand lobby of the Murchison Performing Arts Center, a well-dressed crowd stands shoulder to shoulder, waiting for the doors to open. There is buzz about the room as last-minute concertgoers hunt for available tickets. First-time visitors seem mesmerized by the abstract art – a pile of rusty brown building blocks, an oversized bike chain in metallic blue, and what looks to be a big sewing wheel in silver. Off to one side, a group of musicians in black coattails and full-length gowns exude calm amid the chaos. Inside the Winspear Performance Hall, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra is already beginning to assemble onstage. Stragglers rush in from a maze of rehearsal rooms while a lone violinist continues to warm up, the sound echoing backstage.

Finally, the crowd is signaled to enter the performance hall and there, sitting in a balcony above the stage (looking very much like a jury in an old English court), is the 130-member Dallas Symphony Choir dressed completely in black. Above the giant concert hall, the Winspear’s seven pentagon-shaped acoustic “clouds” and 10 flying curtains are arrayed for maximum sound effect. The hall falls silent as conductor Jaap van Zweden, a Leonard Bernstein protégé, ascends his podium. He raises his baton, and with one sweeping motion, the orchestra begins to play Symphony No. 9 in D minor, or simply, “Choral” by Ludwig van Beethoven.

Dallas may be grabbing headlines these days for its new performing arts center, but for the past decade, Denton’s Murchison complex – with its massive Winspear Performance Hall and small, experimental Lyric Theater – has been luring the local arts crowd and visitors alike to the University of North Texas campus for over 800 events annually. With the nation’s top-rated College of Music as its neighbor, the Murchison is a hub of constant activity, shuffling eight resident companies, student rehearsals and even a church on Sundays.

The center has hosted celebrities as varied as Tony Award-winning actress and singer Betty Buckley and the late human rights activist Coretta Scott King. But visitors are just as likely to run into Comedy Central regular Michael Ian Black (set for a February show), kids practicing for the Mariachi summer camp, or members of UNT’s Grammy-nominated One O’Clock Lab Band. (Alas, the guy who once played a cactus onstage hasn’t been sighted rehearsing recently.)

The Murchison, with its shiny hard shell, is hard to miss architecturally. The New York architects, displaying a sense of humor, picked the official Texas mascot – an armadillo – as inspiration for their provocative design. They backed the stage with a pentagon-shaped honeycomb of glass that glows yellow at night from the outside. With UNT’s renowned musical reputation at stake, the acoustics in Winspear had to be state of the art – and good enough to block out the sound of Interstate 35. The giant hall – which seats up to 1,025 people – can be adjusted acoustically, much like an instrument, for everything from a single piano player to a jazz ensemble or a professional orchestra. For clarity, the acoustic clouds suspended from the ceiling can be moved to enhance sound while 10 echo-deadening curtains help absorb sound. The most prominent fixture in the hall is the recently added Ardoin-Voertman Concert Organ with 3,800 pipes that rise 35 feet above the main stage. The $1.5 million organ weighs 8 metric tons.

The Lyric Theater, used primarily for operatic performances, is built like a black box with seating that can be rearranged or removed depending on the performance. Jeff Cochran, director of the Murchison, is a self-proclaimed “theater guy,” who says he lucked into the position nearly five years ago. “I’m probably the only person here who doesn’t play an instrument,” he says, while working from his mildly cluttered office, a sure sign of a busy venue. “I thought I was going to do Shakespeare my entire life. But now I do Bach every day.” He loves to bring his two musician sons, 5 and 10, to the Lyric for opera, but even after five years, he is astounded by the variety of music styles and instruments he’s regularly exposed to – from African dancers to Caribbean steel drum bands and the United States Army Field Band. “The Murchison works in Denton because of the community,” says Jeff. “It tells the story of an open, mixed community that supports different music and art.” (He confides that it took some special electronic gear to actually play the cactus.)

As Bach’s Ninth Symphony comes to an end, the audience jumps to its feet and gives van Zweden a five-minute standing ovation, requiring two stage bows. It is a tribute not just to the conductor, but to the Winspear’s acoustics.

See calendar pages 16-17 for events. For ticket information, call (940) 369-7802 or visit www.music.unt.edu/mpac/.

by Carrie johnson