THE VARSITY The University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880
January 28, 2025
page
Arts
David Lynch cannot die
10
“Why am I at U of T?”: T?”:
Faculty of Music students raise concerns over building conditions Students discuss inadequate funding, lack of university response Selia Sanchez News Editor
Students at U of T’s Faculty of Music have described the conditions of 90 Wellesley Street West as “poor,” “terrible,” and “rundown.” Built in 1955 as a dormitory, the building has been used by U of T’s music students since 2007. Despite repeated calls on the university administration to address issues in the building, students in the Faculty of Music claim that their concerns go unheard. In interviews with The Varsity, music students weighed in on the building’s conditions, the Faculty of Music’s funding, and the university’s response. Music spaces U of T’s Faculty of Music has two sites at the UTSG campus: the Edward Johnson Building (EJB) at 80 Queen’s Park and the Faculty of Music South building at 90 Wellesley Street West. The EJB includes the MacMillan Theatre — an 815-seat theatre which features a 50-person orchestra pit — and Walter Hall — a small auditorium designed for chamber music and solo recitals. The MacMillan Theatre has been closed since December 2023 due to ongoing renovations, which has sparked frustration among music students and faculty who have had to relocate to other theatres in the GTA to perform. The EJB also houses performance spaces, large ensemble rehearsal rooms, classrooms, studio offices, and a Music Library. The Faculty of Music South building includes classrooms, student lounges, faculty offices, and practice rooms. In 2011, the building was partially renovated for the Jazz program, graduate student offices, and other performance functions. The university is currently planning to build a new site at 90 Queen’s Park for the School of Cities, which will include additional Faculty of Music facilities. The building will connect to the EJB directly, and include a new recital hall and other areas for performances, conferences, and special events. Eric Yang — a fourth-year music student studying history, culture and theory and the president of the Faculty of Music Undergraduate Association (FMUA) — noted that the current plans for the new site don’t include classrooms, student spaces, office spaces: “all things that we need.” “The plans are to just build another concert hall, which we have two of those,” he said in an interview with The Varsity. “It’s not the first priority.”
Questionable conditions Students in the Faculty of Music have raised several concerns over the conditions of the Faculty of Music South building. “The conditions of 90 [Wellesely] are somewhat questionable at best,” wrote Fabian Nunez Ramos, a fourth-year music student studying jazz education and FMUA jazz director, in an email to The Varsity. “The practice rooms themselves are all old dormitories, and not all of them have desks or chairs for jazz students to utilize for doing music theory and other written work,” he explained. “On top of that[,] not all practice rooms have [pianos]/keyboards for students to practice in.” Ramos added that the roof tiles were old, there were only a few functioning water fountains, and there were mice in the building a few months ago which were “dealt with after the FMUA brought it up [to the administration] countless times.” He also claimed that the building had no air conditioning, which made it difficult to practice in the warmer months and “sometimes there is no heating so it’s too cold to practice.” “Keep in mind we are music students, and it is essential that we have places to perform,” he wrote. Jay-Daniel Baghbanan — a second-year classical voice student and vice-president, student life at the FMUA — noted in an interview with The Varsity that the conditions of the building are “rundown” and “not fit for the needs of the music [students at U of T].” “[Students] come to a music faculty and have trouble booking a practice room… and then the room that you end up in has an out of tune, rickety piano, [a] carpeted floor that is absorbing your sound, and the ceiling feels so low like your sound is not traveling anywhere. And then you practice in that, and you develop bad habits because of that,” he explained. Continued on page 2.
Vol. CXLV, No. 16