Wheres that noise coming from?

Beyond the concrete facade lies the unique home to a handful of UMass students where sounds echo off the walls and young adults bury their heads in music books until the sun fades. Bezanson Hall is situated in the Fine Arts Complex, also known as the concrete maze connecting the music and art departments together from Bezanson through an overhead tunnel above Haigas Mall to Stockbridge Hall. The 200-seat Bezanson Recital Hall sits behind chrome doors to one side of the small yet comfortable lobby. Directly across the way students buzz in and out of the unknown through swinging double doors.

Once my tour guide had arrived I was taken beyond the doors to the mysterious place where so many students had been rushing to and music had been spilling from. Manish explained that Bezanson Hall was just the beginning and led us through the doors. We had officially arrived in the music department. There were offices on both sides of the hall with red tags that read foreign names to me. Manish read them aloud explaining their role in the music world at UMass and beyond. After a few head nods and little response he said, “These guys are pretty important.”

At the end of the narrow hall we turned around and headed back for the hollow concrete stairwell. While descending the stairs the sounds I had been hearing grew louder and seemed to be battling. The intertwined music from pianos, trumpets, and other unidentified instruments was seeping out of the practice rooms and bouncing off the narrow hallway walls. This floor was packed with practice rooms in which nearly every one contained a piano, and large metal lockers stood in any available space in the hall. Manish explained, “Stuff down here is really, really, really expensive.”

Within a matter of five minutes we had passed the recital hall, faculty offices, classrooms, practice rooms, and a common area for socializing where students were taking a break for lunch. I soon realized that this was the home away from home for roughly 300 undergraduate and graduate music students who spent most of their waking hours hard at work here.

After once again returning to the bleak stairwell it was off to the final destination, the grand finale. We strode through long and short dim hallways passing large lecture classrooms in what seemed like a basement, or dungeon. Finally we came upon two large metal doors with one word written across them. Manish stopped, looked at me, and said, “Welcome to backstage!”

As he opened the door to the stage my heart raced and the distant sounds of an orchestra grew louder. I peered inside the door looking at the tall draping curtains and random equipment sitting in the dark abandoned area. After taking one step in I realized I was not on any stage, but we had arrived at the Fine Arts Concert Hall and I was looking out into the empty audience. Without wanting to disrupt the orchestra that was practicing nearby I took one last look, closed the door behind me and followed my guide to the exit of the Fine Arts Center. Within a half hour I had seen a whole new world I never knew existed at UMass.