Facilities

Performance And Rehearsal Spaces

Most performances take place in the Roy O. Disney Music Hall, a multipurpose space with adaptable acoustics, lighting and sound features. This hall is used for both traditional and experimental events. Additional concerts and performances are presented on campus at the Walt Disney Modular Theater, and in the Main Gallery, the L-Shaped Gallery and the Donn B. Tatum Lounge. Off-campus, most performances are presented at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT).

REDCAT is CalArts’ downtown Los Angeles center for the presentation of innovative performing, visual and media arts. This unique facility is housed inside the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall complex, the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. The REDCAT performance space is ideal for contemporary work in music, featuring acoustics designed by master acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota and state-of-the-art technology for sound diffusion and image projection. Other features, such as adaptable seating, flexible rigging and variable acoustics, allow for performances in a variety of stage and audience configurations.

Practice Rooms
The School of Music has more than 25 practice rooms, many with pianos, including designated rooms for piano and percussion majors. All rooms are available 24 hours a day when school is in session.

Instruments

CalArts maintains a sizable collection that features 50 pianos, three harpsichords, an organ and a celesta; two harps; various string, woodwind, brass and early European instruments; numerous orchestral and non-traditional percussion instruments; Balinese and Javanese gamelans; African drum ensembles; and sarods, sitars, tabla and other Indian instruments.

Pianos include Falcone, Steinway, Bösendorfer, Baldwin, Fandrich and Yamaha instruments, as well as Yamaha MIDI pianos and Disklaviers. The school employs a full-time technician to maintain the piano collection.

Computer Music/Experimental Media Studios

The school has extensive state-of-the-art facilities for music synthesis, electronic composition, film/video scoring, digital recording, editing, processing and mixing. These facilities also support work with multimedia and telecommunications and the development of custom software and hardware. Studios provide a wide variety of music, sound, graphics, multimedia, telecommunications, and development software, including programs written by CalArts faculty, alumni and students. Studios are connected to each other and to other systems on the CalArts campus by means of a high-speed network. All studios are open 24 hours a day during academic sessions.

Library Resources

The ever-expanding music collection of CalArts’ Division of Library and Information Resources currently holds more than 18,000 music scores, 42,000 performance materials, music books, periodicals, 2,900 CDs and some 10,000 other recordings. The collection includes, among other items, the complete published scores of John Cage, and emphasizes 20th- and 21st-century materials. The library also provides CD listening stations, student computer labs and workstations with Internet access, and extensive research facilities and support.