Things Come Around

A few years ago I wrote this post about Crowley Hall where I spent many, many hours as an undergraduate, and I wrote about how I developed such a fondness for this slightly dingy old music building. My loyal readers will know by now that me loving an old thing isn't exactly unusual, but believe me when I say that Crowley wasn't the charming variety of "old." It was the broken variety, the outdated and desperate-for-some-TLC kind of old.

Yet when I graduated I couldn't even bear to give back my practice room keys. We grow to love imperfect things despite and sometimes even because of their flaws and shortcomings and problems. I probably used those keys more than 1000 times to unlock a cramped room containing a piano that inevitably had at least one broken key, but in spite of the lack of space and the dud keys, music happened in those rooms. Beauty lived there. We made sure of it.

It's funny how things come around. Starting next fall, Notre Dame will begin construction on a brand new music building that will be attached to the south side of the stadium. It will be a state-of-the-art facility--practice rooms, sound-proofing, new instruments, a recital and rehearsal hall, a music library. And I'm thrilled about it. So, so thrilled and proud of the university for making this decision and my old professors who more than deserve this space and excited for the new students who get to unlock those brand new practice rooms and christen the halls with Bach and Mozart and Brahms.

Do I wish this building had been constructed during my time at school? Of course. It's going to be wonderful.

But I also feel so proud of all of us music majors who had only little old Crowley Hall. I like to think we helped pave the way by showing the university what we could do and what our professors could teach us. We put our passions on display and worked hard despite the limitations we faced and it took awhile, but our persistence paid off.