Blown away by groundbreaking for new fine arts building CCAT

Albuquerque, NM – On the evening of Tuesday, October 15, 2024, The UNM College of Fine Arts faculty, staff, students, and honored guests gathered at the site of the future fine arts building, the Center for Collaborative Arts & Technology, also known as CCAT, to celebrate the official Groundbreaking Ceremony. The new CCAT building will be located between Central Avenue and Redondo, across from Johnson Field.

“Imagine fine artists working alongside engineers; musicians collaborating with computer scientists; and designers exploring innovative solutions for the challenges of today in cooperation with environmental scientists. We’re not just imagining — we’re making it happen,” said the Dean of CFA, Harris Smith, as he welcomed all to the ceremony.

The new building will offer several collaborative spaces for performances, research, and exhibitions. The largest space in the project will be a 600-seat performance hall that will become a central performance space serving the departments of music, theatre & dance, and the department of film and digital arts. According to Keller Hall Production Manager, Rebecca Smith, during 2024 the Department of Music produced over 184 concerts and 37+ other events (lectures, workshops, etc.). The new Concert Hall will more than double capacity that is currently available in resources, such as Rodey Theatre and Keller Hall.

Following an energetic opening performance of drumming from the Percussion Ensemble led by Professor Scott Ney, Dean Smith opened the ceremony against the background of Central Avenue and cool dusk of early fall in New Mexico. The ceremony included several performances from ensembles within The UNM Department of Music as well as an original composition for the occasion by Professor Peter Gilbert titled “In a Pealing of Echoes,” performed by members of the Wind Symphony Brass Ensemble and directed by Director of Bands, Emily Moss.

In speaking about the creative process and inspiration of the piece, Professor Gilbert said, “Doing music outdoors has a number of issues that can be problematic, so I wanted to turn those problems into advantages and really make the piece about a sense of wide-open space. I think for me it became a kind of metaphor for a breadth of opportunity—basically using the site as a blank canvas. On Sunday mornings, where I live in the summers in Germany, you can hear bells ringing from all the different bell towers around our small town and it is an amazing sonic experience. So, I was going for, not for that exact sound, but trying to embody something from that feeling and experience and channel it into the optimism that I think the CCAT building represents for us today.”

Performers of this piece were positioned around the ceremony site, which resulted in an acoustic experience like no other, with trumpeted fanfare washing over guests from various angles throughout the performance. Student performers in the Wind Symphony Brass Ensemble were also accompanied by Professor of French Horn, Michael Walker. Student performers included: Alexander Hardin, Ava Cardner Tyler Fries, Hannah Wren, Samuel Dickson, Angel Frias, Terrence Perrier, Hollis Smith, Damon Hess, Ricardo Zamora Torres, Dominic Dowdy, Samuel van den Bosch, Mauricio Fortuna, J.C. Bull, and. Thanh Reu.

Professor Gilbert also shared a few notes on the concepts driving the original composition, “In a Pealing of Echoes,”

When the call sounds from a distance
rise to hear from where it hails.
When the bells sing for your ardor
rise to the challenge they invoke.
And when your voice is returned to you
in a pealing of echoes
rise to be that which you know you can.

President of UNM, Garnett Stokes was welcomed to the stage by Dean Smith after the UNM Wind Symphony Brass Ensemble performance. In the introduction, Dean Smith also recognized President Stokes as a first-generation college graduate and the first woman to hold the position of President of The University of New Mexico. President Stokes stated, “It is my own dream that CCAT will foster creativity, innovation, and collaboration among our students, faculty, staff, and the wider Albuquerque community. This project holds immense importance for UNM Fine Arts, as it seeks to cultivate future creatives and audiences while advancing a critical, creative workforce, which in turn will boost New Mexico’s economy. As a steward of The University of New Mexico, a first-generation college graduate myself, and enthusiastic supporter of the College of Fine Arts, I have enjoyed the College’s place within our community as the heart of the arts in New Mexico.”

Next, Dean Harris Smith welcomed Professor of Ceramics Clarence Cruz, who led a very sacred traditional Pueblo blessing ceremony. Professor Cruz, Department Chairs, students, alumni, and staff participated in offering corn pollen to the four directions as part of an approach to land acknowledgement and as signifier of an innovative approach to the collaborative community that will inhabit CCAT.

Chair of the Department of Film & Digital Arts, James Stone stated, “The groundbreaking made me proud to belong to the College of Fine Arts and UNM. With Professor Peter Gilbert’s remarkable fanfare rising through the evening breeze and across old Route 66, I couldn’t have felt more hopeful about the future of our college.”

As the wind picked up and dusk descended, guests also enjoyed a final performance by the UNM Mariachi Ensemble, led by program Director Robert Lucero and Post-Doctoral Fellow Adolfo Estrada before transitioning to Tamarind Institute for a reception.
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LEARN MORE about the Center for Collaborative Arts & Technology by visiting the website at https://finearts.unm.edu/ccat/