Chase Fine Arts Center facts for kids

The Daryl Chase Fine Arts Center is a cool place at Utah State University (USU) where you can enjoy and learn about art! It has many different spaces for visual arts (like painting and sculpture) and performing arts (like music, dance, and plays). It's named after Daryl Chase, who was the tenth president of USU from 1954 to 1968.

This center is home to several performance halls, including the Kent Concert Hall and Morgan Theatre. It also has places like the Tippetts Balcony and the Black Box Studio Theatre. You'll find the departments for Art, Music, Theatre, and Landscape Architecture here. Plus, there are lots of practice rooms, classrooms, and offices for students and teachers.

The Chase Fine Arts Center is a main part of USU's Fine Arts Complex. Other important buildings in this complex include the Manon Caine Russell Kathryn Caine Wanlass Performance Hall and the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art.

Amazing Performance Spaces

The Chase Fine Arts Center has several stages and halls where amazing shows happen. These spaces are used by students, local groups, and even famous performers from around the world!

The Big Kent Concert Hall

The Kent Concert Hall is the biggest and most important space in the Chase Fine Arts Center. It has 2,168 seats, which is a lot! This hall is mostly used for large music groups like orchestras, big bands, and choirs.

Since it's the largest auditorium at USU and in the whole Cache Valley, it hosts many different events. You can see national and international music, dance, and theater shows here. It's also used for community events and university groups, like the American Festival Chorus led by Craig Jessop. The Kent Concert Hall opened in 1967.

Inside the concert hall, there's a huge pipe organ. It was built in 1973 by the Holtkamp company. This organ has 43 stops, 56 ranks, and 3,027 individual pipes! It's installed on the west wall and looks very modern.

Sometimes, the main floor of the Kent Concert Hall turns into a giant classroom. This happens twice a week for a big "Creative Arts" course. Almost every USU student takes this class, which is taught by opera singer Michael Ballam.

Other Fun Performance Venues

The Morgan Theatre is another great place to see a show. It has 670 seats and is a "thrust theatre." This means the stage sticks out into the audience, making the show feel more up close. It's perfect for smaller, more personal plays, especially those put on by the USU Theatre Department.

The Chase Fine Arts Center also has a smaller, cozy space called the Tippetts Balcony. It's a glass-enclosed room with 150 seats, great for recitals and smaller performances.

For really unique and close-up shows, there's the Black Box Studio Theatre. This space can seat up to 90 people. It's called a "black box" because it's a simple, dark room that can be set up in many different ways for very intimate productions.

Cool Art Galleries

The Chase Fine Arts Center isn't just for performances; it also has spaces to show off amazing visual art!

Tippets Exhibit Hall

Next to the Tippets Balcony, you'll find the Tippets Exhibit Hall. This is a large gallery, about 4,500 square feet (418 square meters). It often displays artwork created by students and teachers from USU. It's a great place to see what talented artists at the university are creating!

Awesome Learning Spaces

Besides the performance and exhibit areas, the Chase Fine Arts Center has many special rooms and tools for students to use.

For example, there's a huge ceramics space, about 15,000 square feet (1,394 square meters). Ceramics students use seven different kilns (ovens for clay) of various sizes. They also have their own studio spaces and equipment to create pottery and sculptures.

Students interested in graphic design, video editing, and other digital arts can use the Fine Arts-Visual computer lab. This lab has special software and equipment for design and video projects. There are also photography labs and individual music practice rooms that students can rent to work on their skills.