Facilities & Venues


Instruction and Research Spaces

The KU School of Music offers exceptional instructional and research facilities for our students. 

Murphy Hall

Murphy Hall is a five-level facility containing offices for faculty in applied music, music education & music therapy, music theory & composition, opera, musicology, and ensembles. It contains choral and instrumental rehearsal halls, the Thomas Gorton Music and Dance Library, the Electronic Music Studio, Vocology Lab, classrooms, and practice rooms.

Students working at tables between library book shelves

Thomas Gorton Music and Dance Library

A fine library is a fundamental component in any school and the Thomas Gorton Music and Dance Library is an exceptional resource for the faculty and students of the School of Music.

Books, scores, sound recordings, and periodicals number in excess of 100,000, fully servicing all degree programs offered. The facility contains listening equipment, study carrels, and computers for online searches. The Library is staffed with professional music librarians who are able to assist with any need.

The Archive of Recorded Sound, a part of the Music and Dance Library, is an exceptional collection of sound recordings of great historical significance. It contains more than 75,000 items, including the Wright Jazz Collection, the Seaver Opera Collection, and Bierley Early Band Collection. The Archive contains all equipment necessary for playback of its various early recording technologies, including Pathe, Edison, and cylinder players. The Archive is a tremendous resource for performers and scholars.

The Archive of Recorded Sound is held off-site at the Library Annex. Patrons can request to have items sent to the Music and Dance Library for in-library use. Please use the Libraries’ Retrieve From Shelf service to request items from the Archive. Feel free to contact Chris Bohling, Music and Dance Library Operations Manager, if you have any questions about retrieving an item.

The Richard F. Wright Jazz Archive at the University of Kansas, part of the Music and Dance Library, is one of the most complete of its kind in the Midwest. Its holdings thoroughly cover all major jazz periods from the 1920's and 1930's on 78-rpm recordings.

A female presenting student sings into a microphone while a male presenting students takes readings at a computer monitor

School of Music Vocology Lab

The School of Music Vocology Laboratory is an integral component of our programs in choral pedagogy and voice pedagogy

Both choral pedagogy and voice pedagogy offer opportunities to explore ongoing dialogue among musicians and voice science experts, in addition to honing superb teaching, conducting, performing, and musicological skills. The lab affords state-of-the-art resources for research-based approaches to real-world singing contexts and has both stationary and mobile capabilities.

Choral & Voice Pedagogy Information

Vocology Lab Information

Close up of hands playing a concert grand piano

Instruments

The School of Music has a significant inventory of musical instruments.

There are 150 pianos, mostly Steinways, Yamahas, and Baldwins, including six concert grands. Other specialized equipment includes a Roland keyboard lab; the Collegium Musicum instrument collection which includes recorders, shawms, sackbuts, cornetts, crumhorns, lutes, violas da gamba, cornamuses, a ranket, a Baroque trumpet, and percussion instruments; a clavichord; four harpsichords; six practice organs; and a full complement of band and orchestral instruments.


Performance Venues

The School of Music presents over 300 concerts, student recitals, and performances during the course of the academic year at state-of-the-art performance venues on the University of Kansas main Lawrence campus. 

Please visit our events calendar for current performance listings. [link to an events page when there is one].

Empty organ concert hall, white walls, wood and gold pipe organ center

Bales Organ Recital Hall

The Bales Organ Recital Hall is a 200-seat facility dedicated to organ teaching and performance. The facility contains a tracker action pipe organ built by Hellmuth Wolff and Associates of Montreal, Canada. Click here for more information. [hotlink to bales page when it is completed]

Bales Organ Recital Hall
1600 Stewart Drive
Lawrence, KS 66045

For more information about Bales Recital Hall

An empty wood paneled concert hall with a black grand piano center-stage

Swarthout Recital Hall

Swarthout Recital Hall, a 272-seat facility with exceptional acoustics, is dedicated to faculty and student solo and chamber music performance and occasional chamber opera productions. Typically over 200 student, faculty, and/or visiting artist events are scheduled in Swarthout every year. Swarthout Recital Hall was remodeled and reopened in March 2015 after a full renovation.
People bowing onstage

Robert Baustian Theatre

The Robert Baustian Theatre, located at 102 Murphy Hall, is home to many KU Opera performances, and also serves as a space for opera rehearsals, auditions, and voice exams. It was originally used as the band/orchestra room for the School of Music, but the room received a makeover with the addition to Murphy Hall in 2000. KU School of Music alum David Holloway, now with the Santa Fe Opera, then bestowed a major gift for the express purpose of buying the rest of the necessary equipment for the theatre and named it for his KU mentor Robert Baustian.
Photo of the exterior of the Lied Center of Kansas

The Lied Center of Kansas

The Lied Center of Kansas is a multi-purpose, 2000-seat hall with exceptional acoustics, a state-of-the-art sound system, rehearsal and dressing rooms, and administrative spaces. Many of the band, jazz, chorus, orchestra, and dance performances take place in this facility.

The Lied Center of Kansas
1600 Stewart Drive
Lawrence, KS 66045

More about the Lied Center of Kansas