Introducing the Hamel Music Center

The Hamel Music Center opened in fall 2019 as the new performance and rehearsal space for the UW’s Mead Witter School of Music. The zigzag concrete exterior wall is a decorative curtain that conceals soundproof structural walls.

The large performance space in the new Hamel Center is the 660-seat Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall. The red circles on the wall are acoustical coffers, which absorb and reflect sound to enhance the musical experience.

Wallpaper in the building’s 299-seat Collins Recital Hall was designed by William Weege ’66, MFA’71, a UW professor emeritus of art and cofounder of Tandem Press. The building’s color scheme is meant to reflect the changing colors of Wisconsin maple leaves.

The lobby is one of the few places in the building where you might hear Madison traffic. The center’s venues are intended to be entirely soundproofed from each other and from street noise.