It is always fun getting back to campus after my stay in Italy. I get e-mails while I am away from various colleagues, but e-mail news and descriptions never live up to reality. When I left on May 14, the new Conservatory building was well under way, but interior walls weren’t in place, and it took some imagination to see what the interior spaces would look like. The outside kept the feeling of our historic red barn and was both old and new thus tying us to our New England past. The first day I was back on campus, David Tierney, the Head of The Rivers School Conservatory, gave me a guided tour. What a change in five months!

The Rivera Recital Hall is a beauty. It is three full floors and reminds me of both Symphony Hall in miniature and an intimate European performance hall. Italian friends are coming in early November to perform in two recitals there as well as give a master class in performance of the piano literature of Mozart and Amy Beach. During my tour, I heard part of a rehearsal, and the hall’s acoustics are crisp and bright. There are now many practice rooms, a recording studio, a music library, a marimba magic room, chorus rehearsal space to name just a few. You will all have to take a tour when you are next on campus.

What especially pleased me was the name of this wonderful structure. It is called Bradley Hall in honor of Richard Bradley, Headmaster 1981-1991. Richard has been a champion of The Rivers School Conservatory for the past twenty-six years ever since he stepped foot on campus. His wife, Mary Bradley, is on the piano faculty of the Conservatory. After he retired as Head of School in 1991, Richard continued to be involved intimately with the conservatory’s programs and plans. You may not know it but more than seven hundred students attend and there is a faculty of about seventy-five teachers, about a dozen of whom also teach on the main campus. The Conservatory has certainly flourished since it joined The Rivers School in 1975. Those first heads of the music school, Richard Robbins and Ethel Bernard can be proud of what their predecessors have fostered.

I recommend you stop by soon to see the newest addition to our campus. It is another jewel in our crown.