David Gier, Director of the University of Iowa School of Music spoke on January 24 about the School of Music programs and the new Voxman Music Building.
 
Visiting Rotarians and Guests
 
David Gier-- Speaker
John-Mark Stensvaag-- Guest of Nancy Stensvaag
 
Announcements
 
Deb Dunkhase talked about what each Rotarian can do to celebrate January as Rotary Awareness Month.  Use your "elevator speech" about what Rotary is and does; wear your pin; get a Rotary bumper sticker; pass out the Rotary Be Our Guest business cards.
 
Deb announced that at its Thursday Jan 19 meeting the Board agreed to induct into membership Angela Overman and Kate Sojka.  The formal introduction to the Club will occur in a couple weeks.
 
There were 10 trivia teams battling it out at the annual AM Rotary Trivia Nite at the Mellow Mushroom on Jan. 17.  The Rockin Rotarians won (Chris and Vernette Knapp and Tom and Ann Langenfeld.)  Congrats!
 
Checks were received from the Can Shed for $1700 and from Habitat for the can sorting of $650.  Our recycling efforts continue to bring in cash for our service projects and programs!
 
Next week Hazel Seaba will update the group on social events planned for the remainder of the year and the Fundraising Committee will meet after our regular meeting.
 
Be careful to lock your car in the Kirkwood parking lot during our meeting.  Some property was stolen out of Mark Patton's car last week.
 
Mark Patton is going to be participating in Bowling for Kids Sake in February and will do some matching donations for up to 10 members who decide to form teams for this event.
 
Several members are out sick with flu.  Best to stay home should you have the flu on a meeting day!
 
A few members shared happy bucks.
 
Rotarians in the News
 
Dave Parsons had a picture in the Iowa Alumni News while he was participating in the Alumni Band.
 
Speaker
 
David Gier, Director of the UI School of Music presented the program on the School and the new Voxman Music Building.
 
The School of Music is a full-service music school with BA through PhD programs in a full range of programs from Music Therapy, to Performance, to a Jazz.  Among its most distinctive programs are the Ellen Tye Opera Theatre, the Center for New Music, the UI String Quartet Residency Program and the Jazz MA program.  The are 450 music students and another 2000 general students who participate in music programs during the year.  About 350 events are held during the year, most of which are free to the public.  Check out the School of Music website.
 
The new Voxman Building was in design for 3 years and in the process of being built for 3 years.  It is the most complex building from a design and construction stand-point, on the entire campus and there are several unique features not found anywhere else.  Unique features include the cut-out design of the performance hall ceiling, a specially built organ and another smaller Baroque organ, and the terra cota finish used on the outside of the building.

There were initial challenges in order to fit all needed functions into the building and also to be able to certify the building as LEED Gold.  The downtown location really drove the design.  Each space amounted to boxes inside of boxes in order to achieve maximum soundproofing and ideal acoustic qualities.  In order to expand the performance spaces to go beyond the footprint of the building the 700 seat theater and another 200 seat recital hall were put on the 2nd floor and built to jut out over the sidewalk on two sides.  Several spaces are multiple stories high and had to be fit into the building like a 3-dimensional puzzle.  In total there are 189,000 sq ft in the Voxman building.