In the middle of a symphony’s softest moment when a hall holds its collective breath, the only sound you want is silence. At Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, that quiet was too often interrupted by the sound of a chair creaking as someone shifted in their seat. The original chairs of Stude Concert Hall and Lillian H. Duncan Recital Hall were installed when Alice Pratt Brown Hall opened in 1991. Not only had they been worn past the point of repair, the school had exhausted its inventory of spares and was reduced to cannibalizing chairs for parts.
“We realized that it was really over time for us to replace these seats,” said Matthew Loden, the Lynette S. Autrey Dean of Music.
The undertaking wasn’t just about aesthetics or comfort. As a premier music school, every detail — from chair joints to air ducts — has the potential to affect performance. So when the school launched its summer project to restore the two main venues, the goal was to make everything feel more elevated while changing almost nothing at all.
“This project is less of a renovation and more like a restoration,” Loden said. “If you think about an incredible painting, the way in which you approach wanting to make sure that the purity of the original artistic intention is still there, that’s what we’ve done here.”
The project team, led by Shepherd School director of facilities operations Michael Freese and senior facilities manager Marty Merritt ’85, aimed to retain the existing visual identity while improving functionality, comfort and safety. That meant keeping the color palette and layout nearly identical but replacing and upgrading almost every detail.
“To me there’s just a whole new level of richness to it,” Merritt said. “Everything looks new. Everything looks clean. Everything looks more upscale.”
The seats — supplied by Ducharme in Montreal — were selected after intensive testing and review. In Duncan Recital Hall, they are now mounted directly to the floor, correcting a long-standing structural issue.
“They will be much more secure and much less likely to wobble or get loose over time,” Merritt said.
As part of the restoration, the Shepherd School has also launched a seat-naming initiative that allows patrons to be part of this transformation by having a brass plaque with their name or a loved one’s name engraved on the back of a seat in either hall. Giving levels range from $1,000 to $5,000 depending on seat location.
Beyond the seating, one of the most noticeable upgrades is underfoot. Thanks to a generous gift from Rice alumnus Russ Pitman, the project replaced painted concrete flooring with engineered white oak hardwood in both halls.
“In Duncan, the flooring is in a chevron pattern similar to that found in Morrison Theater at Brockman Hall for Opera, and that’s going to be something that even the casual observer will notice,” Freese said.
The painstakingly orchestrated, 12-week construction sprint involved architects, acousticians, consultants, contractors and Rice’s project management team. Every material — from the foam in the cushions to the fibers in the carpet — had to be evaluated to ensure the halls’ acoustic profiles remained untouched.
“Something that looks simple on the exterior obviously takes a lot of effort and a lot of planning to make it appear that way,” Freese said.
With barely three months between the end of spring classes and the start of fall, the project left no room for delays. Custom seats and carpets had to be fabricated and shipped on a tight schedule, and the team raced to avoid unpredictable tariffs on Canadian imports.
“There was a period of time for a couple of weeks where I was a little sleepless about whether or not we would actually pull it off,” Loden said.
But they did — just in time for the school’s 50th anniversary, which will include a celebratory Nov. 8 fall gala welcoming distinguished faculty, alumni and guests from around the world.
“We knew that when we had all the VIPs, dignitaries and faculty members from around the world joining us, we had to put them in comfortable seats,” Loden said.
The result is a pair of concert halls that feel as intimate and refined as ever but now with fewer distractions, enhanced safety and greater acoustic integrity. It’s a subtle transformation that rewards attention.
“Everywhere you look, there’s something to delight your eyes,” Merritt said.
For an institution that hosts more than 400 concerts a year, including high-profile events for the university and international guests, the impact of such attention to detail resonates far beyond aesthetics.
“When people come in, I hope that they pay attention to the incredible things that are happening on stage and that they are able to celebrate the wonderful musical moments that we have here at the Shepherd School,” Loden said. “That would make all of us really happy and feel like we had accomplished what we needed to.”