Chandler Music Hall Reaches $3.2-Million Goal

Work progresses quickly inside the new addition being built at the rear of the 1907 Chandler Music Hall. (Herald / Bob Eddy)Chandler Board President Janet Watton announced this week the successful completion of its three-year campaign to raise $3.2 million for infrastructure improvements in the 102-year-old Chandler Music Hall and Gallery.

“Chandler staff and volunteers join with me in expressing thanks to everyone—all the individuals, businesses, foundations, and public funders throughout the region who made it possible for us to reach this ambitious goal,” she said.

“When we began in early 2007, it almost seemed unreachable. But because hundreds of donors value this wonderful old facility and its programming, their generosity has given us the ability to serve the region even better in the decades to come, with a safer, more comfortable, more accessible, and more modern facility.”

Though the ribbon-cutting is not scheduled until this coming fall, the first half of the infra-structure upgrades has already been completed by Brandon contractor Naylor & Breen, working closely with Chandler to ensure the least possible disruption of events.

Behind the Music Hall, a 4000-square-foot addition was erected on a newly-created massive earthen platform reinforcing the back wall of the historic building. The addition will be completed in April, providing space for a scenery workshop, storage for the Steinway concert grand piano and the costume collection, and flexible rooms for community uses and for staff.

It also houses an elevator serving all three floors of the facility.

Inside the original structure, the Gallery basement has been completely gutted and rebuilt to code from the ground up. The finishing touches are being applied to a restroom suite and community studio therein, and to the grand staircase leading down to them.

This new public space will feature an original stained glass window by Randolph artist Phil Godenschwager and several large panels of etched slate by Tunbridge artists Andrea Wasserman and Elizabeth Billings, all planned for installation in the late spring.

The second half of the construction, to be completed by July, includes a full upgrade of the Music Hall stage with steel catwalks plus a new lighting grid, and the installation of sprinklers and fire alarms throughout the building.

Additional connections will be opened between the Music Hall and Gallery, to improve circulation and integrate the two sides of the Chandler building, which were designed almost as two different buildings and were separately owned for 32 years.

Also, the floor of the Upper Gallery—a space to be dedicated next fall to former local music teacher Esther Mesh—will be reinforced to remove the “trampoline effect.”.

Campaign Co-Chairs Linda Morse and Sharon Rives extended special thanks to the voters of Randolph, whose 2007 $750,000 bond commitment for code-related improvements got the campaign off to a good start.

They also noted the work of Senator Patrick Leahy and the Preservation Trust of Vermont, whose work resulted in a $250,000 grant.

Rives also noted that two challenge awards made to the project “were critical to our success.”

The first was a challenge of $200,000 in 2008 from Jane’s Trust, and the second was $175,000 in 2009 from friends of Chandler in a final Raise the Curtain! Challenge.

“Donors responded enthusiastically to these opportunities to have their contributions doubled,” Rives said.

Executive Director Becky McMeekin was thrilled.

“This tremendous $3.2-million achievement—the largest-ever successful capital campaign in this region—belongs not to Chandler but to the thousands of Central Vermont and Upper Valley community residents who gave individually or through all kinds of organizations to make this impossible dream come true.

“Thank you, thank you, and thank you again.”

Progress photos of the Centennial Project can be seen on the website, www.chandler-arts.org.