The Olin Arts Center, dedicated on October 11, 1986, is an important addition to the Bates campus and the entire central-Maine community, a place for both the creation and presentation of the arts. The music department has extensive facilities in this building, which is approaching its fourteenth anniversary season.

Facilities and Resources The Olin Arts Center houses ten practice rooms with pianos, three teaching studios, five classrooms and seminar rooms and a 300 seat acoustically superb recital hall. The Department of Music owns a Steinway concert grand piano, a new Disklavier, a William Dowd harpsichord, an 18th century replica fortepiano, and a magnificent tracker organ located in the College Chapel. The Bates Computer Music Studio includes up-to-date Macintosh computers, synthesizers, and recording equipment, with software for sound synthesis, MIDI, and for music notation available to all students in music courses. Students may work in the studio in connection with course work, and introductory workshops to computer music tools are offered at the beginning of each semester.

The Computer Music Studio and the recording studio are electronically connected to twelve classrooms specially equipped to receive audio and video signals. Mobile sound systems, including CD players, amplifiers, and equalizers, can be moved easily to all parts of the building. Individual and group practice rooms, two soundproof seminar rooms, a rehearsal studio and a music library are also used by the music department.

The Olin Concert Hall, located at the heart of the Center, can accommodate an audience of three hundred. Its semicircular stage, large enough for a sixty-piece orchestra, is acoustically suited to both large and small ensembles. The space is also used for dance performances, lectures, and film showings.

Directions to the Olin Arts Center

From the Maine Turnpike:
The College is located approximately three miles from Maine Turnpike exit 13 (Lewiston Exit). From Exit 13, proceed on off-ramp to stop sign. Turn left at stop sign, following signs for Lewiston, which will take you onto Lisbon Street (Route 196 West). Continue 1.6 miles to a major intersection. Turn right onto East Avenue (Route 202 and 4 North).

Continue straight for 1.6 miles through three lights. Turn left onto Russell Street at the fourth light. Proceed through one more light and turn left onto Bardwell Street (across from a variety store); the Olin Arts Center will be on your right, and parking will be on your left.

Click the link for a detailed calendar and current information about concerts and other performances,For other information, call the Olin Arts Center at (207) 786-6135.