Rockland Conservatory's Pearl River Home Taking Shape

Rockland Conservatory of Music Executive Director Marigene Kettler added tour guide to her duties Friday.

She took a group including Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee (D-Suffern) on a tour of the Conservatory's new home in Pearl River, which is still undergoing major renovations that should be completed some time this summer.

"It’s starting to really take shape," Kettler said. "Once the framing went up, you can stand in a room and think, 'Wow, there are going to be violins in here.'

"It starts to make it real."

The Conservatory has been in Spring Valley since Ed and Janet Simon founded it 55 years ago and is currently in a strip mall at 7 Pearlman Drive, a location they rent. They decided it would make more sense financially to buy their own building and closed in December on the 45 S. Main Street in Pearl River, next to the post office.

"I think this is an excellent location," Jaffee said. "What a brilliant idea. It is downtown Pearl River. It will draw people from all over the county and New Jersey to performances, for lessons for their children and for adults, too. When parents drop off their children, they can walk in Pearl River. They can shop and have lunch."

Jaffee, who conducted the Rockland Symphony Orchestra after months of training Dec. 7, 2003, has a strong appreciation for the Conservatory.

"The Conservatory is an incredible organization," Jaffee said. "(Because of them) so many people have an opportunity to perform in Rockland County."

The interior of the building had to be gutted and redone. The rooms are framework at this point, but that is enough to see where the ramp from the main entrance will be, how the rooms will be arranged around the main hall, which will be Simons Hall as it is in the current location. Simon Hall will seat 85 people when it is completed, but it will also have dividers that will allow it to be broken up into three smaller rooms when necessary.

The rooms will vary in shape, size and color. The smaller studios on the North side of the building will be various shades of yellow. The middle of the building will be different greens, with blue the primary color on the South side. The idea in part is to give each room a different feel, but there are also practical reasons for variation in sizes.

"(The idea is) giving each room a different personality, but also recognizing that if you’ve got a clarinet and a clarinet teacher, you don’t need a giant room," Kettler said. "But if you’ve got a grand piano and a teacher and student you need more space. Right now (in Spring Valley), almost all of our studios except a few in the back are the same size. Some studios are being used to their limit and some are being underused.

"We figured, if one studio is being used to its limit, can we make that studio a bit bigger and make the one next to it smaller. That was his thought. It gives us that flexibility. It's all about efficient use of space."

Another focus of the rooms is cutting down on the amount of noise that spills over from one to the next, something that is very important with different lessons going on in each studio.

“It will be a huge improvement in terms of sound spilling from one room to the next,” Kettler said. "You want to focus on two things. The first is sound transfer. Once you deal with that, you worry about sound quality within the room."

The permanent flooring is in place, a surface that was chosen with the idea of having many children in the building in mind.

"The flooring is durable," Kettler said. "It is skid-proof and kid-proof."

Architect Jeffrey Hall's designs have a focus beyond the practical.

"It is more attractive," Kettler said. "It draws you in. That’s the idea. Besides the good music you are getting, it makes you want to be there. We really want it to be that kind of thing where it feels good."

Kettler said that the Conservatory has opened its facilities up for groups to perform there in the past, but they will be looking to expand on that once they move into Pearl River.

"We feel that our move and having our own space like this is an opportunity for us to be a performing arts center," Kettler said. "Not on a huge scale, because it is a smaller space. We already do this, but we want to it on a larger scale."

When the work started, Kettler said she hoped to be moving in sometime this spring. The current target is September 1, though it still could be completed sooner than that. The plan is to be holding classes in Pearl River by Sept. 19, with an opening celebration Sept. 24.

"There are some things we just don’t know the time of," Kettler said. "We figure we’ll move in whenever we can during the summer. If we’re here before September, we’ll continue our summer lessons here. If we’re here Sept. 1, that’s on a break from classes."