UT School of Music's technology-enhanced building!

The University of Tennessee in Knoxville, celebrated the breaking of ground today on the Natalie L. Haslam Music Center, a new, technology-enhanced building for the UT School of Music.

The proposed four-floor, 123,000-square-foot building is named for Natalie Haslam, a graduate of the College of Arts and Sciences and a music and arts enthusiast.

“Natalie Haslam’s love of the University of Tennessee and its cultural arts truly make her our first lady of music,” said UT Knoxville Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek. “As we celebrate this building, the Natalie L. Haslam Music Center, it’s a great honor that it’s named for her and what she represents.”

In 2006, Natalie and Jim Haslam, co-chairs for the Campaign for Tennessee, and the Haslam Family Foundation gave the University of Tennessee $32.5 million. The largest allotment of this money, $10 million, went to the UT School of Music, which dedicated the funds for the construction of a new facility. It will house a new recital hall, music library, band room and office suite, computer labs, a recording studio, 40 performance studios/offices and a variety of technology-enhanced practice and rehearsal rooms.

The Haslams have been generous UT supporters for years, having dedicated gifts to a wide variety of programs across campus. The Haslams’s gift was part of the university’s $1 billion fundraising campaign, the Campaign for Tennessee. The most ambitious effort in the university’s history, the campaign places UT among the ranks of the nation’s largest public and private institutions that have sought this level of private support.