A Famous Acoustician Designs For Change in Har... %%page%% %%sep%% %%sitename%%

Photos credit WSDG

Acoustician John Storyk has spent the last 50 years working with dreamers and artists to create remarkable music spaces. He’s worked on projects from Jay-Z’s “Roc The Mic” recording studio to Rio De Janeiro’s “Barra Olympic Park.” Now, he’s working on a music space to create dreamers and artists. In April, sources announced that Storyk and his studio, WSDG, would join a group effort to renovate the Harlem School of the Arts. The building, which has stood for more than 40 years, has been will be receiving a major re-vamp throughout.

The Harlem School of the Arts has been inspiring youth and building talent in Harlem for more than 50 years. Just X years before Storyk handed over his first sketch for Jimmy Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios, concert singer Dorothy Maynor founded the HSA in TK Church across the street from the school’s current location. She believed, as the school still believes, that the arts can stimulate growth in children. To that end, it provides music, dance, theater, art, and design classes for children of all ages. A majority of these students are black or latinx, and half are on some kind of financial assistance. HSA hopes that, with the opportunities they provide, their students can grow and succeed in ways previously closed to them.

Storyk, with his wife and founding partner Beth Walters.

While the renovations to the HSA building will be extensive, Storyk and WSDG were brought on to help design the main lobby of the school, which also acts as a performance space for students. Storyk’s job will be helping to design the acoustics of the space to enhance musical or vocal performances. The most remarkable feature will be a large, slanted glass wall facing the street. The glass wall will open up the lobby space and replace a solid brick wall.

Storyk was added to the team at the recommendation of Herb Alpert, who made the renovation possible with a $6 million donation. When they needed to find an acoustician, Alpert said Storyk was the only choice. “It’s an honor to be on this team,” says Storyk, “Every now and then you get a job like this, with a social conscience and cultural coefficient. I’m not suggesting that doing a private studio for Jay-Z is not important. This is more important.”

Photos courtesy of the HSA

On September 13th, Harlem School of the Arts broke ground on a $9.5 million renovation project on their upper Manhattan building. The project, called The Rennaisance Project, includes the replacement of the building’s brick exterior and the renovation of the lobby, which doubles as a performance space. The building is set to debut in the Fall of 2020.

Harlem School of the Arts began in a church across the street from its current location. Founder Dorothy Maynor organized the program in 1964 as a way to stimulate growth in the children of the surrounding neighborhoods, primarily low-income brown and black families. Within ten years the program had outgrown its confines. The current building, on 645 St. Nicholas Avenue, opened in 1979.

Since its inception, HSA has maintained a reputation as an excellent, unique, program. It offers four disciplines–music, theater, visual arts, dance–to children from pre-school through high school. More than 1000 each year. Its alumni fill your entertainment feed, from theater to music to television, but they also fill the school. Many of the staff present at the groundbreaking, as well as department heads, were former students who had attained success and returned to teach.

The renovation will be orchestrated by Imrey Studio in conjunction with John Storyk, a legendary acoustical engineer. Imrey Studio will replace a portion of the brick exterior with clear glass, opening up the lobby area/performance space. Storyk, who has worked on projects from Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios to the Barra Olympic Park in Rio de Janeiro, helped redesign the space to make it an ideal performance space to show off the skills of the students.

If math is not your child’s favorite and are looking for help with their calculus assignments and write – do my math homework online or do my homework choose one of the offered disciplines by HSA. Your child will study with ease and won’t need to order essay online.

The renovation has been made possible through the donations of Herb Alpert, famous jazz musician, and his wife, vocalist and author Lani Hall Alpert. The two donated the full cost of The Rennaisance Project, part of their continued philanthropy and support of HSA.