Chapels on college and university campuses are a well-established presence—an ancient one in Europe while a newer one in North America—and boasting many striking examples of architecture, piety, and community.  Here in the U.S.A., two especially noteworthy milestones are Battell Chapel (built in 1874-75) at Yale University and the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel (built in 1928) at the University of Chicago, each serving not only as a distinctive place of worship, but also as an established concert venue. (Rockefeller Memorial Chapel is particularly favored by organists for its E. M. Skinner organ, which can frequently be heard on commercial recordings and in radio broadcasts.)  Here in Rochester, one prominent collegiate chapel is the Hermance Family Chapel of St. Basil the Great at St. John Fisher University, closely associated with that institution’s own faith tradition, and providing daily opportunities for corporate worship.  The chapel of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School is an architectural jewel that is frequently rented out as a private wedding venue.  At the University of Rochester, the Interfaith Chapel overlooking the Genesee River offers the U of R community a site for corporate worship, private meditation and reflection, and community building.  The Interfaith Chapel provides a spiritual home for students of no fewer than twelve traditions, including Hindu, Muslim, Cru, and Pagan, in addition to the traditional Judeo-Christian traditions.  Around the Eastman School of Music, what hasn’t been well remembered is that there was once an inter-faith chapel set aside for Eastman students.  Sixty-four years ago this week, on the afternoon of Sunday, October 23^rd, 1960, the Howard Hanson Inter-Faith Chapel was dedicated for use by the Eastman School community, with the spiritual needs of students singled out as the chapel’s mission.  Situated on the second floor of the Cutler Union building, the chapel remained in use for over two decades.

Professor Morris Pierce of the UR’s Department of History has done extensive research on the University’s facilities and buildings; his webpage documenting Cutler Union is informing.  The Eastman School acquired Cutler Union, set on spaceious grounds on University Avenue, in 1955 and thereafter maintained it for several purposes, in particular as a performance venue and a gathering place.  In addition, several people had offices there, including Dr. Howard Hanson, who upon his 1964 retirement as ESM Director was assigned an office on the second floor of Cutler Union, from which he directed the newly founded Institute for American Music. As late as 1990, Eastman students were still performing at Cutler Union, where there were two dedicated performance spaces, those being an auditorium and a parlor. What was previously the building’s auditorium today houses the ballroom.  Recent postings by Eastman alumni on Facebook have confirmed the significant place that Cutler Union held in their lives as students, both academically and socially.^[1]  Over the years, however, the costs to the Eastman School of maintaining Cutler Union rose steadily, and in 1981, a space-sharing arrangement between the Eastman School and the Memorial Art Gallery was enacted.^[2]  In time, the entire premises of Cutler Union were absorbed by the Memorial Art Gallery.  Today, what was once the west entrance to Cutler Union is an interior door at the east end of the Vanden Brul Pavilion that connects Cutler Union with MAG.  Displayed here are photos of Cutler Union as it appeared in the early 1960s, together with several recent shots.  In 1960, the Howard Hanson Inter-Faith Chapel was created out of a space on Cutler Union’s second floor, suitably appointed with distinctive windows, an altar, and a screen that served to partition the space from the corridor beyond.

Eastman School Historian Professor Emeritus Vincent Lenti has confirmed that there had been definite interest on the part of Eastman students in the founding of a chapel.^[3]  What eventually transpired was that in 1958, a committee was formed under the direction of Charles F. Hutchison^[4] for purposes of fundraising for a chapel.  Alumni and other interested individuals from across the nation responded favorably and substantively.  Dedication of the new chapel was scheduled for the fall of 1960; the dedication ceremony would be by invitation due to the limited seating available.^[5]  The chapel’s seating capacity was 50, and for the ceremony, additional chairs were added spreading out into the corridor.  No printed program from the dedication ceremony is extant at the Sibley Music Library, but the order of service was later published (displayed here)^[6].  The music at the ceremony was performed by the Eastman Trombone Choir, directed by Professor Emory Remington, and the Eastman Polyphonic Choir, directed by Professor M. Alfred Bichsel.  Significantly, the music included two sacred anthems composed by Hanson himself.  The pastoral participants in the ceremony were an inter-faith group: a Jewish rabbi, a Roman Catholic priest, and a Presbyterian minister.  The lector at the ceremony was Mr. Vincent Lenti, BM ’60 and at that time a first-year graduate student.  Significantly, several special gifts were rendered by way of appointing the chapel with essential items.  A photograph of four Eastman students surveying the chapel’s altar was published in the Rochester press, underscoring the student-focused purpose of the chapel (displayed here).

The dedication ceremony, roughly one half-hour in duration, was recorded and can be heard today. ^[7]  The aural quality is somewhat uneven; several portions of the speaking are faint, likely the result of the microphone’s placement. The performances by the Eastman Trombone Choir and the Eastman Polyphonic Choir are, in a word, superlative.  To me, the most striking aspect of the recording is the statement delivered by Dr. Hanson himself; I think it worthwhile to quote his statement in its entirety:

My wife has told me that I have made so many speeches for so many years that she felt that if, in the middle of the night, someone were to suddenly get up and say, “I now present to you the Director of the Eastman School, Howard Hanson,” that I would get up in the middle of the night and make a [    indiscernible    ] speech on any subject.  I must say that at this occasion, I have none.  You have demolished me completely.

I have had many [ indiscernible    ]  and I have been honored many times, much above my deserts, but certainly I have never been honored as I am today, and certainly never have I been so completely unworthy of such an honor.

I can only say that when these things happen in the lives of people, it is one of the things that makes life itself worth living.  It gives you a feeling of tremendous humility  [      indiscernible    ].  To all those wonderful people who have made this possible, I would like to extend my most humble thanks.  For the Eastman School, where this chapel will serve thousands of gifted young people from all over our country, and indeed from all over the world, I express my thanks  [      indiscernible    ].  I know that I shall never be quite the same after this ceremony.  And I know that those who come from every creed, faith, and color who meditate here will find in this beautiful chapel a direct means of communication with the Lord [    indiscernible    ].

Throughout his long career, Howard Hanson had been an invited speaker on many, many, many occasions, usually speaking on matters associated with music education, arts administration, the value of the arts in an age of science, standards in musical performance and programming, as well as his perennial cause, American music and the American composer.  His annual Convocation addresses at the Eastman School are remarkable instances of inspirational speaking; indeed, they read almost like homilies or sermons, owing to his numerous references to the Deity.^[8]  (Hanson’s God was a Christian God; Hanson himself was a Protestant believer.)  Nevertheless, his remarks at Cutler Union on October 23^rd, 1960 must surely rank as his most personal public utterance ever.   Hanson was a decidedly public man, living out his musical-administrative life in the public eye and seeming to relish his public role, but such unscripted and personal remarks as these were decidedly not his custom.  On the tape one can hear him pause numerous times, as though he were searching his words, speaking extemporaneously, and in a voice was laden with emotion. Indeed, several words were delivered with full emphasis, most particularly the word demolished.  In Howard Hanson’s long public life, this occasion—the dedication of a chapel in his honor—was exceptional, but might also be considered fitting, given his own religious aspirations and the associations that he perceived between music and faith.

Professor Lenti has confirmed that, as the years passed, the chapel became a favored site for private weddings.  When Cutler Union was absorbed by the Memorial Art Gallery, the chapel space on the second floor was repurposed.  Through the courtesy of UR colleagues at the Memorial Art Gallery led by Barbara Kintzel, I had the opportunity on October 19th, 2024 for a private tour of the second floor of Cutler Union.  The greater part of the former chapel space is now a conference room, and the area that had been the chancel (with the altar) is now given over to administrative offices.  As a reminder of the chapel that once graced the second floor of Cutler Union, the name Howard Hanson Chapel still remains above the door to what is now the conference room (photos displayed here).

In photos taken on October 18, 2024, Howard Hanson’s name above the door is still present.  Today a conference room occupies most of what had been the chapel space.

There were many things going on in Howard Hanson’s life in the fall of 1960, both in his day job and in his extra-curricular pursuits.  Earlier in 1960 his book The Harmonic Materials of Modern Music  (Appleton-Century Crofts) had been published; his guest appearances away from Rochester would include, that same October, a conducting engagement at a young people’s American music festival in Los Angeles; and during the heated Kennedy-Nixon general election campaign that fall, Hanson was busy with political activity as a prominent member of a group of educators calling themselves Scholars for Nixon. Still further, his Eastman Philharmonia, which he had founded two years earlier, was flourishing to acclaim, even to attracting Federal attention.^[9]  Amidst all of this, he was able to pause one Sunday afternoon for the dedication in his honor of a chapel for Eastman students.

Within several days of the chapel’s dedication ceremony, a follow-up editorial appeared in the Rochester press that expressed a distinctly lofty (but no less sincere for that) sentiment associated with the new chapel:

Let those who see prejudice at work in the religious life of this nation give a thought to the ceremony of dedication at the Howard Hanson Chapel in Cutler Union recently.  There, in a quiet atmosphere that was like a healing balm in the swirl of world events, a group of friendly persons of various creeds assembled to dedicate this chapel as a place of meditation and devotion for all.

Those present had come to pay honor to Dr. Hanson whose life has symbolized the power of music as a harmonizing spiritual force. They were also testifying to the non-denominationalism of the human spirit. They were testifying to the oneness of the human aspiration that lies behind all religious faith.

On this common ground, where all can meet, there the name of Dr. Hanson is honored with special fitness. Freely respecting differences that exist, this chapel is none the less a living object lesson in unity.  Persons of all faith voluntarily contributed to make it possible.  One likes to feel that it more truly expresses the American religious way of life than the discords which sometimes seem so loud.^[10]

While the name over the chapel was Hanson’s, and the dedication ceremony had placed Hanson squarely at the center of attention, the chapel’s purpose was to serve the spiritual needs of Eastman School students.  In the years immediately following the chapel’s dedication, the Howard Hanson Inter-Faith Chapel was annually noted in the Eastman School’s annual catalogue within the descriptions of school facilities.  While not well remembered today, the story of the chapel forms one more chapter in the history of the Eastman School.