Students at U of T’s Faculty of Music have described the conditions of 90 Wellesley Street West as “poor,” “terrible,” and “rundown.” Built in 1955 as a dormitory, the building has been used by U of T’s music students since 2007. 

Despite repeated calls on the university administration to address issues in the building, students in the Faculty of Music claim that their concerns go unheard.

In interviews with The Varsity, music students weighed in on the building’s conditions, the Faculty of Music’s funding, and the university’s response.

Music spaces 

U of T’s Faculty of Music has two sites at the UTSG campus: the Edward Johnson Building (EJB) at 80 Queen’s Park and the Faculty of Music South building at 90 Wellesley Street West. 

The EJB includes the MacMillan Theatre — an 815-seat theatre which features a 50-person orchestra pit — and Walter Hall — a small auditorium designed for chamber music and solo recitals. The MacMillan Theatre has been closed since December 2023 due to ongoing renovations, which has sparked frustration among music students and faculty who have had to relocate to other theatres in the GTA to perform. 

The EJB also houses performance spaces, large ensemble rehearsal rooms, classrooms, studio offices, and a Music Library. The Faculty of Music South building includes classrooms, student lounges, faculty offices, and practice rooms. In 2011, the building was partially renovated for the Jazz program, graduate student offices, and other performance functions.

The university is currently planning to build a new site at 90 Queen’s Park for the School of Cities, which will include additional Faculty of Music facilities. The building will connect to the EJB directly, and include a new recital hall and other areas for performances, conferences, and special events.

Eric Yang — a fourth-year music student studying history, culture and theory and the president of the Faculty of Music Undergraduate Association (FMUA) — noted that the current plans for the new site don’t include classrooms, student spaces, office spaces: “all things that we need.”

“The plans are to just build another concert hall, which we have two of those,” he said in an interview with The Varsity. “It’s not the first priority.” 

Questionable conditions

Students in the Faculty of Music have raised several concerns over the conditions of the Faculty of Music South building.

“The conditions of 90 [Wellesely] are somewhat questionable at best,” wrote Fabian Nunez Ramos, a fourth-year music student studying jazz education and FMUA jazz director, in an email to The Varsity.

“The practice rooms themselves are all old dormitories, and not all of them have desks or chairs for jazz students to utilize for doing music theory and other written work,” he explained. “On top of that[,] not all practice rooms have [pianos]/keyboards for students to practice in.”

In the basement and one of the practice rooms at the Faculty of Music south building. SELIA SANCHEZ/THE VARSITY

Ramos added that the roof tiles were old, there were only a few functioning water fountains, and there were mice in the building a few months ago which were “dealt with after the FMUA brought it up [to the administration] countless times.”

He also claimed that the building had no air conditioning, which made it difficult to practice in the warmer months and “sometimes there is no heating so it’s too cold to practice.” 

“Keep in mind we are music students, and it is essential that we have places to perform,” he wrote.

Jay-Daniel Baghbanan — a second-year classical voice student and vice-president, student life at the FMUA — noted in an interview with The Varsity that the conditions of the building are “rundown” and “not fit for the needs of the music [students at U of T].”

“[Students] come to a music faculty and have trouble booking a practice room… and then the room that you end up in has an out of tune, rickety piano, [a] carpeted floor that is absorbing your sound, and the ceiling feels so low like your sound is not traveling anywhere. And then you practice in that, and you develop bad habits because of that,” he explained.

“Just enough to survive”

Yang noted that the funding the faculty receives to maintain the space “is poor at best.”

He believes that the Faculty of Music “tries very hard to make right,” but they don’t receive enough funding from the university to make repairs. 

“[The] budget always gets us just enough to survive, but not enough to see any improvements from the invisible conditions that we’re in right now,” he explained. “As much as you can try to plaster on band-aid solutions to make the [Faculty of] Music work better, it requires an investment from… the university.” 

Ramos added that the FMUA provides some music equipment for students, such as speakers, but he believes this should be covered by the university. Students in the Faculty of Music can apply for financial assistance to cover additional expenses.

Department disparities

Both Baghbanan and Yang noted that many music students saw a disparity between the conditions of the Faculty of Music and other department buildings at U of T. 

“Other people in other programs who pay around the same tuition as us have better conditions, better spaces for their education,” Yang said.

He noted how conditions in Robarts Library, University College, Trinity College, and Victoria College are “much, much better” than the Faculty of Music South building.

Yang said that if the university is planning to offer programs in jazz performance, jazz comprehensive, and jazz education — all of which have required classes in the Faculty of Music South building — there “needs to be the right learning [spaces]… to ensure a proper education and a proper degree.”

“[The] university is very much misunderstanding what it takes to keep [the] music faculty running,” Baghbanan explained. “Sometimes it feels like they’re arbitrarily assigning a valuable merit to our degrees.” 

U of T’s response

Baghbanan noted that when students raise their concerns to the university, it “feels like we don’t get a response.”

“Anytime we knock on their door to ask for help, they kind of shoo us away and say ‘we’re already doing what we can,’” he explained. “We work so hard… and then look around at the university that seems to think that we don’t do anything and we deserve nothing.”

“It’s incredibly disheartening and it just makes you wonder, like, why am I at U of T,” he said.

In an email to The Varsity, a spokesperson for the Faculty of Music wrote that “the Faculty of Music is committed to ensuring suitable physical space for students, faculty and staff.”

They added that “matters raised by students and others are addressed with those individuals as appropriate.”