Performance Spaces

The auditorium in Barnes Hall is the Music Department’s primary performance space. It seats about 280 and is ideal for recitals, chamber music, and small ensembles. The green room is used as a practice space for performers on fortepianos or harpsichord and there is an eighteenth-century style German chamber organ on stage, as well as two concert grand pianos.

Click here to read more on the keyboard instrument collection.

The Music Department’s choral ensembles often perform in Sage Chapel, the non-sectarian chapel in the center of the campus, which was built in 1875. It seats about 600 people and houses two organs: a 3-manual Aeolian Skinner organ (1941) and a small Italian chamber organ (1746).

Anabel Taylor Hall, home to the many communities affiliated with Cornell United Religious Work (CURW), has a small chapel that the Music Department uses for organ recitals and other concerts. The chapel houses a magnificent Bach-style tracker organ.

Click here to read more on the organ project.

This large, newly-constructed (2001) room is used not only for lectures and rehearsals but also for concerts, mostly notably for Midday Music at Lincoln Hall, on Thursdays at 12:30 PM. It seats up to 100 people.

The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art hosts many composer installations and other concerts and presentations. The Rhodes-Rawlings Auditorium in Klarman Hall hosts guests, faculty, and student performers. At the Cornell golf course, Moakley House is often the setting for jazz performances, recitals, and faculty presentations

Concert Parking

For events at Barnes Hall and Sage Chapel, try the parking area along Sage Avenue (not the Sage South lot, which is restricted until 8:00 p.m. seven days a week), then the parking lots behind Willard Straight and Anabel Taylor Halls. If these areas are full, drive to the parking garage, accessed from Campus Rd. (between Garden Avenue and the football stadium) or from Hoy Road - with a 5 minute walk back to the concert venue.  For concerts at Bailey Hall, use the parking garage under the Human Ecology Building located along Forest Home Drive, near Beebe Lake (GPS: 37 Forest Home Drive, Ithaca, NY 14853). At 726 University Ave., there are 9 parking spaces and 2 additional accessible spots behind the building, and street parking on Stewart Ave. See the campus map and check for construction detours at www.cornell.edu/maps.

Access for persons with disabilities

For Barnes Hall, numerous accessible parking spaces are located along Sage Avenue (enter on the same side of the building) and in the Sage South lot (without a Cornell permit, you can park in an accessible space within this lot after 5:00 p.m. and all day/evening on weekends; be sure to hang your accessible parking tag from the mirror).

A small elevator is available at Barnes Hall, but it unfortunately cannot accommodate heavier powered wheelchairs. To request the elevator operator, please call the recording studio at 607-255-9682 and/or send a companion up the stairs to ask the usher or stage manager for assistance.

At Bailey Hall, patrons with limited mobility may gain access through the entrance at the southwest corner of the building (to the left of the main entrance). Just inside the door is an elevator for transport to and from the lobby.