Construction begins in 2003 on new facilities for the Faculty and in 2005, the New Music Building opens. The Faculty of Music is renamed the Schulich School of Music following an unprecedented donation of $20 million dollars from Canadian philanthropist and McGill alumnus Seymour Schulich.
The building stands at “the intersection where technology, science and music meet [and] is a testament to the meeting of minds”[i] that will combine the disciplines of several McGill faculties under the auspices of Music, as embodied by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music, Media and Technology (CIRMMT), founded in 2000.
Tanna Schulich Hall, the newest music venue on campus, opens and is named after Seymour Schulich’s wife. The 187-seat hall is fully equipped with a retractable screen and projector for lectures, conferences and classes and a built-in sound system, making it an ideal jazz venue. The New Music Building also houses the Wirth Opera Studio, CIRMMT, the expanded Marvin Duchow Music Library, the Gertrude Whitley Performance Library, as well as the Music Multimedia Room (MMR), a world class scoring stage, research facility, and recording studio.
Joni Mitchell is awarded an honorary doctorate in Music in 2004, as the Schulich School of Music celebrates 100 years of music at McGill.
In 2007, 2008 and 2011, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal uses the MMR to record Beethoven’s 2nd and 8th symphonies as part of their landmark project to record all 9 symphonies with Analekta.
2015 sees the New Music Building renamed the Elizabeth Wirth Music Building following Elizabeth Wirth’s landmark donation.
[i] Stubley, Eleanor Victoria. 2008. Compositional Crossroads: Music, McGill, Montréal. Page 328. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.