Love letter to the Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library

As this final virtual semester comes to a close there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel; a promise that as August rolls around, we will be once again flocking to our beautiful campus and not sitting in front of our computers with our eyes glazed over. When I think about returning to campus I think about the energy in the morning, the buzz of conversations, and the feeling of being in spaces filled with students collectively reading and studying between classes. Specifically, I am dreaming about the space on campus where you are not only drowning in natural light but are also accompanied by rare manuscripts and audio recordings of classical composers. I am talking of course about the UC Berkeley Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library. 

Students may know this library for its big windows and airy atmosphere but this gorgeous building also houses one of the most extensive public collections of original scores on the West Coast. According to the Berkeley Music Department Website, the library currently contains around 180,000 volumes of books and printed music, 50,000 sound and video recordings, 30,000 microforms, and extensive manuscript and archival collections. From 1957 until 2004, the space allotted to this collection was on the second floor of Morrison Hall until it was finally given the beautiful space that it holds today. The library completed campus’s fourth side of what is known as the “Arts Quad” made up of Wurster, The Anthropology and Art Practice Building, and Hertz Hall.

It’s easy to feel that at a school like Berkeley there is more emphasis put on STEM and that humanities and the arts are not respected in the same way. This is what is so special about this corner of campus. Students can study physics, engineering, philosophy, and more in a space dedicated to classical music, non-Western music, and jazz.

This concept, that we all come from different fields of study and come together to share this campus, is part of what makes a large school like Berkeley so special and something that I think people have been craving during this isolated virtual period.  I urge you, when we finally come back to campus, to try heading up towards the Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library for a change and maybe even flip through Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Sketch for the Scherzo of his String Quartet Opus 18.

Written by Daniella Ivanir