On September 3, during Convocation, Head of School Dr. Alex Curtis announced a series of events set to take place during the first weekend of October to celebrate the opening of Ann & George Colony Hall. One event stuck out: on October 3, renowned singer-songwriter John Legend will play a free concert for the Choate community in the complex’s new auditorium. This performance is the culmination of almost a year of planning, involving people from across the School and beyond.
The idea of hosting a concert in Colony Hall has its origins in the opening of the Paul Mellon Arts Center (PMAC). When the PMAC was completed in 1972, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, featuring pianist Victor Borge, performed on the main stage. Four years later, in 1976, another performer rocked the PMAC stage — Bruce Springsteen.
“The students that were there, even 40 years later, they’re still telling me about it,” Dr. Curtis said. He and other Choate administrators wondered if the School could do something similar for the opening of Colony Hall.
Soon, Mr. George Colony ’72, Chair of the School’s Board of Trustees and C.E.O. of Forrester Research, a market-research company, threw his support behind such an event. (The new building is named after Mr. Colony and his wife, Ann.) “When you visit Mr. Colony’s corporate headquarters, the first thing you see in his lobby are a guitar and amp,” said Mr. Dan Courcey ’86, Choate’s Executive Director of Development and Alumni Relations. “He’s very much about music.”
Last spring, Mr. Courcey organized a group of sixth-formers into an artist-selection committee. The group, Mr. Courcey explained, “looked at things like Gov Ball, Coachella, large-scale concerts where most of the demographics matched the main audience for this.” Cost estimates were gathered, and before long the group had a working list of some two dozen potential artists, inclduing The Killers, Shawn Mendes, and Alicia Keys.
According to Erica Vandenbulcke ’20, a member of the committee, the Dean of Students Office aimed to gather “the opinions of different types of people,” and that “they were ongoing meetings. It wasn’t one pivotal moment. There were multiple meetings.” Sarah McAndrew ’20 said, “We went through each person on the list and we had a discussion about them.” The conversations centered on a small set of questions. Will both faculty and students enjoy the performance? Is the artist well-known and admired? Will such a performance appropriately honor the new building? Of Mr. Legend, McAndrew said, “The students in the room liked him, and they also talked about how their parents liked listening to him, so we thought that he would be good for the whole Choate community.”
When asked about the fee that the School will pay Mr. Legend for his one-hour performance, Mr. Courcey’s office said, “The cost is confidential but is being provided as a gift to the School by Mr. Colony.” Since securing Mr. Legend, Mr. Courcey has been in charge of a committee tasked with handling the logistics of the concert. Putting on a major concert is “not necessarily a skill set we have here,” he said, so the School has partnered with concert producer Live Nation, who is handling many of the night’s logistics.
“I just hope that students enjoy this and take it with them as they proceed through their Choate years,” Mr. Courcey said. “It’s not every day we open up a facility of this nature. It’s a terrific way to consecrate a stage that will benefit the School for generations.”
