The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 77

1 .1 I lit SIjc ottrijer'2(ottrnnl Times section iJranui Mo it An Mumc TV Radio Travel The birth pains of Channel 41 a 1 fib iff SUNDAY, FEIMUAKY 21, 1971 Channel 41 general manager The place also was a mecca for rats and other vermin, and upon first seeing it Jaspan had muttered to himself, "I never want to end up in this place." But he did, and between interruptions during which he scurried around to solve "crises" Jaspan told how to put a television station on the air, "my way," at least. "I came to town," he said, "and took out a Post Office box No. 222161 in Lyndon, because it was 'near' the Melrose Centre I a 'Crises' behind, WDRB-TV plans to go on the air next Sunday Courier-Journal Staff Writer June, 1965 five years and nearly nine months ago. During much of this time nothing much happened. The Federal Communications Commission quickly approved the application.

Then things lay dormant until Elmer F. Jaspan, 49, arrived in Louisville on April 1 last year. JASPAN SAT for two hours last Wednesday, explaining the birth pains of Channel 41. He sat in an architecturally undistinguished one-story building at 1051 E. Main, across the street from the Bourbon Stock Yard Co.

But his office was posh beyond belief considering that last April "this was the home of the soon-to-be-defunct Ohio Lithograph Company and was slick with grease and ink." Staff Photo, by C. Thomas Hardin begin telecasting next Sunday. By JAMES I) A WHEN you are trying to put a television station on the air, little things can get in your way little things like rats that gnaw into your coaxial cables. Big things like the Kennedy Bridge-can cause trouble, too. Bridges and rats notwithstanding, Elmer F.

Jaspan, executive vice president and general manager of WDRB-TV, Channel 41, intends to put his station on the air one week from today. There has been a long, arduous gestation period leading to the imminent birth of the independent that is, non-network commercial television station that will serve metropolitan Louisville and 30-some-odd counties in Kentucky and Southern Indiana. Application to construct a television facility utilizing Channel 41 dates to This architect's Elmer Jaspan in the studio formerly Motel out Route 42 near Prospect where made my office." HIS FIRST JOB was to find a studio, "which isn't easy because you need the lateral space plus a lot of ceiling height, for lights and the like." Jaspan named a few properties he, as staff of one, investigated "a silo on East Broadway (one of two that had been part of the old Ballard Mills, and later burned), a Nazarene church on' Broadway, a bowling alley in the Hikes Point College Taliesin Associated Architects (Another sketch, on Page 5.) flff sketch shows the exterior of Centre College's Fine Arts Center, to be built soon. a garage from which the station will area, the old YMHA gym next to Stopfer's Louisville Inn, and a couple of motels." Grease and dirt aside, Jaspan soon -decided that the East Main building had strong points. "But the roof leaked," he said, "throughout." The front portion of the building was appropriate for offices, Jaspan decided, and the rear garage could, with some imagination and money, be made into a studio.

to build center for A FINE ARTS CENTER to be built by Centre College on its campus in Danville, at an estimated cost of $5 million will house a theater-auditorium the largest full-stage auditorium in Central Kentucky and a 339-seat experimental theater. Construction will be started immediately, with completion expected early in 1973, said Centre president Thomas A. Spragens. This will be the largest single building project in Centre's 152-year history. The structure is designed to provide facilities for all of Centre's instruction in the fine-arts field.

It will house faculty and programs in music, dramatic arts, painting and sculpture. THE SITE is the southeast corner of Walnut and College Streets, where the old Danville High School stood for many years. Centre obtained the property from the Danville Board of Education in 1960. The Fine Arts Center will complete an extensive building program undertaken by Centre in 1961. It will provide an auditorium on the campus adequate not only for general college assemblies but also for a major program of cultural events to be made available to the general public.

It will also offer facilities for enlarged course offerings and extracurricular student participation in the creative and performing arts. Centre's largest auditorium at present is one in Sutcliffe Hall student center which doubles as a ballroom. Only about 450 persons can be accommodated there; larger gatherings have been usirtg the gymnasium. CENTRE has been holding its commencement exercises in Farris Stadium, its baccalaureate services in either a Presbyterian Church or the Danville High School auditorium, and its annual fine-arts series in the high-school auditorium. The fine-arts series is open to the public on a season-ticket membership basis.

Seating in the new theater-auditorium will be on two levels an orchestra level of 250 seats which can function separately as an intimate recital hall, and the "grand tier" seating 1,187 persons in 20 rows. An additional 60 seats on movable wagons can be placed on a stage lift, increasing the capacity of the recital hall from 250 to 313 seats when the orchestra pit is not in use. By use of a mechanically controlled acoustical curtain the rear portion of the "grand tier" can be closed off to give the auditorium an 850-seat size. The stage will be 33 12 feet deep and 100 feet wide. An orchestra of 70 musicians can be accommodated in the pit.

THE THEATER-AUDITORIUM will use "continental" seating throughout. Arriving -patrons will go directly into their respective rows (there will be no aisles) by passing through a series of portals arranged along each side of the house. There will be one portal for every three rows. The continuous rows of retractable seats will be generously spaced at 39 inches from to back; conventional 85 "Around July 1, I took a three-year lease," he said, "with option to renew. "I was no expert in design.

I'd put a station on the air in Milwaukee some years ago and managed one in Windsor, Ontario, but I'd never designed a studio-office complex." Nevertheless, Jaspan bought himself a roll of masking See CHANNEL 41 PAGE 6, Col. 1, this section million the arts seating usually has only 36 inches of space. With a chair in its pushed-back position five inches are added to the width of each row, so that a later arrival can pass easily in front of someone already seated. The continental seating arrangement also permits a greater number of people to be ideally close to the performing area. The farthest seat from the stage in the auditorium will be only 101 feet away.

An orchestra shell to be used for the performance of music will retract mechanically to permit use of the stage presentation of drama, opera or musical comedy, The auditorium will contain a concert organ. COMPLETELY SEPARATED from the auditorium, the experimental theater will be designed as a flexible facility for drama. It will be a free-form within a hexagonal shape, with none of its 339 permanent tiered seats more than 85 feet from the stage. Three portable seating banks will provide accommodation for an additional 66 persons for in-the-round performances. The main entrance foyer of the center, which will also provide gallery display space, will be located near College Street on the northwest side of the structure.

Also at ground level, toward the south end of the complex, will be the box office and entrance to the experimental theatre. Midway between the auditorium and theater will be an entrance to the classroom, studio and faculty office spaces. A promenade walk from the corner of Walnut and College Streets will serve all three entries. "TWO MAJOR anonymous philanthropic sources have made it possible for the college to meet immediately the full construction cost," Dr. Spragens said, "but the college will be required to make a substantial contribution over the next five years toward payment for the total project." The construction contract involves approximately $4.5 million.

Other expenditures will bring the total to $5 million. Architects for the Fine Arts Center are Taliesin Associated Architects of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scotts-dale, Ariz. Wehr Constructors Louisville, is the building contractor. E. R.

Ronald and Associates of Louisville are consulting engineers. Consultant on acoustics is Dr. Vern O. Knudsen, Los Angeles, chancellor emeritus of the University of California in Los Angeles. A.

Chauncey. Newlin of New York, chairman of Centre College's board of trustees, said: "It has been the hope of the trustees to provide not only for the students and faculty of the college but for the people of Kentucky the very best facilities for the experience of the creative and performing arts." Newlin, a Newport native and senior partner in a New York law firm, is also a director of the Metropolitan Opera Associatian and a trustee of the Guggenheim Museum of New York. He is a brother of the Rev. Edgar C. Newlin, rector of Danville's Trinity Episcopal Church.

Chamber-music group assured another season By WILLIAM MOOTZ, i it I 5 I it' I till fi Courier-Journal Music Critic February, and a quartet organized by Jorge Mester, who will be its violist, in March. Both the Juilliard and Guarneri quartets rank among the best American chamber groups now appearing before the public. The Juilliard comes here annually, and the Guarneri will be making its second Louisville appearance. THE BERLIN Philharmonic Octet consists of first-chair players from the famed Berlin Orchestra. The Janos Starker Trio has Starker as its cellist, with pianist Gyorgy Sebok and violinist Josef Gingold.

All are members of the faculty of the Indiana University School of Music. Mester's colleagues will be Charles Treger and Peter McHugh, violinists, and Leopold Teraspulski, cellist. On Easter Sunday (April 13), Mester and his players will present a special concert at 4 p.m. at The Playhouse. All who have subscribed to next year's season will be invited as guests of the Chamber Music Society.

In addition to Mester, Treger, McHugh and Teraspulski, the concert will feature clarinetist James Livingston in a performance of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet. Other works on the program will be Beethoven's String Trio in E-flat and Kodaly's Duo for Violin and Cello. For information about subscribing to the 1971-72 season, call Ferd Weis, Wolf Pen Trace, Prospect, Ky, Rampal's program next Sunday will consist of Mozart's Sonata in major, K. 14, Schumann's Three Romances, Opus 94, Beethoven's Grande Duo in major, Opus 41, Bartok's Suite Paysanne Hongroise, and Poulenc's Sonata (1958). Tickets for this concert are also available from Weis, or at the box office next Sunday, DETERMINED not to give up in the face of serious patronage losses, the Chamber Music Society will be opening its membership campaign for the 1971-72 season in connection with the final concert of this season next Sunday-featuring the great French flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal and pianist Robert Veyron-Lacroix.

The concert will be at 3 p.m. in The Playhouse on Belknap Campus. The Chamber Music Society this year suffered the same falling-off in attendance that has afflicted so many other concert organizations throughout the country. At one time, its board was considering disbanding, so serious have been recent losses. But the society has a long and proud history of bringing the best of chamber-music organizations to Louisville, and the board finally decided not to call it quits before a last-ditch fight.

The board has raised enough money by private appeals throughout the Louisville community to keep it alive for at least one more season. THE SOCIETY has scheduled a splendid group of five concerts for the 1971-72 season. Its board decided that there must be no compromise in quality for its concerts, and the season it will resent next year reflects that attitude. it also means that The Playhouse must be sold out for Chamber Music Society concerts next year if the society's future is to be assured. The fivn ernuDs aDDearine under the auspices of the Chamber Music Society next year will be the Juilliard String Quartet in October, the Janos Starker Trio in November, the Berlin Philharmonic Octet in January, the Guarneri Ktrint? Quartet assisted by pianist Lee Luvisi if his concert dates permit) in Pianist Robert Veyron-Lacroix will appear with flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal in a Chamber Music Society concert next Sunday..