Taking place every Wednesday and Friday from 7-9 p.m., the Listening Room is One Wheelock's first long-term programming venture, according to Tanaka Mhambi '11, the main organizer behind the Listening Room. Advertising itself as "a brand new live music experience that brings together talented musicians from the Dartmouth and Hanover communities," the Listening Room will feature one student performer and one local performer each night, focusing on jazz and folk acts, with other musical styles thrown in occasionally, according to Mhambi.
Mhambi said that he and Anise Vance '11, along with several other friends, initially worked on the idea last Fall also the term that One Wheelock opened. Most of the original group left campus for the Winter term, leaving Mhambi and Vance to spearhead the effort. Their work resulted in the Listening Room's first night of music last Wednesday.
The Listening Room is an opportunity for students and local alumni to collaborate, Mhambi said.
"Ford Daley '61 lives in the area. I was put in touch with him because he had this idea of a space where the community and students could gather and listen to music together," Mhambi said. "I had worked on One Wheelock, and his idea kind of fit into the idea of One Wheelock in general. I met with him and we talked and hit it off and this is what became of it."
Mhambi said he pursued the idea because he missed the mellow lounges and bars he used to visit so often in his home country of Zimbabwe especially the live music.
"I don't think there's enough real performance spaces for people who aren't official' or in the [Hopkins Center-sponsored] system," Mhambi said. "Dartmouth needs more spaces for students to perform in a less pressure' environment. In general, the campus is lacking in relaxed, chill places to hang out. The restructuring of Thayer [Dining Hall] should help, but in my perfect world, I'd see places like One Wheelock in dorms."
According to Mhambi, the organizers currently choose acts from a list of performers, but they are also considering holding auditions in the future to make One Wheelock a truly open musical venue.
"The overall goal of One Wheelock and the Listening Room was really to create a space that transcends Dartmouth," Mhambi said. "It's supposed to be a place where you come as an individual somewhere everyone can feel comfortable and more mature. It gets a little harder because people don't immediately understand what One Wheelock is about people come to study here a lot, but it's so much more than that. Our point was to really try and elevate the social consciousness on campus."
Indeed, the Listening Room is a unique addition to campus, as it features live music on a continuous, regularly-scheduled basis, he said.
"We're still working on getting the process right with logistics and such," Mhambi said. "You can B.Y.O.B. here. I don't see this as an alternative social space I just see it as a regular social space. We as students haven't been very creative with different kinds of social spaces, so this is an effort to change that."
The Listening Room is also different from most Dartmouth social spaces in that it is a targeted towards both students and adults.
"Starting next week, I'm going to try and start bringing faculty and staff in for the Listening Room," Mhambi said. "This place is really versatile."
One Wheelock is currently advertising the series through BlitzMail, but Mhambi said he hopes to see more people come to find out what the Listening Room is like, and perhaps even become Listening Room regulars in the future.
"With programming, it's consistency," Mhambi said. "So many things die or are just for one night. You need something that's always there. You're obviously not going to have Chandler, Ross, Joey, Rachel, Monica and Phoebe immediately all sitting here on a couch the first night. But for me, if I were a freshman at Dartmouth, having a space like One Wheelock would have really changed my experience."
The Listening Room, Mhambi hopes, will provide all class years with that part of Dartmouth that he felt was lacking upon his arrival, he said.
"We have to keep thinking about making social spaces," Mhambi said. "There's not as many structural blocks to do something as we think it's all about creativity and innovation."
