SOMERS - Thanks to a $500,000 donation announced Sunday, the University of Wisconsin-Parkside will be building a music performance hall.

The donation is from Frances Bedford of Racine, a retired UW-Parkside music professor.

"This is the first time ever Parkside is going to have a true music performance hall," said James McKeever, music department chair. "In her honor, we will name the new hall the Frances M. Bedford Concert Hall."

Bedford taught piano and general music for 24 years at UW-Parkside. She plays the harpsichord for the Racine Symphony.

"It's an important place," Bedford said of Parkside. "They are doing the remodeling, and this is the time to include a performance hall."

The performance hall will be a part of the expanded Communication Arts Building that will be known as Dhaliwal Hall. Groundbreaking on the entire project is scheduled for this fall, and it should be completed by 2011.

It will be the first new or expanded academic building on campus since 1979. The funding for the hall comes in addition to a $4.5 million donation from Darshan

Dhaliwal.

Chancellor John Keating called the hall "a major development for the campus."

"It means we now will have a place where our music can be enjoyed by more people," Keating said. The hall would not have been possible without the donation, he said.

Dave Dvorak, 20, is a junior majoring in music education at UW-Parkside. He will graduate by the time the hall is complete. But he knows its importance to the department.

"It will be nice to rehearse where we are going to perform, other than just dress rehearsals," said Dvorak, a Trevor native.

Currently the music department has to use the theater department's stage because they do not have their own area. When they do practice on stage they have to reassemble chairs, bring in stands and move the piano. That all has to take place in around 5 minutes, Dvorak said.

The new hall will be specifically designed for music, with emphasis on acoustics. It will seat around 400 people and also have a wraparound balcony area so that the audience can surround the performers.