A new home for music

With the mission to foster and promote music in Thailand, Mahidol University’s College of Music has plans to build a standardised music hall, Prem Auditorium, which is expected to become a new landmark in Southern Thailand.
Last month the college held an extravagant fund-raising event at Plaza Athenee Bangkok, with music performances and honoured guest General Prem Tinsulanonda presiding.
The evening commenced with sumptuous gala dinner accompanied by soothing music performed by the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra and Hitoshi Miyashita, a second-year guitar student at the college.
Miyoshita played a fragment of the Tedesco Guitar Concerto No 1 and certainly stood out among the soloists of the evening. But the highlight was a mini-concert featuring General Prem, in which he sang and played piano on his compositions “Nai Fan” (“In My Dreams”) and “Somewhere”.
Architect Chatree Ladalalitsakun has designed
 Prem Auditorium to be one of the best acoustical venues in the South.
The flexible 400-seat hall will be located in Songkhla’s General Prem Tinsulanonda Historical Park and feature a simple yet modern and |powerful style, as befits the personality of the former prime minister and current president of the Privy Council.
The College of Music was established in 1995 with an aim to produce musicians of high quality, with good taste and a social conscience. These aims are reflected in its curriculum, buildings and activities. The college has expanded, developed and progressed in all aspects, from teaching quality, student enrolment, facilities and its undertakings abroad. And the college retains huge potential for future expansion.
Realising that the grandeur of material edifices doesn’t necessarily reflect its true merits, the college values the intellectual and emotional nourishment of its students and personnel, with their goal to enable them to become pillars of music for society and the country.