Student Life
Arts

Performing Arts Center

The Darcy Rice Center for the Arts

Opened in August 2012, the state-of-the-art, 45,000-square-foot Darcy Rice Center for the Arts at St. Margaret’s provides continued educational opportunities for our students, along with the deepening and continued growth of our robust arts program. The Darcy Rice Center for the Arts, designated an All-Steinway School for Excellence, is first and foremost a teaching and learning facility supporting instrumental music, choral music, dance and theater education and programs in dedicated learning environments that have been designed with each artistic discipline in mind.
 
Two professional performance theaters provide optimum venues to spotlight student talent across all performing arts disciplines. Further, the facility also provides a formal setting for community gatherings, student ceremonies and renowned speakers as part of various student and parent educational lecture series.
 
The Center includes three dedicated, acoustically optimized music teaching rooms for orchestra, concert band and choir, a professional dance studio, 11 private practice rooms, a sound and video production studio, capabilities to professionally record from all interior studios and music rooms, a professional costume studio with over 25,000 costume pieces, the 450-seat proscenium-style Marcus D. Hurlbut Theater, and the intimate, black-box-style, 150-seat McGregor Family Theater that is also used as the drama teaching space.

All-Steinway Designation

Upon the opening of the Darcy Rice Center for the Arts in August 2012, St. Margaret’s received the prestigious distinction as an All-Steinway School from Steinway & Sons, builders of the finest pianos in the world.
 
According to Steinway & Sons, to earn the distinction of an All-Steinway School, an institution must demonstrate a commitment to excellence by providing its students and faculties with the best equipment possible for the study of music. All pianos owned by All-Steinway Schools, from the practice room to the recital hall, are designed by Steinway & Sons.
 
Each Steinway-designed piano in the Darcy Rice Center for the Arts was new and delivered when the center opened in August 2012. Among St. Margaret’s collection is a Steinway Model D Concert Grand Piano for the Marcus D. Hurlbut Theater, three Steinway-designed 5’ 10” Performance Edition Boston Grand Pianos that outfit the Choir Room and Concert Band Room and the Orchestra Room. Additionally, there is a new Performance Edition Institutional upright Boston Piano in each of the Performing Arts Center’s 11 practice rooms.
 
When presenting St. Margaret’s the distinction, President of Steinway & Sons Ron Losby said, “It truly is my honor to be here and after what I have just seen briefly walking through this extraordinary facility, I am humbled by having our name attached to such a beautiful school. This is an extraordinary place."

  • Cloobeck Family Atrium

    Cloobeck Family Atrium

    Cloobeck Family Atrium

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  • Dance and Rehearsal Rooms

    Dance and Rehearsal Rooms

    Dance and Rehearsal Rooms

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  • McGregor Family Theater

    McGregor Family Theater

    McGregor Family Theater

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  • Marcus D. Hurlbut Theater

    Marcus D. Hurlbut Theater

    Marcus D. Hurlbut Theater

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About Steinway & Sons

Steinway & Sons was founded in 1853 by German immigrant Henry Engelhard Steinway in a Manhattan loft on Varick Street. Over the next thirty years, Henry and his sons, C. F. Theodore, Charles, Henry Jr., William, and Albert, developed the modern piano. They built their pianos one at a time, applying skills that were handed down from master to apprentice, generation after generation. Today, Steinway still builds pianos that way. Each Steinway grand piano, for example, takes nearly a year to create. Nothing is hurried. Even the carefully selected woods employed in the rims, tops, soundboards, and actions cure for months in its yard, kilns and conditioning rooms, until they stabilize at a rigidly specified moisture content. Steinway is dedicated to the ideal of making the finest pianos in the world. The result is instruments renowned for their unsurpassed quality. Pianos with such superior sound and responsive touch that they enchant the most demanding pianists. Steinway pianos are preferred overwhelmingly by people who share the joy of playing and owning the finest musical instrument.
 
To view the list of All-Steinway Schools, please click here.

PRESIDENT OF STEINWAY & SONS RON LOSBY

“Out of the 150 All-Steinway schools throughout the world, I can only think of one who is in a similar category to St. Margaret’s. Most of them are schools such as the Curtis Institute of Music, the Royal College of Music, or the Beijing Central Conservatory; they’re extraordinary institutions in their own right because they are dedicated to excellence. And, this obviously is the case here at St. Margaret’s as well."

St. Margaret’s Episcopal School

31641 La Novia Avenue
San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675
(949) 661-0108
 
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An Independent Preschool Through Grade 12 College-Preparatory Day School in Orange County California

Non-Discrimination Policy
St. Margaret's Episcopal School does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, religion, sexual orientation or national and ethnic origin in the administration of its educational, admission, financial aid, hiring and athletic policies or in other school-administered programs.