The Justin Tranter Recording Studio was revealed in a ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday (September 20). The donation helped convert three rooms at the school into a cutting-edge recording studio, complete with a control room, a tracking room, a four-station music production classroom, ultramodern recording technology and even a new Contemporary Writing and Production course that students can take to learn about modern songwriting.
“There’s no point in having privilege unless you pay that privilege forward,” Tranter said in a statement. “Now that I’ve followed my dreams and have had financial privilege, I want to pay that forward as much as possible. Not only will this give students an amazing way to make music, but it also creates a very employable skill – engineering – for students going to The Academy.”
According to a press release, Tranter spent much of his early life in public school, being bullied violently on a regular basis. But after eventually transferring to The Chicago Academy for the Arts, the future songwriter found themselves in a welcoming, creative environment that helped mold them into one of pop music’s most prolific modern songwriters.
This also isn’t Tranter’s first major contribution to the Academy; as a student back in 1997, Tranter founded and started the school’s first AIDS Benefit, a variety show by and for students to help raise money for HIV/AIDS advocacy groups. Since then, the school has continued that tradition and will hold its 22nd annual benefit today (Sept. 21).
