Lincoln Center Announces Series of Events Surrounding 50th Anniversary Celebration
By: Faetra Petillo Sep. 17, 2008
Lincoln Center announced today an exciting series of artistic and educational events and initiatives to celebrate its forthcoming 50th anniversary, officially beginning with a ceremony to commemorate the institution’s original groundbreaking in 1959 and ending with a campus-wide open house. The anniversary celebration coincides with the physical transformation of Lincoln Center, designed to make the campus a more open, accessible and vibrant urban destination. Ribbon cuttings will be held throughout the year as redevelopment projects are completed.
Fifty years ago, Lincoln Center pioneered the concept of a performing arts campus as a catalyst for urban renewal and played a significant role in restoring confidence in its Upper West Side neighborhood. Since then it has become a model for performing arts centers around the world and has made an enormous cultural and economic contribution to the city, the state, and the nation.
To kick off the anniversary celebration, an unprecedented campus-wide Leadership Breakfast will gather together trustees from all twelve Lincoln Center resident organizations on May 11, 2009 to honor the role civic leadership has played in the continued vitality of Lincoln Center as it enters its 50th year. On the same day, a special program commemorating Lincoln Center’s original groundbreaking ceremony with U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower will be held in the newly revitalized Alice Tully Hall. Performances will pay tribute both to the past 50 years, as well as to the next generation of Lincoln Center’s artists and audiences. The event will be attended by top elected officials, performing artists, civic and community leaders, and representatives from all 12 Lincoln Center resident organizations. To close the anniversary year, Lincoln Center will throw a campus-wide open house.
In anticipation of the celebrations, a digital time capsule was inaugurated today on Lincoln Center’s website at www.lincolncenter.org/50 Contributors from all over the world are invited to send in memories, images and videos evoking favorite moments, performances, and events experienced at Lincoln Center over the past 50 years. This digital time capsule will be housed on the Lincoln Center website, accepting contributions throughout the anniversary year. At the end of 2010, the digital time capsule will remain on the website for viewing.
“It is with great excitement that we approach this major milestone,” said Frank A. Bennack, Jr., Chairman, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. “Since Lincoln Center began in the 1950s, it has continued to shape the performing arts locally, nationally, and globally and to influence the millions of people who visit, the thousands of artists who perform here and the hundreds of students who attend our renowned conservatories each year.”
”This is truly a transformative time for Lincoln Center – both artistically and institutionally,” said Reynold Levy, President of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. “It is also one of the most important moments in our history, as we prepare to welcome visitors to our newly revitalized and more accessible and open campus and to celebrate our 50th anniversary with an exciting year-long series of events and initiatives.”
Among the programs announced today is a free concert by Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, to be presented in a newly restored and upgraded Guggenheim Bandshell in Damrosch Park. Built in 1969, the Bandshell will receive a significant revitalization to coincide with the 50th Anniversary. This inaugural concert will be nationally televised on Live From Lincoln Center, reinforcing Lincoln Center’s commitment to community outreach.
Throughout the year, specially designated 50th Anniversary programming and events, including new commissions and premieres, will be presented by all of the resident organizations, including:
• The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s presentation of the complete cycle of Beethoven string quartets as well as a new work for solo bass by Edgar Meyer
• The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s 50 consecutive hours of film musicals presented during the 4th of July holiday, and 50 consecutive hours of classic foreign films over the Labor Day weekend
• The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra’s reprise of Portrait in Seven Shades, a commission by JLCO saxophonist Ted Nash, and a Fats Waller Festival celebrating the 105th birthday of the legendary New York pianist with a series of concerts
• A special concert by The Juilliard School commemorating the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Juilliard building for classes in 1969; as well as the US premiere of Kommilitonen!, a new opera by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies co-commissioned by The Juilliard School and the Royal Academy of Music in London
• Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts presentations, including two concerts by Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble; two dance commissions from Mark Morris featuring Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax; the New York premiere of a co-commission from John Adams; pianist Leif Ove Andsnes’ performance of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition with a specially commissioned artwork by South African artist Robin Rhode; and Lincoln Center Institute’s presentation of Sheila’s Day, the world premiere of Ricardo Khan’s adaptation of the play, commissioned by the Institute.
• An entire issue of The Lincoln Center Theater Review devoted to a history of the theater, and the companies that preceded it, at Lincoln Center.
• Metropolitan Opera programs throughout the 2009-10 season that will include an exhibition of Met costumes from the past five decades, specially created features for the company’s radio broadcasts, and programs honoring individuals who have had a relationship with the company for 50 `years or more with interviews, profiles, and events.
• A major New York City Ballet spring 2010 festival of new choreography and new music commissioned from an international array of choreographers and composers.
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• New York City Opera’s recreated, groundbreaking production of Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s opera Einstein on the Beach, with choreography by Lucinda Childs
• A New York Philharmonic concert featuring music commemorating the Anniversary, from the groundbreaking to the present day
• The School of American Ballet’s dedication of its 2010 Workshop Performances to Lincoln Center’s 50th anniversary celebrations
Another highlight is a specially created New York TimesTalks series, Lincoln Center at the Times Center: Mondays in May, where Lincoln Center figures and artists will explore relevant arts-related topics with New York Times journalists. Peter Gelb, Peter Martins, and Gerard Mortier will participate in the series. Also, in conjunction with the anniversary celebration, The Paley Center for Media will screen a selection of rare Lincoln Center television programs never released commercially.
In a joint statement 50th Anniversary Co-Chairs Thomas Renyi and Ann Ziff said: "We are thrilled to embark on a year-long celebration in honor of Lincoln Center's 50th Anniversary. The many extraordinary programs planned for 2009-2010 are a tribute to Lincoln Center's illustrious past and a celebration of its exciting future. We thank the Board and leadership for their generous contributions and we look forward to a vibrant, thriving Lincoln Center that will inspire and influence audiences for another 50 years."
“The dynamic programming that takes place across the Lincoln Center campus, 365 days a year, speaks to the power of the visionary public-private partnership that was forged fifty years ago,” said Kate D. Levin, Commissioner, Department of Cultural Affairs. “Today, the campus forms the economic anchor and identity marker for the Lincoln Square neighborhood, benefiting artists and audiences from across the five boroughs and around the world. Happy Birthday, Lincoln Center!”
The anniversary year will feature a number of educational and community activities, including a special fair in Alice Tully Hall in May 2009 for educators from the tri-state area designed to highlight the many arts resources available from all of Lincoln Center’s resident organizations. In addition, beginning in 2009, scholarships totaling $100,000 will be awarded to the first four graduating classes of Lincoln Center Institute’s High School for Arts, Imagination and Inquiry, a public school located directly behind the campus. The Institute will also lead 50 “Imagination Conversations” with government, civic, business, philanthropic, and education leaders to begin redefining the ways in which imagination can recast the role of the arts in education in the U.S. In addition, Lincoln Center’s Meet the Artist series, which presents a wide range of performances specially created for young people, will bring its programs to libraries in Queens, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Staten Island for the first time as a 50th Anniversary initiative.
Further initiatives include a yearlong 50th Anniversary series of fine prints and handmade posters commissioned by Lincoln Center’s renowned List Poster and Print Program from artists including HeLen Frankenthaler and Jim Dine; and the publication of two 50th Anniversary books: a history of Lincoln Center’s distinguished mid-20th century art collection and programs, and a book by Lincoln Center Institute’s Executive Director Scott Noppe-Brandon and Eric Liu about society’s need for imaginative education.
In honor of its 50th Anniversary, Lincoln Center has formed a 50th Anniversary Artist Committee of performing artists from several disciplines representing the exceptional contributions that artists have made to Lincoln Center over the past 50 years. The Anniversary year will conclude with an all-campus open house showcasing the many revitalized spaces completed as part of redevelopment, as well as the range of artistry presented and studied by the resident organizations.
Voices from community members who have been a part of Lincoln Center’s history also will be captured through a partnership with StoryCorps, the award-winning national project that collects and preserves the everyday history and unique stories of Americans. In spring 2009, the StoryCorps MobileBooth, an Airstream trailer outfitted with a recording studio, will be parked on Josie Robertson Plaza, enabling the general public, artists, students, and employees on the campus to record and share specific memories of key events and significant periods of time in the life of Lincoln Center.
These stories will be archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in D.C., as well as other Lincoln Center archives. Selected segments may also be broadcast on NPR and available online at www.storycorps.net .
To celebrate Lincoln Center’s rich history over the last half century, performances by Leontyne Price, Joan Sutherland, Beverly Sills and other artists who appeared on the country’s only live performing arts series, Live From Lincoln Center, will now be available to the public through a worldwide licensing arrangement with EuroArts/Medici.
Over the next decade, these hidden treasures from Live From Lincoln Center’s vast programming library will be offered globally on DVDs, downloads, streaming video, broadcast and other digital media. In addition, the Live From Lincoln Center series in 2009-2010 will change its name to Live From “the 50th Anniversary of” Lincoln Center to highlight the anniversary.
In addition to the ribbon cuttings and special performances, the 2009-2010 season marks several other important milestones for Lincoln Center, including the arrival and inaugural season of New York City Opera’s new General Manager and Artistic Director Gerard Mortier, Alan Gilbert’s first season as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, and the first season programmed entirely by Peter Gelb as General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera.
Transformation Project
As a prelude to the celebrations, Lincoln Center will open a fully re-imagined Alice Tully Hall on February 22 with an exciting schedule of programming, including the U.S. premiere of Russian composer Vladimir Martynov’s opera Vita Nuova, with principal conductor Vladimir Jurowski leading the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The Alice Tully Hall Opening Nights Festival runs through March 8 and most of the opening performances – including orchestral and chamber music, choral works, recitals, popular song, world music, period and contemporary ensembles, and film – will be presented free or with tickets priced at $25 or less.
The overall redevelopment project will reinforce the vitality of Lincoln Center for decades to come. Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s design opens up the 16-acre campus to embrace the surrounding cityscape and will enrich the visitor experience with modernized concert halls, educational facilities, and enhanced public spaces and amenities. The innovative design respects the spirit of Lincoln Center's original 1960s architecture, incorporating elements of transparency and fluidity to create a new language for today’s audiences.
A key element of the project is the revitalization of Alice Tully Hall, one of the most popular performance venues in New York. Its striking new three-story-high glass-enclosed lobby, framed by the canopy of the adjacent Juilliard School’s cantilevered extension above, will project a new visible identity to Broadway. The Hall’s auditorium also is being transformed with innovative lighting that glows softly from within translucent veneer wood walls, custom theater seats that retain the original spacious plan, an automated film screen, and two mechanized stage extensions that create adjustable staging options. In addition, the Hall will have a new plaza destined to become one of the liveliest and most visible public spaces on the Lincoln Center campus.
Among the other highlights are: the redesign and expansion of the renowned Juilliard School; the reconfiguration and rejuvenation of Lincoln Center’s primary entryway along Columbus Avenue, with a new canopied drop-off and ramps framing a widened Grand Stair; an upgrade of the iconic Josie Robertson Plaza, its central Revson Fountain and its distinctive patterned pavement designed by Philip Johnson; a new mini-park welcoming visitors at the south end of the campus; and the enhancement of West 65th Street, which will extend the threshold of Lincoln Center with the addition of expanded sidewalks, digital informational blades, dramatic lighting and a new street-level identity for many of the resident organizations.
The campus redevelopment will include an elegant new restaurant with a gently sloping roof lawn, oriented toward Lincoln Center’s iconic reflecting pool and Henry Moore sculpture, which will serve as one of the many new green spaces on campus. Overseen by legendary chef Joachim Splichal and Nick Valenti of the Patina Restaurant Group, the restaurant will be among ten dining options located around Lincoln Center.
Completed components of the redevelopment project include the Central Mechanical Plant, and the “Dancing in Air Studios” at the School of American Ballet, which opened in January, 2007. Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s design for the studios preserves the open, airy atmosphere of two of the School’s existing ballet studios while adding two new studios fitted with glass walls in the generous air-space above, resulting in a suite of four distinct spaces that share lighting and views but are acoustically independent of one another. The two upper glass studios each feature a liquid crystal wall facing the new upstairs lounge that can alternate between transparency and translucence.
Also, in a separate but related project, the architectural firm Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects is converting a privately-owned public space just southeast of the Lincoln Center campus, formerly known as the Harmony Atrium, into a vibrant community gathering place for free performances, including Target Free Thursdays and civic events. A gateway to the performing arts campus, the new visitor space will house a centralized box office, which for the first time will enable audiences to purchase same-day discount tickets, with up to 50% discounts, to available performances presented by Lincoln Center and all of its world class resident organizations.
Also, as part of the transformation, New York City Opera and New York City Ballet have undertaken a $200 million capital campaign—the first such joint venture in the companies’ histories—to enhance audience amenities and provide a state-of-the-art environment for productions at their shared home, the New York State Theater. In July, 2008, the Ballet and Opera announced their intention to rename the New York State Theater in honor of David H. Koch’s $100 million lead gift to the joint capital campaign. The name change will take effect this fall 2008.
Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center is the world’s leading performing arts complex, representing the highest standards of excellence in opera, symphonic and chamber music, theater, dance, film, and arts education.
The complex, which first opened in 1962, consists of 12 Resident Organizations: The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, The Film Society of Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Juilliard School, Lincoln Center Theater, Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, New York City Opera, New York Philharmonic, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the School of American Ballet and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc.
A complete list of events is as follows:
50th Anniversary Programming and Events
Campus-wide Leadership Breakfast
May 11, 2009
In an unprecedented gathering, trustees from all 12 Lincoln Center resident organizations will gather under one roof in honor of the role civic leadership has played in the creation and continued vitality of Lincoln Center as it enters its 50th Anniversary year.
Celebratory Commemorative Ceremony
May 11, 2009
Key artistic, civic, and government leaders will pay tribute to Lincoln Center’s celebrated past and to its next generation of artists and audiences in a program commemorating the original groundbreaking ceremony in May 1959 with President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Free Concert Televised Nationwide from Newly Refurbished Guggenheim Bandshell
June 8, 2009
A special free performance by the distinguished Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble will inaugurate the newly renovated Guggenheim Bandshell and continue Lincoln Center’s commitment to community outreach. The Bandshell was originally built in 1969 and will receive a $4.5 million revitalization to coincide with the 50th Anniversary. This inaugural concert will be broadcast to millions as part of the Live From Lincoln Center series on PBS.
All-Campus Open House
May 15-16, 2010
Continuous free and ticketed programming for the community to showcase the artistry, amenities, and new spaces across the campus.
50th Anniversary Resident Organization Programming and Events
(Partial List as of September 16, 2008)
Each of Lincoln Center’s 12 resident organizations will celebrate Lincoln Center’s 50th Anniversary with select performances and events during the 2009-2010 celebration. More 50th Anniversary programming and events will be announced throughout the year.
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
January 31 – February 23, 2010
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center presents Beethoven’s complete quartet, cello sonata, and violin sonata cycles in ten concerts, with performers including the entire roster of former CMS Two quartets, Artistic Directors David Finckel and Wu Han, and additional Artists of the Society.
February 25, 2010
The Chamber Music Society also dedicates a program entitled Born Together: Composers and Lincoln Center Celebrate a Milestone Year, highlighting the work of some of chamber music’s most lauded composers in their 50th birthday year: George Benjamin, Osvaldo Golijov, Aaron Jay Kernis, Edgar Meyer, and Mark-Anthony Turnage.
Film Society of Lincoln Center
July 3-5, 2009 (4th of July Weekend)
Marathon of 50 consecutive hours of film musicals
September 4-6, 2009 (Labor Day Weekend)
Marathon of 50 consecutive hours of classical foreign films
Jazz at Lincoln Center
Winter 2010
Jazz and Art: the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra reprises its commission by JLCO saxophonist Ted Nash, “Portrait in Seven Shades” along with other newly commissioned works TBD.
Spring 2010
Fats Waller Festival – Jazz at Lincoln Center celebrates the 105th birthday of the legendary pianist, singer, composer, and New Yorker in a series of concerts.
The Juilliard School
October, 2009
A chamber music concert to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the date the Juilliard building opened for classes in 1969. The concert will feature music of distinguished composers associated with the Juilliard School, including past Presidents William Schuman and Peter Mennin.
April 21, 23, 25, 2010
Juilliard also will present the U.S. premiere of Kommilitonen!, a new opera by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies with a libretto by David Pountney, co-commissioned by the Royal Academy of Music and The Juilliard School. Presented in the dramatic Peter Jay Sharp Theater, the opera weaves together events of the Cultural Revolution, Die Weisse Rose and the Oxford Revolution in Mississippi. Directed by David Pountney and conducted by Anne Manson.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc.
June 2009
Two concerts of works by cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble that synthesize the diverse music traditions of cultures along the ancient trade route from Asia to Europe.
July 2009
Lincoln Center Festival 2009 will commission and present an evening of new works by Emanuel Gat Dance, featuring Gat's latest short works “Silent Ballet” and “Sixty Four”.
August 2009
Lincoln Center will present the New York premiere of a work by John Adams, co-commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
August 2009
As part of the Mostly Mozart Festival, Lincoln Center will present pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who will perform two concerts with a visiting chamber orchestra.
August 2009
As part of the Mostly Mozart Festival, Lincoln Center will present Beethoven’s Cello Sonata No. 2 and Charles Ives’ Trio -- two dance commissions by Mark Morris featuring musicians Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax.
Fall 2009
Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes will perform Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky, with a specially commissioned artwork by South African visual artist Robin Rhode.
Lincoln Center Theater
2009-2010 Season
Lincoln Center Theater will devote an entire issue of The Lincoln Center Theater Review to a history of the Lincoln Center Theater, and the companies that preceded it, at Lincoln Center. The Lincoln Center Theater Review is a literary magazine published three times a year. It was founded in 1986 by playwright John Guare.
Celebrating 50 Years of the Met
Since its inception, the Met has given the American premieres of some of the most important works in the operatic repertory and presented 32 world premieres. In honor of Lincoln Center’s 50th anniversary, the company will single out operas featured in the 2009-2010 season that have been in the Met repertory for 50 years or more. These operas include: Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Carmen, Hamlet, Aida, Der Fliegender Holländer, Le Nozze di Figaro, La Bohème, Tosca, Hansel and Gretel, La Damnation de Faust, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Der Rosenkavalier, Il Trittico, Turandot, Simon Boccanegra, Die Zauberflöte, and La Fille du Régiment.
Celebrating 50 Years of the Met Family
The Met is the artistic home to many of the greatest talents in opera, including world-renowned singers, musicians, and conductors, as well as leading figures in lighting, set, and costume design, and choreography. The extraordinary work of these artists has garnered the support and loyalty of the general public, Met patrons, and Board members, and inspired the company’s administrators and other employees. In honor of Lincoln Center, the Met will honor individuals—musicians, singers, publishers, artisans, managers, subscribers, patrons, Board members, employees—who have had a relationship with the Met for 50 years or more, with interviews, profiles, and events. These notable members of the Met family will be honored on such Met platforms as the radio, Playbill, metopera.org, etc.
Celebrating 50 Years on the Radio
The Met’s Saturday matinee radio series is currently in its 77th year, making it the longest-running classical music series in American broadcast history. The broadcasts are now heard in 42 countries around the world via the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network.
During select Toll Brothers international radio broadcasts, the Met will create features pegged to programming and personalities from the last 50 years (including those honored as mentioned above).
Metropolitan Opera Radio on SIRIUS Satellite Radio (Channel 78), the subscription-based audio service broadcasting both live and rare historical performances, will also air a broadcast or series of broadcasts conceived around 50 years of Met radio highlights.
New York City Ballet
Spring 2010
For the spring season, New York City Ballet will honor its extraordinary legacy of presenting new works with a festival of new choreography and music, featuring world premiere ballets and scores commissioned by NYCB from an international array of choreographers and composers especially for the occasion. In the tradition of its historic Tschaikovsky Festival in 1981, which featured a special architectural set design by Philip Johnson and John Burgee that was used as a backdrop for each of the ballets, NYCB plans to once again commission an architect to design a unifying scenic element for each of the premieres.
New York City Opera
2009-2010 Season
New York City Opera’s recreated, groundbreaking production of Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s opera Einstein on the Beach, during Gerard Mortier’s inaugural season as General Manager and Artistic Director, will celebrate Lincoln Center’s 50th Anniversary in the newly enhanced and renovated New York State Theater. The opera is choreographed by Lucinda Childs with spoken text by Christopher Knowles, Samuel M. Johnson, and Lucinda Childs.
New York Philharmonic
2009-2010 Season
In recognition of Lincoln Center’s 50th anniversary, the New York Philharmonic will present a special concert featuring music commemorating the 50th anniversary, from the groundbreaking to the present day. Details will be announced at a later date.
School of American Ballet
Spring 2010
The School celebrates its long history at Lincoln Center with three public performances at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater. The Workshop Performances, which showcase some of the nation's most promising young ballet talents, have been held annually at Lincoln Center since 1967.
50th Anniversary Exhibitions and Symposia
Lincoln Center: Celebrating 50 Years
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
October 15, 2009-January 16, 2010
The first major exhibition to explore the origins, development and impact of Lincoln Center, Lincoln Center: Celebrating 50 Years, curated by Thomas Mellins, co-author of the book New York: 1960, will
be the first major exhibit to explore the origins, development and impact of Lincoln Center. It will be complemented by campus-wide satellite exhibits, including:
• The Juilliard School Juilliard plans to present a satellite exhibit in the Lila Acheson Wallace Library during the spring 2009 semester
• The Metropolitan Opera The Met will present Celebrating 50 years of Met Costumes, an exhibition of striking costumes from productions from the past five decades. The costumes will be on display in Founders Hall.
• New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet will hold a photography exhibit at the New York State Theater during the 2010 spring season focusing on the world premiere ballets that have been created on NYCB at Lincoln Center
• New York Philharmonic
A Year-Round Hall Leads To A Year-Round Contract: From May – August 2009, the Philharmonic will mount an exhibit in Avery Fisher Hall’s Bruno Walter Gallery showing how summer programming in its new Lincoln Center home created the nation’s first full-time employment for symphony orchestra musicians.
• New York City Opera To be determined
Lincoln Center at the Times Center: Mondays in May
May 4, 11, 18, 2009
A special TimesTalks series featuring prominent Lincoln Center figures and artists exploring relevant arts-related topics with New York Times journalists. Peter Gelb, Peter Martins, and Gerard Mortier will participate in the May series.
The Paley Center for Media
Saturdays and Sundays, May 19 – 31, 2009
In conjunction with the yearlong celebration marking the 50th Anniversary of Lincoln Center’s groundbreaking, The Paley Center for Media will screen a selection of rare programs never released commercially, including the 1962 opening night telecast from Philharmonic Hall (later renamed Avery Fisher Hall); the 1964 opening night festivities at the New York State Theater; a 1964 program, Theater of Tomorrow, about the Lincoln Center Repertory Theater Company; the 1966 Bell Telephone Hour special The New Met: Countdown to Curtain; and the 1969 gala concert Juilliard Comes to Lincoln Center.
The Paley Center and Lincoln Center are also organizing a seminar that will examine the diverse ways the artistic companies of Lincoln Center have used the media over the past fifty years, as well as the new ways in which the arts will use television, radio, film, and digital media in the future.
Lincoln Center 50th Anniversary Website
To be launched 2009-2010
In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Lincoln Center, LincolnCenter.org will be re-branded and will launch several new interactive elements developed in collaboration with the 12 resident organizations. 50th Anniversary features will include multimedia timeline(s) animating the historic milestones of Lincoln Center’s resident organizations over the past five decades. The dynamic online experience also will feature digitized oral histories, image and video galleries and user polls.
Lincoln Center Digital Time Capsule
To be launched September 2008
Contributors from all over the world are invited to send in memories, images, videos, and audio of favorite moments, performances, and events at Lincoln Center over the past 50 years to www.lincolncenter.org/50. This digital time capsule will be housed on the Lincoln Center website, accepting user-generated content throughout the Anniversary year. At the end of the year in 2010, the digital time capsule will reside on the Lincoln Center website for viewing at will.
StoryCorps
April-May 2009
Voices from community members who have been a part of Lincoln Center's history also will be captured through a partnership with StoryCorps, the award-winning national project that collects and preserves the history and unique stories of everyday Americans. In spring 2009, a StoryCorps MobileBooth, an Airstream trailer outfitted with a recording studio, will be parked on the Josie Robertson Plaza, enabling the general public, artists, students and employees on the campus to share memories and stories of their lives, illuminating the personal significance of Lincoln Center and its history. These stories will be archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in D.C., as well as other Lincoln Center archives. Selected segments may also be broadcast on NPR and available online at www.storycorps.net.
Target Free Thursdays at the Visitor Space
Fall 2009
In honor of Lincoln Center’s 50th Anniversary, free weekly community programming of performances by break-out artists, student ensembles, community talent, and artists drawn from Lincoln Center’s resident organizations will be presented at the newly-opened Visitors Space at Lincoln Center.
50th Anniversary Educational Initiatives
Lincoln Center Resource Fair
May 7, 2009
A special fair in Alice Tully Hall for educators from the tri-state area will highlight the wide variety of arts education resources offered by all of Lincoln Center’s resident organizations. A specially designed education resource poster, detailing critical information and contacts for all Lincoln Center educational programs, will be produced in conjunction with the Fair and distributed to educators.
Lincoln Center’s High School for Arts, Imagination and Inquiry Scholarships
June 2009
Located on the Martin Luther King, Jr. campus immediately behind Lincoln Center, the High School for Arts, Imagination and Inquiry is part of the small school initiative with the New York City Department of Education. $100,000 in scholarships will be awarded to graduates of the high school, beginning with the school’s first graduating class in June 2009.
Lincoln Center Institute Presents World Premiere of Sheila’s Day
2009-2010
As part of the celebration of Lincoln Center’s 50th anniversary, Lincoln Center Institute will present Sheila’s Day, the world premiere of Ricardo Khan’s adaptation of the play, commissioned by the Institute. The original play is by Duma Ndlovu (Black Codes from the Underground, A Song for Soweto) with additional material by Ebony Jo-Ann. Sheila’s Day dramatizes the parallel lives of two women who are domestic workers—one South African, the other African-American and living in the Jim Crow South. Both gospel and South African music run through the play.
50 Imagination Conversations
2009-2010 School Year
Lincoln Center Institute will lead 50 “Imagination Conversations” with government, civic, business, philanthropic, and education leaders to begin redefining the ways in which imagination can recast the role of the arts in education in the U.S.
Expanded Meet the Artist Library series
Summer 2009
Lincoln Center’s Meet the Artist series, which presents a wide range of performances specially created for young people, will bring this series to libraries in Queens, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Staten Island for the first time as a 50th Anniversary initiative. Each program will showcase a unique blend of performance, participation, and education to provide the audience an opportunity to experience the arts firsthand with world-class artists.
50th Anniversary Publications
Art at Lincoln Center
May 2009
Over the past 50 years, Lincoln Center has acquired one of the finest mid-20th century art collections, including work by artists such as Alexander Calder, Auguste Rodin, Marc Chagall, Henry Moore, and Jasper Johns. Lincoln Center is also home to The List Poster and Print Collection, which commissions prints and posters from contemporary artists such as Chuck Close, Elizabeth Murray, and HeLen Frankenthaler. The history behind Lincoln Center’s fine art collection and programs will be the subject of a new book published by John Wiley & Sons in honor of Lincoln Center’s 50th Anniversary.
Imagination First (Working Title)
Fall 2009
A new book by Lincoln Center Institute Executive Director Scott Noppe-Brandon and best-selling author Eric Liu, who served as deputy domestic policy adviser under President Clinton, connects the need for imaginative education to society’s need for innovative leaders.
Live From Lincoln Center
May 2009-May 2010
Performances by Leontyne Price, Joan Sutherland, Beverly Sills, and hundreds of other artists who appeared on the country’s only live performing arts series, Live From Lincoln Center, will now be available to the public through a worldwide licensing arrangement with EuroArts/Medici. Over the next decade, these ‘hidden treasures’ from Live From Lincoln Center’s vast programming library, will be offered globally on DVDs, downloads, streaming video, broadcast, and other digital media. The nationally televised series in 2009-2010 will change its name to Live From “the 50th Anniversary of” Lincoln Center to highlight the anniversary.
Lincoln Center List Poster and Print Program
Beginning in May 2009
Lincoln Center will unveil a yearlong 50th anniversary series of fine print editions and handmade, collectible posters created by artists including HeLen Frankenthaler, Jim Dine, Guillermo Kuitca, Terry Winters, and Malcolm Morley.
50th Anniversary Artists Committee
May 2009-May 2010
In honor of the 50th Anniversary, Lincoln Center has formed a 50th Anniversary Artist Committee of performing artists from across several disciplines representing the exceptional and essential contributions that artists have made to Lincoln Center over the past 50 years, and will continue to make into the future.
Current 50th Anniversary Artist Committee members include: Emanuel Ax, Trisha Brown, Kristin Chenoweth, Victoria Clark, Barbara Cook, David Finckel and Wu Han, Renée Fleming, Alan Gilbert, James Levine, Wynton Marsalis, Peter Martins, Audra McDonald, Gerard Mortier, Patti LuPone, Bernadette peters, Peter Sellars, Dawn Upshaw, and Deborah Voigt.
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