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Avery Fisher Hall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Avery Fisher Hall, located in New York City, is a part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts complex. It is the home of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. The hall contains 2,738 seats.
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The hall was built in 1962 and originally named Philharmonic Hall. It was renamed after Avery Fisher, a member of the Philharmonic board of directors, following his US $10.5 million donation to the orchestra in 1973.
The hall's architecture was designed by Max Abramovitz.
The architecture firm of Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) was hired to design the interior acoustics for the hall. Based on their experience designing and analyzing existing concert halls, BBN acousticians recommended that the hall be designed as a "shoebox" (similar to Symphony Hall, Boston), with seating for 2,400 patrons. Lincoln Center initially agreed with the recommendation, and BBN provided a series of design specifications and recommendations. However, the New York Herald Tribune began a campaign to increase the seating capacity of the new hall. Late in the design stage, the hall was redesigned to accommodate the critics, but these changes invalidated much of BBN's acoustical design[1]. BBN engineers told Lincoln Center that the hall would sound different from how they had intended it to, but they could not predict what the changes would do.
The hall opened on September 23, 1962 to mixed reviews. Several reporters panned the hall, while at least two conductors praised the acoustics. Several attempts were made to remedy the acoustical problems in the hall, with little success, which eventually led to a substantial renovation project designed by noted acoustician Cyril Harris. These renovations helped improve the sound, but Avery Fisher Hall remains acoustically problematic. One assessment of the acoustics of the hall is from R.C. Ehle:
"The seating capacity is large (around 2600 seats) and the sidewalls are too far apart to provide early reflections to the center seats. The ceiling is high to increase reverberation time but the clouds are too high to reinforce early reflections adequately. The bass is weak because the very large stage does not adequately reinforce the low string instruments."[2]
During the tenure of Kurt Masur with the New York Philharmonic, several plastic concave surfaces were installed and suspended from the roof of the stage. The problems with the acoustics of the hall extended to the point that the New York Philharmonic considered a merger with Carnegie Hall in 2003.[3] [4] However, this planned merger did not occur.[5]
For the past two summers, the Mostly Mozart Festival has experimented with extending the stage for the Mostly Mozart orchestra farther out into the seats from the main stage[6] [7]. According to a June 2006 report in the New York Times, Avery Fisher Hall will begin to undergo renovations in the summer of 2010[8], delayed from previous announcements of renovations in 2009[9].
Avery Fisher Hall is used today for many events, both musical and non-musical. For example, it is a frequent location for graduation ceremonies for high schools and universities, such as Columbia University Law School, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, Stuyvesant High School, Edward R. Murrow High School, Polytechnic University of New York, and the Bronx High School of Science. Weddings are held there as well.
The first television broadcast from Avery Fisher Hall was one of the Leonard Bernstein Young People's Concerts. It was shown on November 21, 1962, over the CBS television network. The program was entitled "The Sound of a Hall". At that time, the building was still known as Philharmonic Hall.
In addition, Lincoln Center presents visiting orchestras in Avery Fisher Hall, such as the London Symphony Orchestra, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Kirov Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre, as part of their "Great Performers" series.
- Website of Lincoln Center
- Guide to events at Avery Fisher Hall
- Will Crutchfield, "Music: Carnegie Hall vs. Fisher Hall". New York Times, 28 September 1987
- ^ Rothstein, Edward, "If Music Is the Architect, the Results May Be Less Than Melodious". New York Times, May 22, 2004
- ^ Robert C. Ehle, "What Does It Take to Make a Good Hall for Music?" Music Teacher International Magazine, web article.
- ^ Brian Wise, "New York Philharmonic to Carnegie Hall". WNYC (radio station), 2 June 2003.
- ^ Ralph Blumenthal and Robin Pogrebin, "New York Philharmonic Agrees to Move to Carnegie Hall". New York Times, 2 June 2003.
- ^ Barbara Jepson, "No Maestros". Wall Street Journal, 22 June 2004.
- ^ James R. Oestreich, "An Intimate Stage Plan for the Mostly Mozart Festival". New York Times, 3 May 2005.
- ^ Tommasini, Anthony, "New Vigor, New Program, New Stage: The Rejuvenation of Mostly Mozart". New York Times, August 31, 2005. (Accessible only to subscribers to TimesSelect.)
- ^ Tommasini, Anthony, "The Philharmonic's Double Challenge". New York Times, June 11, 2006. (Accessible only to subscribers to TimesSelect.)
- ^ Pogrebin, Robin, "New York Philharmonic to Redesign Hall". New York Times, May 20, 2004.
Melone, Deborah; Eric W. Wood (2005). Sound Ideas: Acoustical Consulting at BBN and Acentech. Cambridge, MA: Acentech Incorporated. LCCN 2006920681.