Vol. XXII No. 7
April 2007
Tully Hall to Close for Extensive Facelift

By TONI MARIE MARCHIONI

At the end of this month, Alice Tully Hall will lock its doors for 18 months to complete renovations begun last summer. While the 38-year-old hall's refurbishing—part of Lincoln Center's West 65th Street redevelopment project—is undoubtedly needed, its closing will significantly impact the New York music community, and especially that of the artists of Lincoln Center. Not only will many of Juilliard's performances be displaced, but so will events of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Mostly Mozart Festival, and New York Film Festival, as well as the graduation ceremonies of several local academic institutions (including Juilliard) and concerts of numerous touring ensembles and soloists.

Alice Tully Hall:
Past ... and Future

An interactive feature exclusive to The Juilliard Journal online.
The community will say "Good Night, Alice" on April 30 with a gala concert and benefit hosted by former NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw. The performance, which will be the last in the hall before its temporary closing, will showcase trumpeter, faculty member, and alumnus Wynton Marsalis, vocalist and alumna Audra McDonald, composers Laurie Anderson and Philip Glass, also a Juilliard alum, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and the Juilliard Orchestra under the baton of David Robertson (appropriately performing Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony). As part of the Live From Lincoln Center series on PBS, a national television broadcast of the event will air on May 3.

In addition to bidding a temporary farewell to Alice Tully Hall, the gala also serves to pay homage to the hall's rich history by showing archival film of some of its past occasions. Marian Skokan, publicity manager for Lincoln Center, points out that Alice Tully's most fascinating virtue is its versatility. Since its opening in 1969, "the hall has been host to a huge range of people and genres," she points out, "including dance, theater, lecture series, chamber music, symphonic repertoire, and vocal recitals."

Skokan also highlights the plethora of high-profile, internationally successful artists who gave their New York recital debuts in Tully Hall, among them violinist Joshua Bell, and vocalists Renée Fleming, Bryn Terfel, Dawn Upshaw, and Deborah Voigt. Additionally, an early jazz concert series in the hall called Classical Jazz was the precursor to today's Jazz at Lincoln Center. Other celebrities who have set foot on Tully's stage in various types of performances range from Leonard Bernstein to Tony Bennett, Igor Stravinsky to Clint Eastwood, Meryl Streep to Patti LuPone, and Toni Morrison to Harold Pinter.

The Juilliard Orchestra on stage at Alice Tully Hal during the hall's dedication concert on October 26, 1969. (Photo by Whitestone)
As one of the most prominent residents of Alice Tully Hall, which hosts some 1,300 events each year, the Chamber Music Society is deeply affected by the hall's closing. In a recent interview, Norma Hurlburt, the society's executive director, explained the rigorous process of finding a new temporary home that would keep the season length and number of concerts constant. "We scoured the whole area to find a place," she said, "having decided that trying to keep our home as near Lincoln Center as possible was going to be a top priority." Wanting to keep the transition as painless for audiences as possible, Hurlburt settled on the "very best place we could find in the neighborhood"—the New York Society for Ethical Culture, on 64th Street and Central Park West.

Ethical Culture's semicircular hall, which seats approximately 850 people, has "great acoustics," according to Hurlburt. "The beauty of it is that nobody in the audience is more than 65 feet away from the performers. No matter where you sit, it sounds great." The Rose Studio Concerts and the New Music in the Rose series will continue as usual at Frederick P. Rose Hall, the home of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

While both Hurlburt and the musicians of the Chamber Music Society are excited about their temporary residency, they are even more eager to return to the new Alice Tully Hall. Says Hurlburt about the planned renovations: "I think it's really going to feel like a temple for music in there. It's not going to have a whole ceiling full of lights, or things you would do in a theater space. It's just going to be a fabulous, very glorious, music hall."

Since copious Juilliard student performances—including the popular Wednesdays at One series—take place in Alice Tully Hall every season, Nicholas Saunders, Juilliard's director of concert operations, was saddled with the task of relocating 51 performances that would have otherwise been in Tully during the 2007-08 academic year. His main goal, he says, was to "keep everything as close to home as possible, but in familiar venues." After adding 10 or so extra performances to the schedule of the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, Saunders had to turn to other nearby halls. One challenge, he says, was finding venues that "replicate the audience size that we have at Tully. There are a number of smaller venues we could use, but a hall that seats two or three hundred is just not adequate for the audience we are accustomed to." According to Saunders, the audiences at Tully range anywhere from 400 to 900 people.

The Juilliard Orchestra will perform in venues it typically uses, with concerts in Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall, and the Sharp Theater. Two orchestral performances are also scheduled in Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater. Most of the Wednesdays at One concerts (with the exception of ChamberFest and the Pre-College events, which will be in the Sharp Theater) will be moved to the Society for Ethical Culture, where a number of evening chamber music concerts will also be held. Additionally, Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall will host the annual Alice Tully Vocal Arts Debut Recital, and the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, on West 46th Street near Times Square, will accommodate Juilliard's organists in their annual recital. Saunders is still investigating additional dates at the John Jay Theater and Columbia University's Miller Theater.

Juilliard's class of 2007 will feel the impact of Tully's closing as well. For the first time ever, next month's commencement will be held in Avery Fisher Hall, and instead of being a morning ceremony, will take place at 3 p.m.

While the closing of Alice Tully Hall has created scheduling headaches for many ensembles, musicians and administrators alike are eagerly anticipating its reopening in fall 2008 with a new three-story, all-glass lobby and state-of-the-art acoustics and facilities. "We're hoping we'll be back the same and better than ever," says Skokan. "The same in the sense of intimacy and a wonderful space, especially for chamber music and vocal recitals, but better for the artists and for the public in terms of amenities that will be added."

Despite the planned acoustic, structural, and aesthetic overhauls, there is one aspect of Alice Tully Hall that needs no transforming: the sense of love that is held almost universally among its performers and audience members. Says Skokan, "There is a real intimate, close feeling—a family feeling—about it at Lincoln Center. And I think that is what everybody wants to stay."

Toni Marie Marchioni, a master's student in oboe, is a regular contributor to The Juilliard Journal.
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