After years of missteps and false starts, David Geffen Hall, the Lincoln Center home of the New York Philharmonic, finally reopened today after a $550 million renovation that aims to fix its longstanding acoustic woes and create a world-class hall that can entice new generations of concertgoers. The renovation hopes to end, once and for all, an acoustic curse that has plagued the hall since 1962, when it became the first theater at Lincoln Center to open. The auditorium has been gutted and totally rebuilt, removing 500 seats to create a more intimate experience and using rippling wood panels on the walls to diffuse the sound. The Philharmonic hopes the rebuilt hall will provide a burst of energy to help it recover from the coronavirus pandemic, when the 180-year-old orchestra canceled more than 100 concerts and lost $27 million in anticipated revenue. New York has yet to see tourism fully rebound, and attendance at many performing arts organizations has lagged. The reconfigured hall is seen as an opportunity to try to lure old concertgoers back, and to bring new audiences in. The renovation comes as Lincoln Center and the Philharmonic are redoubling efforts to draw a more diverse cross-section of New Yorkers. The opening program symbolizes those ambitions: It features the premiere of “San Juan Hill,” a work by the jazz trumpeter and composer Etienne Charles that pays tribute to the rich Afro-diasporic musical heritage of the neighborhood that was razed to clear the land for Lincoln Center. The work will be performed by Charles and his group, Creole Soul, along with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Jaap van Zweden. Tickets were made available on a choose-what-you-pay basis, with some given away free.
Source: Music - nytimes.com
