Information about Avery Fisher Hall

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.

History

The hall opened in 1962, replacing Carnegie Hall as the New York Philharmonic's home concert venue. The new hall was 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.

Acoustics

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" with narrowly-spaced parallel sides (similar in shape to the acoustically-acclaimed Symphony Hall, Boston), with seating for no more than 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' desires, 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.

Philharmonic Hall opened on September 23, 1962 to mixed reviews. The opening week of concerts included performances by a specially-invited list of guest orchestras (Boston, Philadelphia, and Cleveland), who were regularly appearing at Carnegie Hall each season, as well as the new hall's home ensemble. Several reporters panned the hall, while at least two conductors praised the acoustics. (While the initial intention had been that Philharmonic Hall would replace Carnegie Hall, which could then be torn down, that scenario of events did not take place.)

Several attempts were made to remedy the acoustical problems of the new Philharmonic Hall, with little success, leading to plans in the 1970s for a substantial renovation project designed by noted acoustician Cyril Harris with project architect Philip Johnson. These renovations included demolishing the inside of the hall and rebuilding a new hall within the outer framework and facade. While initial reaction to the improvements was favorable, overall feelings about the new hall's sound soured, and the acoustics of Avery Fisher Hall continued to be problematic. One assessment of the acoustics of the hall from R.C. Ehle stated:

"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 to help focus sound both for the audience and for the performers onstage.

The ongoing problems with the hall's acoustics eventually led the New York Philharmonic to consider a merger with Carnegie Hall in 2003,^{[3] [4]} which would have moved the Philharmonic back to Carnegie for most of its concerts each season. However, this planned merger did not occur.^[5]

Beginning in 2005 (and continuing in 2006), the Mostly Mozart Festival has experimented with extending the stage for the Mostly Mozart orchestra farther out into the seats from the main stage for the Festival's summer sesaon^{[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].

Usage

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, Brooklyn 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.

Avery Fisher Hall is also regularly seen to good advantage in PBS's ongoing Live from Lincoln Center series.

See also

• List of major concert halls

External links

• 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

References and Sources

• Melone, Deborah; Eric W. Wood (2005). Sound Ideas: Acoustical Consulting at BBN and Acentech. Cambridge, MA: Acentech Incorporated. LCCN 2006920681. 
• "Annals of Architecture: A Better Sound" by Bruce Bliven. New Yorker magazine, November 8, 1976.