Noah’s principle says: No more credit for predicting rain; credit only for building arks.
—Anonymous
It was a Thursday afternoon—May 29, 2003, at 3:00 p.m., to be precise—when Paul Guenther, the chairman of the board of the New York Philharmonic, came to my office to meet with me and Bruce Crawford, Lincoln Center’s chair. I had just completed my first full year of service as Lincoln Center’s president.
His purpose was to report that, after studying all the alternatives, the New York Philharmonic did not wish to spend some $20–$40 million for mechanical, infrastructure, and cosmetic purposes on Avery Fisher Hall. Neither did it wish to demolish Avery Fisher Hall entirely and erect a new building and venue inside it. Nor did it wish to have designed and built a brand-new auditorium within the existing structure.
The first option, refurbishing, really amounted to addressing deferred maintenance on such items as the loading dock; elevators; heating, ventilation, and air conditioning; green rooms, changing rooms, and storage facilities; and seat and carpeting replacement as well as fresh coats of paint applied throughout the auditorium. The second, demolish and start fresh, would not only incur the opposition of the Fisher family, for whom the hall was named, but also mobilize the active resistance of preservationist groups and implicate a bundle of regulatory strictures and approval requirements. Moreover, a change in the structure of the building itself would upset the architectural symmetry of its relationship to the New York State Theater and to the Metropolitan Opera. Neither the Met nor the occupants of the New York State Theater, the New York City Ballet and the New York City Opera, were likely to allow this option to be exercised. They liked the fact that their dwellings were of equal height and aligned with a pleasing sense of proportion around the central fountain.
It was the golden mean, the third alternative, that all parties, including Guenther, had jointly agreed, just several weeks before, to bring to the executive committees of the New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center, which would meet together for the first time. After months of work, the architectural firm of Pritzker Prize–winner Norman Foster, along with consulting acousticians and theater designers, had devised what appeared to be a very fine recommendation.
What they proposed was a brand-new auditorium within the existing structure. It would be moved south inside the building footprint, away from 65th Street, and toward Josie Robertson Plaza. In the auditorium, the seat count would be reduced from 2,738 to 2,400, and 250–300 seats would be placed behind the stage, facing the conductor. The stage itself would be thrust forward twelve to fourteen rows into the auditorium. The ceiling would be lifted to the bottom of the roof, the third balcony removed, and new floor and wall treatments applied everywhere.
By altering the cavernous and long shoe box design of the auditorium in Avery Fisher Hall to something resembling a vineyard-like configuration, the performers would enjoy a sense of intimacy and immediacy with the audience.1
The overall result would be improved aesthetics and acoustics. The “Foster plan” would also satisfy most of the program and functional needs set forth by the staffs of Lincoln Center and the New York Philharmonic. It could be accomplished in roughly half the time it would take to demolish the existing building and erect a new structure. It could be done for 75 percent of the cost (then estimated at $300 million versus $400 million). Because the building’s dimensions and footprint wouldn’t change, city and state regulation would be very lightly administered. And the Fisher family was amenable to our naming the new auditorium for a new donor as long as the building itself was called Avery Fisher Hall, as it had been since its opening in 1962.
The obstacles of too much time for the orchestra out of its home base, of having to raise too much money, of battling with the Fisher family over the naming of a new building, and of the heavy hand of government regulation, either were eliminated entirely or were significantly lowered by exercising this option. The prospects for major acoustic, programmatic, and aesthetic improvements all seemed to be substantially brightened by this approach, on which both institutions had worked together in good faith.
Or so we thought.
Foster’s firm had become well known for reconfiguring the innards of famous buildings, while leaving their total original structure intact. The Reichstag. The British Museum. The Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences. And the then new, soon-to-be built corporate headquarters of the Hearst Corporation, only several blocks south of Lincoln Center. Foster’s scheme for a brand-new auditorium in Avery Fisher Hall had generated much enthusiasm among all concerned.
Or so we thought.
At the request of the working group of trustees from both Lincoln Center and the New York Philharmonic, I had prepared a draft memorandum to the executive committees of both institutions formally presenting this option. It was framed as a united recommendation in advance of that joint meeting, scheduled for only a couple of weeks later. This unanimous agreement represented a major conceptual and procedural breakthrough, a source of hard-won consensus after months of intense work.
What Guenther told Bruce Crawford and me that Thursday at the end of May startled and shocked us. He said the New York Philharmonic intended to formally commence discussions with Sandy Weill, the chair of Carnegie Hall, to effectuate a merger of the two institutions. Nervously, Guenther cited two reasons for this decision. The cost of fixing up Carnegie Hall to house a full-time orchestra would be a relatively inexpensive $120 million, and the New York Philharmonic would be returning to an acoustically superior hall. He, and the few trustee colleagues who may have been consulted, viewed the Carnegie Hall option as no risk, low cost, and high return.
We asked whether the New York Philharmonic had considered the implications of a merger for its board, its staff, its artistic assets, its brand, and its donors. “Not yet” came the reply.
We reminded Guenther that Lincoln Center’s constituency agreement with the New York Philharmonic as our anchor tenant and partner for the use of Avery Fisher Hall ran until 2012. It contained a list of obligations, and not the least of them was financial. These included payments for any dates between 2003 and 2012 that Lincoln Center could not fill in Avery Fisher Hall that would otherwise be occupied by the New York Philharmonic; payment of all legal costs; the loss of its share of the annual Lincoln Center Corporate Fund proceeds distributed to all constituents in good standing; and payment of discrete staff and consultant costs explicitly requested or caused by the New York Philharmonic.
We felt duty bound to see that these obligations were discharged with fidelity. “Understood” came the reply. We then noted that, with this news in mind, we had no alternative but to inform the members of the Lincoln Center executive committee of this completely surprising turn of events and, in so doing, cancel the scheduled June 16 meeting. “Fine with me,” was Guenther’s response.
The New York Philharmonic’s bolt from the blue was presented by Guenther as firm, unwavering, and irreversible. We stressed that a leak of this sudden change of position could easily become front-page news.2 We urged Guenther to treat the matter with the utmost discretion, so that we could arrange for a dignified joint announcement the following week, on Tuesday or Wednesday. “Of course” he said.
The story was leaked less than thirty-six hours later. It came as little surprise to Bruce Crawford or me.3 President John Kennedy once noted, in referring to the source of leaks, that “the ship of state is the only ship that leaks from the top.” Well, Lincoln Center had been a notorious source of leaks for years, and many believed that Paul Guenther could rightly claim a share of them.
We knew that the New York Philharmonic had retained Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to explore the technical issue of whether the orchestra could logistically fit into Carnegie Hall. But we were told that this inquiry was low key, that it was conducted at the behest of a very few vocal members of the board, and that it would go nowhere.
In March, Guenther had told me in a telephone conversation that he was going to walk into the office of Zarin Mehta, the New York Philharmonic’s executive director, and tell him to “knock off this Carnegie Hall inquiry.” In April, Bruce Crawford told me Guenther had assured him that the notion of the New York Philharmonic going to Carnegie Hall was so unlikely that Guenther would resign as chair if it ever came up for serious consideration. Crawford also reported that in another conversation, Guenther had pledged that the New York Philharmonic would relocate to Carnegie Hall only over its chairman’s dead body.
Either the Paul Guenther we saw that May 29 afternoon never had that promised showdown with Mehta, or it yielded an entirely unsatisfactory result. He didn’t resign as chair of the New York Philharmonic. In possession of all his vital signs, he failed to redeem his pledge.
Bruce Crawford and I resolved not to become entangled in any personality issues. The most that Crawford would allow himself to say for public consumption was that he and Lincoln Center had been treated in less than collegial fashion by his counterpart at the New York Philharmonic. Crawford’s low-key and cool reaction set the tone for Lincoln Center’s modus operandi in the months ahead. From our perspective, Lincoln Center’s mandate was to serve the public. We turned our attention almost immediately to how best to physically transform Avery Fisher Hall’s venue, its programming, and its identity in the wake of the New York Philharmonic’s anticipated departure. At our request, Lincoln Center’s vice president for programs, Jane Moss, crafted a white paper outlining many exciting artistic initiatives that could take place in Avery Fisher Hall on dates now available for the first time. Its alternative futures were extremely promising. We were enthusiastic about them.
While we were determined to avoid the ad hominem and to attend to wounded feelings, not least our own, we were also confounded by the lack of any logical explanation for what had just happened.
One school of thought had it that Guenther’s leadership style was so disorganized and mercurial that to assume negative motives would be to pay him a compliment. Robin Pogrebin, the indefatigable New York Times reporter who rightly regarded the redevelopment of Lincoln Center as her exclusive beat, quoted a Philharmonic board member as characterizing the chairman’s decision-making process as nothing other than “ready, fire, aim.”4
Evidence for this opinion included what were widely regarded as two bungled searches for music director. According to multiple news accounts, neither Kurt Mazur nor Lorin Maazel was the New York Philharmonic’s preferred choice. The sense was widespread that in Mazur and Maazel the involved trustees had settled rather than selected. Both were septuagenarians, retained at the tail end of their careers. Neither would introduce new repertoire, new energy, or new direction to an orchestra many felt to be in need of them. Neither could connect to New York City in any meaningful way.5
Mazur brought discipline and Maazel superb baton technique and rehearsal efficiency to the musicians, but little to excite audiences and impress critics. Indeed, virtually no young conductors—Robert Spano, David Robertson, James Conlon, and Michael Tilson Thomas among them—were given serious consideration in either search. The hiring process in both searches was criticized even by prominent members of the New York Philharmonic board for being uninspired and tactically clumsy.
This same lack of clarity and purposefulness of the orchestra was fully reflected in its confusion throughout the process of thinking through a new hall. First, Guenther and Mehta argued that nothing less than tearing down the existing structure and starting afresh would suffice. Then they contended that following that approach would be too costly and too huge a fund-raising task and would keep the Philharmonic homeless for too long. Then their view shifted to preferring a new auditorium in the existing structure. But soon Mehta, Guenther, and a few other trustees complained that without a new footprint the Philharmonic’s needs couldn’t be satisfied, that the new auditorium couldn’t guarantee world-class acoustics, and that even it would cost too much money.
In 1962, a new baseball team was formed in the National League. Its name was the New York Mets. The near-term prospects for the franchise did not look good. The idea occurred to management that perhaps hiring out of retirement Casey Stengel, the legendary New York Yankees manager, to nurture the motley collection of young players and to guide the “over the hill” types who constituted the Mets’ first team would make good sense. Stengel accepted in the hope of creating a decent franchise.
After the first two months of the season, it became abundantly clear that Stengel’s hopes would be dashed. The Mets were the laughingstock of the National League, consigned to its basement, last place. At the end of the year, their record stood at 42 wins and 120 losses. And nothing that Stengel could do helped matters much.
Jimmy Breslin reported that Stengel at one point during the season looked forlornly down the Mets bench, shook his head, and plaintively asked, “Doesn’t anyone here know how to play this game?”
In October 2003, when the New York Philharmonic announced that it hadn’t meant what it said five months before and was “returning,” having never really left Lincoln Center, I was quoted as saying, “Welcome home. All’s forgiven. We have a lot to discuss.”6
That remark was not off-the-cuff. It expressed my careful, if seemingly lighthearted, attempt to build a bridge back to a battered and chastened refugee orchestra. After leading the IRC for six years, during which time it had resettled a total of about seventy thousand refugees in America, I could credibly claim to know something about the process. To return home, the refugee needs to advance the case convincingly that he or she is fleeing from danger or is reuniting with family. By my lights, the New York Philharmonic, an institutional refugee, had met the latter test and was therefore entitled to come home. That explains those three pithy sentences. They came by way of an embrace.
Had I been less responsible, or more accurate, or had I simply given vent to my true feelings about the performance of the New York Philharmonic’s leadership, I might just as well have quoted Stengel.
THE FLIGHT OF the New York Philharmonic to Carnegie Hall was purportedly designed to achieve freedom from the strictures of the Lincoln Center relationship. But its position as an anchor tenant at Avery Fisher Hall and a partner of Lincoln Center in financing its operations offered the orchestra what Carnegie Hall could not or would not. A wide, almost unlimited choice of performance and rehearsal dates in season. Complete freedom as to what would be performed in the symphonic literature and by whom. The choice of music director and all other staff, artistic and managerial. Control over the New York Philharmonic name and how it is depicted, the sources from which it chooses to raise funds, and the number and kind of trustees that would populate its board of directors as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Apparently, soon after the triumphant expression of an intention to merge operations was announced with great fanfare, it became abundantly clear that all of these freedoms enjoyed by the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center might well be relinquished if it returned to Carnegie Hall.
For decades, orchestras from domestic and foreign cities like Vienna, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, and Philadelphia performed at Carnegie Hall on certain agreed-upon dates. These rarely varied. The New York–based donors and the expatriate supporters of these ensembles attended with enthusiasm. Fund-raisers were held. Some orchestral players brought family members to New York City on holiday. In the media capital of the world, feature stories and critical reviews were much sought after.
Neither Carnegie Hall nor these world-class ensembles were prepared to yield their prime dates to the New York Philharmonic.
As a practical matter, and not even counting the number of needed rehearsals, the 120–130 desirable performance dates of the New York Philharmonic soon began to shrink as the utterly predictable laws of physics were thrown into sharp relief. Two orchestras cannot rehearse or perform on the same stage at the same time. Something had to give. And what ultimately yielded was the New York Philharmonic’s wishful, even magical thinking.
How could Carnegie Hall guarantee that one of its world-class visiting orchestras would not play the same music the New York Philharmonic planned to perform in the same season?
How could Carnegie Hall ensure that there wasn’t competition for special guest artists between the New York Philharmonic and these visiting orchestras?
How could Carnegie Hall allow free rein to the New York Philharmonic’s fund-raising, given the substantial overlap in appeal of both organizations to existing and potential donors?
Lorin Maazel was scheduled to be replaced with a new conductor. As the “owner” of the New York Philharmonic, why wouldn’t Carnegie Hall select his successor?
And in the mix was another septuagenarian, Zarin Mehta, the executive director. He must have assumed that a major role would be reserved for him in the new arrangement. The much-respected head of Carnegie Hall, Robert Harth, about three decades Zarin’s junior, but with plenty of experience, was extremely well-liked and respected in the field. Anyone who knew Harth understood that he had not joined the venerable organization of Carnegie Hall to be deposed or undermined. Naturally, Carnegie Hall wished to determine who would run the outfit. Rumors spread that if this merger were executed, in a matter of months Mehta would be shown the door.
Shrouded in mystery was whether the New York Philharmonic would actually give up its independent charitable status and dissolve into Carnegie Hall, becoming, in effect, a “line of business.” If so, what number of New York Philharmonic trustees would be added to the Carnegie Hall board, and who would they be?
What looked so tempting in theory to the New York Philharmonic faded in the face of these thorny questions. They amounted to one, really: Who would be in charge?
As for Carnegie Hall, what did it find when it belatedly examined with care the books of the New York Philharmonic? Years of consecutive operating deficits and a large unfunded pension liability in excess of $10 million. Harth and Weill also learned to their dismay that the New York Philharmonic’s announcement and potential departure from Lincoln Center might well carry heavy legal liabilities. They could cost well over $20 million. Lincoln Center meant business. It intended to pursue its legal remedies.
We patiently explained to Guenther that from Lincoln Center’s point of view its constituency agreement with the New York Philharmonic had been breached. As a result, we contended that the New York Philharmonic would be responsible for payment of damages, and its privileges as a resident artistic organization of Lincoln Center were subject to nullification.
One might consider the New York Philharmonic’s plans from either the perspective of pursuing freedom from a constrained and constricted relationship at Lincoln Center or gaining freedom to a promised better deal at Carnegie Hall. What became clear was that the situation at Lincoln Center was not so bad after all, and the one at Carnegie Hall was more complex and vexing than either side had imagined.
If there were an Olympic gold medal for a sport called backpedaling, the New York Philharmonic would have won hands down. The public reversal of its plans less than six months after a grand public announcement of them was a colossal humiliation.
So much of the difference between the two sides could have been determined by just a little staff homework and by careful consideration of the likely legitimate interests of each party. Apparently, neither happened. I was put in mind of Napoleon’s epigram: “Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.”
Beyond Napoleon’s explanation, could there be another? My view is that the New York Philharmonic simply did not wish to raise its share of the cost of a brand-new auditorium in Avery Fisher Hall, $100–$125 million. Even though Lincoln Center had generously offered to pay as much as 75 percent of the $400 to $500 million total price tag, the prospect of a major capital campaign gave many trustees at the Philharmonic the shivers. In its storied history, nothing approaching that sum had ever been raised, and the orchestra’s chief professional, Mehta, had not the experience, the willingness, or the ability to take the lead in directing such a campaign. Nor did its board chair, Guenther.
To this day, I do not understand why the nation’s oldest orchestra, located in what is by far its largest and wealthiest city, does not perform much better in raising funds. For the fiscal year ending August 31, 2013, the New York Philharmonic’s endowment totaled $187.4 million, with an operating budget of $74.2 million. In other words, its endowment stands roughly at 2.5 times its annual spending needs.
Why is it that the Chicago Symphony, by comparison, ended its 2012–2013 fiscal year with an endowment of $257 million on an operating budget of $73 million, or 3.5 times its annual operating budget?
And why did the Boston Symphony’s endowment total $421.7 million on an operating budget of $83.5 million, five times its annual spending requirements?
The New York Philharmonic seemed to view its lackluster endowment and its consistent annual operating deficits as reasons to shortchange itself. There is, of course, another option. More generous trustees. More energetic and compelling fund-raising, by the board and the staff. More galvanizing ideas that spur contributed income.
In most of my experience with the New York Philharmonic, tepidness and an absence of zeal have carried the day. Instead of seeing a new auditorium as an exciting investment opportunity that could catalyze superior fund-raising for both capital and endowment needs, it viewed a major fund-raising campaign as out of reach and unrealistic.
Not so in Dallas, where Meyerson Hall was built for the Dallas Symphony in 1989. Not so in Philadelphia, where the Kimmel Center was erected for the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2001. Not so in Los Angeles, where Disney Hall was christened as the dazzling home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2003.
For the New York Philharmonic, the dominant challenge seemed to be how to find a new home without having to raise substantial funds to pay for it. How sad.
Rumors had it that Sandy Weill, Carnegie Hall’s chair, might have offered some kind of substantial commitment to the New York Philharmonic. It was suspected that what Mr. Weill had up his sleeve was an intention to give or raise most, if not all, of the funds needed for the orchestra’s relocation to Carnegie Hall. Given his extraordinary generosity to Carnegie Hall for so many of its major initiatives, financial support directed to helping make possible the New York Philharmonic’s return there would hardly be out of character.
Besides any financial incentive, moving to Carnegie Hall made it unnecessary for the orchestra to perform for a couple of seasons outside its home while construction occurred. Like the renter who keeps his original apartment until he moves into a new one gradually and conveniently, the Philharmonic envisioned staying at Lincoln Center until Carnegie Hall was ready for it to relocate.
If there were an explicit or implicit offer of financial support to the New York Philharmonic, from a sheer real estate perspective one might call this anticipated arrangement a free ride. But from an institutional, managerial, artistic, and operational vantage point it was nothing short of a disaster in the making. All of this could have been fully predicted by looking at the calendar. Just ask the question why no great orchestra has merged with another institution. Ever. Anywhere. Just consider the issue of who would be in charge managerially and artistically. And what about governance?
Why didn’t the Philharmonic staff obtain a current Carnegie Hall calendar and project onto it all needed New York Philharmonic performance and rehearsal dates? Doing so would have immediately clarified how much displacement of Carnegie’s regular schedule was needed to accommodate the New York Philharmonic’s expectations.
Why didn’t the New York Philharmonic board debate the consequences of a merger for the identity of the orchestra, for its artistic integrity, for its management, and for its governance?
Why wasn’t basic homework done regarding the impact of a merger on fund-raising, on trustee composition, and on the balance sheet of the merged entity? And why didn’t Carnegie Hall’s staff and board undertake similar due diligence from its point of view?
The aftershocks of this orchestral round-trip to and from Carnegie Hall permeated the media. No one followed this story more closely than Robin Pogrebin, who originally broke it for the New York Times. No one had more or better sources. Writing on October 14, 2003, she summarized the whole affair this way:
[T]he Philharmonic board itself may ask him [Paul Guenther] to step down [as chair]. Several trustees, who would not comment for the record, said Mr. Guenther mishandled the Philharmonic’s planned departure in a way that cost him the confidence of his board.
Several Philharmonic trustees said that Mr. Guenther decided on the merger without consulting the full board, and that he agreed to a merger before having even begun to consider—or had the board consider—the logistical and programming ramifications. They said he assumed the Philharmonic would have primacy at Carnegie Hall without ascertaining whether Carnegie would agree.
I am aware that grade inflation is quite common in colleges and universities, but as an erstwhile professor myself, I’d conclude that there is no way the New York Philharmonic could have received anything other than a failing grade in Management 101 and Governance 101.
THE ULTIMATE IRONY is that not only did both organizations fail to look forward to the first-order consequences of their future relationship, but also neither appeared to look back to their own history together.
Famously, Santayana once observed: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I am more partial to Mark Twain’s view: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
A visit to the New York Philharmonic archives reveals that when the orchestra performed at Carnegie Hall, well before it ever moved to Lincoln Center, the relationship between these two artistic institutions was fraught and embattled. From the New York Philharmonic’s perspective, the records are replete with complaints, from very serious issues to minor irritants. The lateness of Carnegie Hall in scheduling performances and rehearsals. The terms and conditions of the use of the venue. The sloppy deployment by Carnegie Hall of the New York Philharmonic’s chairs and music stands. The feeling was that when given a choice, Carnegie offered foreign orchestras favored dates, to the detriment of its resident orchestra, the New York Philharmonic.
We ask why the Carnegie Hall administration always favors a foreign orchestra which takes a few dates over and above New York’s own orchestra which leases more than one hundred dates. Our objections are both important and numerous and I wish to set them forth so that you will see our position more clearly.
So wrote Arthur Judson, the Executive Secretary of the Philharmonic Society, to Wilton M. Bergerman, acting president of Carnegie Hall, on December 15, 1942.
On January 28, 1944, Bergerman returned the favor in a written volley to Judson, complaining about the Philharmonic’s failure to offer a reasonable sum to rent Carnegie Hall’s quarters for future seasons:
Except for the conditional offer of $250,000 contained in Mr. Field’s letter, of September 1st, 1943, I have received no direct word from the Philharmonic on their position. I have informed Mr. Field and told you on a number of occasions that an offer of this amount was unsatisfactory and contained no possibility of an ultimate agreement.
I, too, regret that it has required so much time for the [Philharmonic] Society to formulate an offer of a character warranting serious consideration by us.
By the end of the very same year, on December 20, 1944, the matter still had not been resolved. Bergerman claimed in writing that he was being treated rudely. The Philharmonic, in the person of associate manager Bruno Zirato, denied that such was the case. He expressed his own frustration that settlement discussions were at a standstill.
The correspondence is replete with complaints about major matters and small details. It seethes with animosity. The Philharmonic protested other events booked by Carnegie Hall on inconvenient dates. It importuned management to install water coolers in the corridors and to repair fans causing a draft on the stage. It beseeched the administration of Carnegie Hall to provide clean meeting rooms free of refuse; supply toilet paper, paper tissue, and soap in bathrooms; and ensure that rental tenants began and ended their occupancy on time. There were arguments about access to the green room, about the cleanliness of the hall itself, and about the comportment of the ushers.
And all of these matters were aired following an ultimatum that was issued by the Philharmonic in a letter to Robert Simon, the president of Carnegie Hall, dated three years before, on January 13, 1941:
If Carnegie Hall is not seriously concerned about the artistic success of the Philharmonic, we are seriously considering curtailing again our dates at Carnegie Hall and resuming our concerts in Brooklyn and the Metropolitan, giving in this way an opportunity of playing concerts in a larger auditorium in the case of the Metropolitan, or of bringing the music to another borough as in the case of Brooklyn.
Does this sound like a happy tenant? Do these exchanges depict a benevolent landlord?
COULD THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC possibly believe that the reception accorded it at Carnegie Hall seventy years later would be much different? Commitments to other ensembles are now far more numerous, as is the number of Carnegie Hall’s own presentations, as is the number of its rental agreements. For all of these reasons, satisfying the Philharmonic on performance and rehearsal dates would be much more difficult today, not less. To compound these difficulties, the orchestra’s expectations of how it would be treated at Carnegie Hall had risen, not fallen.
Even worse is the distinct possibility that the staff and trustees at the Philharmonic and at Carnegie Hall never consulted their own history. If they failed to do so, they willfully ignored their past, Santayana and Twain notwithstanding. If they did pay any attention to yesteryear, then both parties ignored the explicit warnings contained in their history. Either way, shame on them.
Sure enough, over the summer months of 2003, representatives of Carnegie Hall and the New York Philharmonic found that they could agree on very little.
The New York Philharmonic, in the person of Zarin Mehta, expected Carnegie Hall to accommodate all of its needs and to acquiesce in its plans virtually unchanged—on scheduling, on artistic and managerial leadership, and on program content. In a stunning display of naiveté, Mehta wondered why Carnegie Hall would want to merge with the world’s third-oldest orchestra only to change it.
For Carnegie, the New York Philharmonic would become only one orchestra among many it would present in the Isaac Stern Auditorium. Although it may have historically played 120–130 dates in Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie could offer it only about 80 desirable dates in its home. No more. And accommodating the orchestra’s request for rehearsal time on the stage of the Isaac Stern Auditorium before every performance was deemed to be simply out of the question.
There was nothing to be gained by pretending. The effort to avoid fund-raising for capital purposes thrust the New York Philharmonic into a subsidiary role at Carnegie Hall, the true cost of which grew clearer and larger by the day.
For all of the bombast that the merger would be a “win-win” arrangement for both parties and a “perfect deal,” the incompatibilities between these two important organizations were too basic to overcome. The New York Philharmonic Board was left gasping for breath, wondering about the fecklessness of its leaders, who could allow such a breathtakingly public spectacle to occur on their watch.
The announced merger was star-crossed from its inception, and both parties abandoned it. What we witnessed was a travesty, an escape from responsible governance.
Putting our private, personal feelings aside, the Carnegie Hall caper inevitably set back the New York Philharmonic’s relations with Lincoln Center. In attempting to refute members of his own board who had revealed to the press that they were uninformed about the move to Carnegie, Guenther told the media that the matter had been discussed openly at meetings for at least a year.7 He never revealed to Lincoln Center officials that a New York Philharmonic move to Carnegie Hall was being seriously considered. We had participated instead in what we thought were good-faith discussions about the future of a fully renovated auditorium in Avery Fisher Hall.
In the weeks following the initial announcement of a merger, Guenther, Mehta, and Glenn Dicterow, the concertmaster of the orchestra, disparaged Avery Fisher Hall’s acoustics, the very place where the New York Philharmonic had played for four decades.8 At one point, Guenther was quoted by Deborah Solomon of the New York Times as saying that the acoustics in Central Park were preferable to those in Avery Fisher Hall.9 All of this hall bashing was not only unnecessary, it was unseemly.
Naturally, the trustees and staff of Lincoln Center and many of the constituents were furious. The gratuitous bad-mouthing of Avery Fisher Hall’s ambience and acoustics amounted to rhetorically kicking their forty-year host on the way out. It was the height of irresponsibility. We were all angry about the wasted time that had been invested in exploring options that the Philharmonic may have never intended to exercise. And we were upset with the negative fallout of the trashing of the reputation of the hall. After all, Avery Fisher Hall was also the home to Lincoln Center’s own successful and critically acclaimed presentations as well as to dozens of highly valued ensembles that rented the space.
Avery Fisher Hall and Lincoln Center deserved better, much better.
Nonetheless, Bruce Crawford and I extended ourselves to Guenther, Mehta, and their colleagues. We swallowed hard and tried to look past the incivility and half-truths to which we had been subjected. We saw our role, publicly and privately, as soothing the ruffled feathers of trustees and employees and rising above the fray. Perhaps the most significant of many steps taken toward these ends was dropping the threat of litigation and of demands for damages, claims we were very confident we could have won had we pursued them.
By our taking the high road, we hoped the New York Philharmonic would learn its own lesson as a barrage of criticism and ridicule swept over the institution and its leaders. We refused to participate in what must have been a humiliating aftermath. We very much hoped that the passage of time would heal wounds.
IT DID.
Belatedly, Guenther resigned. In September 2009 he was succeeded by Gary Parr, a leading investment banker at Lazard Frères. Lorin Maazel was succeeded by the son of two New York Philharmonic musicians, a hometown boy made good, Alan Gilbert. And Mehta was followed by Matthew VanBesien, an experienced executive director of the Houston Symphony and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
We could feel the fresh air. Parr moved to supplement the trustee cohort of the New York Philharmonic with new members. Vital matters were now discussed openly at executive committee and board meetings. The relationship of Parr with Lincoln Center board chairs Bennack and Farley was excellent. Both worked in every way possible to support him in rebuilding trust between our two institutions, as did all of Lincoln Center’s employees, with my explicit instruction and encouragement.
Alan Gilbert exhibited poise, intelligence, and reliable leadership from the podium and otherwise. His programming and conducting were extremely well received by the critical press and Philharmonic audiences. He became the head of Juilliard’s conducting program. He was a staunch advocate for maintaining and even expanding free concerts in New York City’s parks. He championed the music of living composers, not only in a major new Biennale, but in the core subscription program of the orchestra. He participated willingly in the resumption of serious and sustained discussions about the future of Avery Fisher Hall. He understood what it takes to be a cultural leader.
To the delight of all concerned, Gilbert’s contract with the orchestra was renewed and now runs through 2017.
On the subject of Avery Fisher Hall, Gilbert’s view was far from cramped. It was ambitious. As he energetically communicated to me and others: if we are going to modernize this auditorium, then let’s do it thoroughly and imaginatively. Let’s get it right. Avery Fisher Hall is now surrounded by a magnificently renovated and rejuvenated campus. We need to catch up in terms of the quality of our facility and the level of energy and imagination we bring to it.
No furrowed brow. No defensive crouch.
He even saw a positive side to being unable to play in Avery Fisher Hall for a couple of seasons while construction was under way. Traveling to different venues around New York City would be healthy for the orchestra. It would enlarge audiences, reach out to new donors, and secure additional loyalists. It would put “New York” back in the name of this venerable organization.
And VanBesien? He was a hardworking, experienced, and competent partner to Parr and Gilbert.
During my last few years at Lincoln Center, cooperation and goodwill dominated the relationship with the New York Philharmonic: in clearing dates for the use of Avery Fisher Hall, in artistic consultations, in refreshing a constituency agreement that required a significant overhaul, and in thinking through what kind of auditorium in Avery Fisher Hall would work best for artists and audiences of the twenty-first century.
Even so, the New York Philharmonic remained beset by challenges. That nagging operating deficit just wouldn’t go away. The 2013–2014 operating deficit was $2.1 million, and it was $6.1 million in the prior season. Tellingly, for that just completed fiscal year, the board of directors approved using 6.75 percent of its endowment to support current operations, up from the traditional 5 percent. Had it not instituted this change, the 2013–2014 deficit would have been closer to $5 million.
So, it is clear that the orchestra simply must learn how to live within its means. It also needs to address long-standing structural issues like the continuing lack of a summer home, an asset of so many of the New York Philharmonic’s counterparts: Chicago at Ravinia, Boston at Tangle-wood, Cleveland at the Blossom Festival, Los Angeles at the Hollywood Bowl. The absence of this source of earned income and an associated, enhanced donor base was difficult to compensate for in other ways.
Retaining a consultant to advise it on setting a course for enhanced fund-raising, the New York Philharmonic became acutely aware of how much, offstage, it had fallen behind some of its admired counterparts around the nation. Too little had been asked of trustees. With a new energetic and cooperative leadership team in place and with the future of the orchestra consensus-blessed, now seemed to be the time for raising expectations of giving and getting. Besides, with the stock and real estate markets at record highs in 2014, there could hardly be a more receptive environment.
It was very refreshing for me to witness the frankness with which the Parr, Gilbert, and VanBesien trio acknowledged these challenges and endeavored to deal with them. Positive changes were frequently announced. They established a partnership with the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra and created an annual fund-raiser on the Chinese New Year. They built on a successful summer residency in Vail, Colorado, by arranging for another with the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California. They began an effort to enhance their endowment and to set aside funds for the future modernization of the auditorium in Avery Fisher Hall. How serious, sustained, and successful the New York Philharmonic’s capital campaign will be is an open question.
Together, we hoped to prove that, by looking forward and by moving to higher ground, a most unfortunate episode in the life of our organizations could be overcome. Nations do it all the time. So do corporations. How could two sister performing arts organizations with so much in common conduct themselves any differently?