Lincoln Center President Reynold Levy gave the commencement address at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania this past weekend, urging the graduates to “pursue your bliss and realize your dreams.”
Congrats to all the graduates!
Watch the complete speech (starts at about the 00:44:00 mark)
Read the complete speech
Just announced: Lincoln Center today announced that Jed Bernstein, a dynamic, entrepreneurial arts executive, theater producer and educator, was unanimously selected by its Board of Directors to be its next President, succeeding Reynold Levy in January 2014. The announcement was made by Katherine Farley, Lincoln Center Board Chair.
Jed has been professionally engaged in the arts for more than two decades. He led the Broadway League for 11 successful years and is a Tony Award®-winning independent Broadway producer through Above the Title Entertainment, a production company and marketing consultancy he launched in 2006. In 2011, Jed joined with the Bridge Street Foundation to spearhead the financial and creative restructuring and extensive renovation of the historic Bucks County Playhouse, and became its producing director.
In accepting the new position, Jed said, “The chance to lead the next phase of Lincoln Center’s evolution is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Growing up on the Upper West Side, I watched as it was first created and was fortunate that my parents took me to a countless number of performances. I can think of no professional challenge more fulfilling than to be asked to share my enthusiasm for the importance of all the performing arts with Lincoln Center’s many constituencies. It is with great pride that I follow Ren’s terrific legacy, and I am grateful to the Board for its confidence and support.”
Read the full announcement here.
Reynold Levy, President of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, appeared on Charlie Rose last night, speaking about his work leading the cultural institution through renovation and its future.
Watch the full interview here
Reynold Levy, President of Lincoln Center, recently spoke with Denver Frederick on WOR-Radio’s “The Business of Giving,” a weekly radio show about the issues of charitable giving, the changing trends in philanthropy, and its impact on all of us. Levy spoke about how Lincoln Center raised $1.2 billion for the redevelopment of the campus, and what it means to be the leading performing arts center in the 21st Century. Listen to the entire interview here
(Photo by Brian Stanton)
Lincoln Center President Reynold Levy was among 180 influential artists, scientists, scholars, authors and institutional leaders who were inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences at a ceremony in Cambridge, Mass., on October 6. In this photo, he signs the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Book of Members, a tradition that dates back to 1780.
(Photo by Jason Clarke Photography)
Pictured (left to right) are Mr. Jimmy Deenihan, TD Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht; An Taoiseach Enda Kenny, TD (Ireland’s Prime Minister); Lincoln Center President Reynold Levy and Kieran Tobin, Chairman of the National Concert Hall at the National Concert Hall’s Annual Gala Dinner 2012 where Mr. Levy was special guest speaker.
(Photo by James Sims)
The second annual Lincoln Center Dialogue - Lincoln Center’s only spoken word series - kicked off in the David Rubenstein Atrium earlier this morning. Moderated by Lincoln Center President Reynold Levy, the first Dialogue panel featured John Sexton, President, New York University, and Drew Faust, President, Harvard University, discussing challenges of leadership at the university level.
The second and third Dialogue conversations will take place on Oct. 10 and Nov. 7 respectively and will focus on the challenges of leadership in the museum and public policy arenas.
(For further information about the breakfast series and how to purchase tickets, click here.)
(Photo by Caitlin Kasunich)
SPOTTED AT LINCOLN CENTER: Mayor Michael Bloomberg!
Last night, the New York City mayor - along with students from The Juilliard School and School of American Ballet - helped to dedicate The President’s Bridge, which is named in honor of Lincoln Center President Reynold Levy, to mark the completion of Lincoln Center’s six-year $1.2 billion redevelopment. The Bridge connects the upper level plaza of the Rose Building (and adjacent Walter Reade Theater and Juilliard) to the public spaces, concert halls, theaters, library and eating establishments on the south side of the campus.
(Photo by Mark Bussell)
JUST RELEASED: Lincoln Center will complete its redevelopment project with the opening of The President’s Bridge on October 1
Lincoln Center’s six-year, $1.2 billion redevelopment project―completed on time and on budget―will be celebrated with the October 1 dedication ceremony for the final element of the center’s transformation: The President’s Bridge, named in honor of Reynold Levy, who has led Lincoln Center throughout this ambitious project. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is scheduled to join other distinguished guests in celebrating the bridge’s opening and dedicating the donor wall that acknowledges the leading benefactors of Lincoln Center’s redevelopment.
(Click here to read the entire press release.)
Lincoln Center’s President to Leave
By ROBIN POGREBIN
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: September 24, 2012
Reynold Levy, the president of Lincoln Center who shepherded through an ambitious redevelopment of its 16-acre campus during hard economic times, will step down at the end of next year.
Mr. Levy, who assumed the post in 2002, informed the board on Thursday, explaining that he is leaving mainly because his work is done; the last piece of the center’s redevelopment project will be completed on Oct. 1, when the new pedestrian bridge spanning West 65th Street opens to the public. The move was announced on Monday afternoon.
Lincoln Center’s trustees will use the bridge to pay tribute to him; it will be called “The President’s Bridge: In Honor of Reynold Levy.”
Supporters say part of Mr. Levy’s legacy will be the collaborative spirit he built, using diligence and diplomacy, among the complex’s 11 historically contentious constituent groups, including New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera and New York City Ballet.
“Reynold’s contribution cannot be overstated,” said Katherine G. Farley, the chairwoman of Lincoln Center. “He works harder than any human being I know. The way he fulfills the job is really grueling.”
The center was able to raise $1.3 billion over the course of his tenure, much of it a result of a schedule that put him at work at 6:15 a.m. and regularly had him staying on till 11 p.m. for events.
Nearly every weekday meal on those days was spent with a board member, colleague or prospective donor: sometimes he had two breakfasts in one day.
And he has always made it a point to do his homework on people and to pay attention to details. Mr. Levy recalled one frigid winter morning, for example, when he took Raymond J. McGuire — a top Citibank executive and prospective Lincoln Center trustee — out to breakfast. Mr. McGuire ordered sliced banana with his oatmeal, but the restaurant was out of bananas. So Mr. Levy excused himself, hustled out into the cold and came back with two bananas.
Mr. McGuire joined the board.
Mr. Levy, 67, said in an interview that his one solid plan for his future involved “beaches and books” — although he intends to write some of those books as well as read them. (He has written one on the job: “Yours for the Asking: An Indispensable Guide to Fund-Raising and Management.”) “I will enjoy the freedom associated with a relatively unscheduled day,” he said.
By all accounts, Mr. Levy has been a master schmoozer, though you wouldn’t know it to look at him; he doesn’t have the smooth salesmanship of a Glenn D. Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art, or the understated gravitas of a Frank A. Bennack Jr., Lincoln Center’s former chairman. Slightly stooped, with glasses and gray hair and often wearing a brown suit, Mr. Levy appears more like a rumpled professor than the polished front man for the country’s largest performing arts institution. He can wax lyrical about improvements to the central mechanical plant.
The gentle, wonky first impression is disarming to many and belies a fierce passion for his cause and the capacity to close the deal. “He has an inner toughness,” said Blair W. Effron, a trustee.
Mr. Levy is credited with developing new revenue streams for Lincoln Center that have helped create balanced or surplus budgets during his tenure, including rentals for New York Fashion Week, a new studio for Channel 13, new restaurants, a publishing imprint and a new performing arts consulting business — with China as the first client. “We make as much money with new ventures as we made in ticket sales when he first got there,” Mr. Effron said.
Mr. Levy said “changing the economic model at Lincoln Center” was essential today — “finding sources of recurring revenue that have nothing to do with ticket prices.”
The campus’ physical transformation — designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro — is visible. Alice Tully Hall has a new auditorium with translucent wood veneer walls and a restaurant that has just been taken over by the star chef Marcus Samuelsson (to open on Friday). The Film Society has a new home with two new theaters and a cafe. Lincoln Center Theater has a new experimental theater and a marquee.
Lincoln Center has numerous new public spaces with free Wi-Fi, like the grandstand opposite Alice Tully, the updated fountain plaza and the sloped grass roof above the new restaurant, Lincoln.
West 65th Street now contains the entrances to Lincoln Center Theater, the Film Society and the Juilliard School. And the nearby David Rubenstein Atrium has become like a Lincoln Center commons, attracting 750,000 people since it opened in 2009 with free performances, discount tickets and food by ’wichcraft.
“There is a new vibe here, you can feel it,” Mr. Levy said. “You hang out and see thousands more people walking the campus.”
Mr. Levy also pointed to recent programming choices that he said reflected well on the direction he has set, citing, among others, Cate Blanchett’s “Uncle Vanya,” Alan Cumming’s “Macbeth” and “The Clock” video installation at the Atrium, which drew 18,000 visitors.
With a strong staff and board, Mr. Levy said he is leaving Lincoln Center in good hands. “I think,” he said, “it’s dangerous to conflate yourself with the institution.”
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) serves three primary roles: presenter of superb artistic programming, national leader in arts and education and community relations, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. As a presenter of some 5,000 programs and events annually, LCPA’s offerings include American Songbook, Great Performers, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Midsummer Night Swing, the Mostly Mozart Festival, White Light Festival, and Live From Lincoln Center. In addition, LCPA led a series of major capital projects on behalf of the resident organizations across the campus, which was completed in October 2012. Lincoln Center is a 16-acre campus housing 11 prestigious cultural organizations including LCPA. The other 10 are the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Juilliard School, Lincoln Center Theater, the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the School of American Ballet. Like us on facebook. Watch us on YouTube
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