Culture Chronicle

Orchestra and Lincoln Center in Deal
The New York Times - April 19, 2010
By Robin Pogrebin

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the New York Philharmonic have decided to extend their operating agreement to give both parties more time to resolve questions about a renovation of the orchestra's home, Avery Fisher Hall.

With a new chairman at the Philharmonic, the investment banker Gary W. Parr, and an incoming chairwoman at Lincoln Center, the real estate executive Katherine G. Farley (who takes over in June), the organizations hope to make progress on the building project. It has been stalled since the orchestra board approved a redesign of Avery Fisher by the British architect Norman Foster in 2005.

With this new leadership -- along with the Philharmonic's new music director, Alan Gilbert, whose contract started in 2009 -- the two groups will also work to improve a nearly 50-year association that has been strained by the Philharmonic's aborted merger with Carnegie Hall in 2003 and by conflicts over control of the hall's calendar. For the full article, click here