Zankel Hall, named in honor of the generosity of the late Carnegie Hall Vice Chairman Arthur Zankel and his wife, Judy, opens in September with a three-week festival featuring classical, jazz, pop, and world music events.
The festival began with an eight-concert inaugural weekend curated by John Adams, the third composer to hold the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall. The opening festival continued throughout the month with performances by the Emerson and Orion string quartets, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Met Chamber Ensemble, and the Sacred Voices Ensemble; jazz and popular music from the Brad Mehldau Trio, Bill Frisell and the Intercontinentals, and Randy Newman; and world music from Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour, the South American traditional ensemble Tahuantinsuyo, a Latin-American evening by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and the Orchestra of Fes from Morocco.
Construction on Zankel Hall began in the summer of 1999. Nearly 6,500 cubic yards of rock had to be removed through a 10-ft. by 20-ft. opening in the sidewalk on Seventh Avenue. All of this needed to be accomplished while Carnegie Hall remained open for rehearsals and performances, with a busy subway line just 9 feet away. The resulting versatile 599-seat auditorium is now home to an extremely wide array of events, from solo recitals, chamber music, and orchestral concerts to jazz, pop, world music, and educational events for children from pre-school through high school.
Photo by Jeff Goldberg
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