The Music Center at 50: Thoughts on the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion’s future

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News
Los Angeles Newspaper Group

Pavilion4WebWill the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion one day have a new name?
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The New York Philharmonic announced last month that it has reached agreement with the family of Avery Fisher, which will enable the orchestra to seek a donor who would make a major financial gift to what is reported to be a $500 million makeover of the ensemble’s Lincoln Center home now called Avery Fisher Hall. In exchange, the donor would have his/her/its name placed on the hall. Details and the history of these touchy negotiations are in a New York Times article HERE.

Reactions have been interesting. Musicologist Norman Lebrecht, in his Blog Slipped Disc (HERE) called Lincoln Center (or the Phil) “ungrateful bastards” and opined “Morally, this sucks.” Anne Midgette in the Washington Post (HERE) hopes that a corporate name won’t be stuck on the building.

My initial reaction to both columnists was, “Huh?” Nearly everyone agrees that Avery Fisher Hall is a poor hall acoustically (to put it charitably) and needs to be renovated. When George Szell first conducted in it, he reportedly suggested blowing up the building and starting over. The current plan apparently is to keep the building’s Greek-classical exterior while gutting the interior.

However, the obvious question is who is going to pay for this? The New York Phil is undeniably a strong marketing factor for the city but there’s no way the city will be likely ante up half a billion dollars. So how can the Phil be blamed for negotiating this deal with the Fisher family?

There are two recent examples of individuals donating big bucks in exchange for naming rights in the Big Apple.

“The New York State Theater at Lincoln Center became the David H. Koch Theater in 2008,” wrote Robin Pogrebin in her NYT article, when Mr. Koch, the oil-and-gas billionaire, contributed $100 million toward its renovation. That same year, the New York Public Library’s flagship on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street was named for Stephen A. Schwarzman, a Wall Street financier who donated $100 million toward that building’s expansion.” The benchmark has, apparently, been set and high at that.

(A sidebar to that story noted that Jerome L. Stern, a venture capitalist, said he wanted to see his name “in a place where I’m going to spend a lot of time,” so he gave an undisclosed amount of money to the New Museum of Contemporary Art in 2007 for the Jerome and Ellen Stern Restrooms.)

This naming story hits home because of the Music Center in Los Angeles — which celebrates its 50th birthday this week — and, specifically, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. In a Los Angeles Times article (LINK) Mike Boehm reported that the price tag for renovating the Pavilion has been pegged at $350 million — if true, it would be a bargain, compared to the Avery Fisher Hall makeover.

Boehm quotes Lisa Specht, chair of the Music Company board, as saying, “’the greater part’ should be paid by the county government, which owns the building. The money would be a combination of county funds and private donations and have yet to be discussed by the Board of Supervisors or raised from donors.”

While L.A. County (which owns the Music Center complex) will play a financial role in the proposed renovations, which are urgently needed and will provide cost savings in terms of utilities costs, Specht’s quote it will provide “the greater part” of the tab is open to skepticism. In any case, private donations will play a pivotal role in the fund-raising campaign, and nobody apparently is yet willing to discuss publicly the elephant in the room: the potential issue of new naming rights for the Pavilion. Stay tuned.
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(c) Copyright 2014, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.

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