Y’s man goes to Lincoln Center

Y’s man goes to Lincoln Center

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norman lebrecht

February 06, 2019

The sinking Lincoln Center has clutched Henry Timms from the 92nd Street Y as its next president.

Timms is founder of the #GivingTuesday social movement, a day of philanthropy which has raised $1 billion in online donations.

At the Y, we read, ‘Timms was also responsible for eliminating an historic deficit, delivering a balanced budget and healthy operating surpluses, and developing new relationships with major corporations and foundations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Templeton Foundation.’

No word of his artistic preferences.

 

 

 

Comments

  • Larry Dankel says:

    “The sinking Lincoln Center”? Is Donald Trump’s stylebook (“failing New York Times”) creeping into this blog?

    • Luigi Nonono says:

      The Times loves to label things or people as failed or failing, one of their worst crimes. There’s a wonderful book entitled “Complete Utter Failure” by Neil Steinberg, who writes about the concepts of failure and explores them, and exposes the realities of so-called success and failure. It’s liberating.

  • Luigi Nonono says:

    Does this mean he will eliminate all classical music programming from Lincoln Center and replace it with celebrity speakers, as the 92nd Street Y did?

  • Edgar says:

    Whether Lincoln Center sinks, I cannot say. What I can say is that the whole area looks utterly outdated. The Koch (former State) Theater looks presentable (New York City Ballet continuing in crisis mode).

    Geffen (formerly Avery Fisher) Hall across is still an impossible barn and needs to be torn down and replaced by a convincing 21st century music performance venue.

    And then there is the colossal tanker called MET: it, too needs to be torn down, or completely gutted, and a smaller venue (half the number of its current number of seats) put in its place.

    I am glad not to be involved with any of the three organizations, as well as the fourth, Lincoln Center. With the exception of Deborah Borda, no one on that campus appears to have any idea how to turn things around and make them appealing to 12st century audiences.

    What a sad state of affairs this is…

    • Larry Dankel says:

      Why should they appeal to 12st century audiences? In addition to being medieval, they’re dead.

    • Me! says:

      Why in God’s name would you tear down an opera house just to build a smaller one so it can be full??! And if the tide turns (or special shows that sell out the 4000 seat house, which happens multiple times a year), tear it down again to build a bigger one? Ridiculous!

  • kaa12840 says:

    Do you really know what you are talking about? Lincoln Center is a vibrant organization presenting many events every night, some at the highest level, others at a well above average. Where do you get your information from? or are you the kind of people who just listen to records?

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