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Nanette Shaw
The Graduate Center of The City University of New York has announced plans for the Baisley Powell Elebash Recital Hall in the school’s new home in the former B. Altman building at 365 Fifth Avenue. The 185-seat hall provides the City with a significant new venue for music, located in the 34th Street-Murray Hill area. It will serve as a showcase for New York’s top-ranked Ph.D. program in music, including faculty and student concerts, as well as a programmed series of City-related presentations. The hall is being named in honor of Baisley Powell Elebash in recognition of a $1,500,000 gift from the Baisley Powell Elebash Fund. The resulting endowed fund will support fellowships for doctoral students in music at The Graduate Center and programming in the recital hall. The Elebash Recital Hall is part of a cultural and conference complex included in The Graduate Center’s new facility. Also featured are an auditorium with accompanying breakout spaces, an art gallery, a multipurpose theater, and a small film-screening room. The school began academic operations in the landmark building last fall and the grand opening of the cultural and conference complex will be marked with a week-long public celebration from April 3 to 7. The Baisley Powell Elebash Recital Hall will be officially dedicated in a ceremony on May 10. The Graduate Center’s music Ph.D. program was rated fourth best in the country and first in New York City and State in the most recent National Research Council rankings. Faculty members include such names as John Corigliano, Bruce Saylor, Thea Musgrave, Leo Treitler, Ron Carter, Itzhak Perlman, and Tania León. Like all The Graduate Center’s programs, the music program is operated as a partnership, drawing its faculty from throughout the CUNY system, augmented by a few central appointments. This provides the program with an astonishing scope and depth of expertise and talent. Awarding both a Ph.D. and a Doctor of Musical Arts, the program is also known for its unusual combination of studies in both theory and performance/composition. Many of the students are already established artists, working in professional concert, theater, broadcast, and recording venues. The first of the events sponsored by the Elebash endowment is a symposium and concert on W.C. Handy. Scheduled for March 31, the program will serve as a preview of the following week’s opening celebration. Much of the programming in the Elebash Hall will be New York City-related. According to the Music Program’s Executive Officer Allan Atlas, possibilities include concerts reflecting the city’s ethnic music mosaic, re-creations of historic concerts that took place in New York City, and symposia and conferences related to music in New York City. Otherwise, the Elebash Hall will feature a "steady stream of faculty and student recitals along with concerts presented by the newly created Center for the Study of Free Reed instruments" says Atlas. Elebash Hall will also be available for rental by outside groups. Baisley Powell Elebash was a native New Yorker and WWI Navy veteran. He retired from the securities business in the 1930s then devoted his time to developing oil properties until his death in 1953 at the age of 55. His widow, Marjean Hoyt Elebash died in 1996. The Baisley Powell Elebash Fund was established in their memory in 1998 and has an interest in supporting selected music endeavors as well as a limited number of health-related initiatives. In constructing the space, the recital hall is stacked on top of the auditorium below, making the recital hall floor the auditorium ceiling. To ensure the separation of sound between the spaces, as well as enhance the sound of the recital hall itself, the architects worked with acoustical consultant Peter George. A floating concrete slab located above the auditorium’s sheet rock ceiling will help mitigate the sound between the two spaces. The recital hall will feature special acoustical panels and drapes that can be adjusted for different types of music The Graduate School and University Center is the doctorate-granting institution of the largest urban university in the U.S. The only consortium of its kind in the nation, The Graduate Center draws its faculty of more than 1,600 members mainly from the CUNY senior colleges and cultural and scientific institutions throughout New York City. Established in 1961, The Graduate Center has grown to an enrollment of nearly 4,000 students in 31 doctoral programs and seven master's degree programs in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. The Graduate Center also houses 24 research centers and institutes and administers the CUNY Baccalaureate Program. According to a recent National Research Council report, more than a third of The Graduate Center's rated programs rank among the nation's top 20 at public and private institutions, nearly a quarter are among the top ten when compared to publicly supported institutions alone, and more than half are among the top five programs at publicly supported institutions in the northeast. Further information about The Graduate Center's programs and activities can be found on its web site at: www.gc.cuny.edu. |