The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a

performing arts The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Perform ...

venue in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York City, known as a center for progressive and

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

performance. It presented its first performance in 1861 and began operations in its present location in 1908. The Academy is incorporated as a New York State not-for-profit corporation. It has

501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 50 ...

status. Katy Clark became president in 2015 and left the institution in 2021. David Binder became artistic director in 2019.

History

19th and early 20th centuries

On October 21, 1858, a meeting was held at the Polytechnic Institute to measure support for establishing "a hall adapted to Musical, Literary, Scientific and other occasional purposes, of sufficient size to meet the requirements of our large population and worth in style and appearance of our city."A Brooklyn Academy of Music
. '' The Brooklyn Daily Eagle''. October 22, 1858. p. 2. The group applied to the New York Legislature for a charter in the name of Brooklyn Academy of Music. The New York Legislature passed the bill to incorporate the Brooklyn Academy of Music on February 16, 1859. The group raised $60,000 by November 22 and another $90,000 by March 16, 1859. The Brooklyn Academy of Music opened on January 15, 1861."Speech of Mr. Chittendon"
''The Brooklyn Daily Eagle''. January 16, 1861. pp. 2–3. At the inaugural address on the opening, the management announced that no dramatic performance should ever be held within its walls. The first concert opened with the overture to ''

Der Freischütz ' ( J. 277, Op. 77 ''The Marksman'' or ''The Freeshooter'') is a German opera with spoken dialogue in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind, based on a story by Johann August Apel and Friedrich Laun from their 181 ...

'', followed by arias and excerpts from various operas, including the ''William Tell'' Overture which opened part 2 of the concert. Founded in 1861, the first BAM facility at 176–194 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights was conceived as the home of the Philharmonic Society of Brooklyn. The building, designed by architect

Leopold Eidlitz Leopold Eidlitz (March 10, 1823, Prague, Bohemia – March 22, 1908, New York City) was a prominent New York architect best known for his work on the New York State Capitol (Albany, New York, 1876–1881), as well as " Iranistan" (1848), P. T. B ...

, housed a large theater seating 2,109, a smaller concert hall, dressing and chorus rooms, and a vast "baronial" kitchen. BAM presented amateur and professional music and theater productions, including performers such as Ellen Terry,

Edwin Booth Edwin Thomas Booth (November 13, 1833 – June 7, 1893) was an American actor who toured throughout the United States and the major capitals of Europe, performing Shakespearean plays. In 1869, he founded Booth's Theatre in New York. Some theatri ...

, and

Fritz Kreisler Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler (February 2, 1875 – January 29, 1962) was an Austrian-born American violinist and composer. One of the most noted violin masters of his day, and regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time, he was known ...

. After the building burned to the ground on November 30, 1903, plans were made to relocate to a new facility in the then fashionable neighborhood of Fort Greene. The cornerstone was laid at 30 Lafayette Avenue in 1906 and a series of opening events were held in the fall of 1908 culminating in a grand gala evening featuring Geraldine Farrar and

Enrico Caruso Enrico Caruso (, , ; 25 February 1873 – 2 August 1921) was an Italian operatic first lyrical tenor then dramatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles (74) ...

in a

Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operat ...

production of Charles Gounod's '' Faust''. The Met presented seasons in Brooklyn, featuring star singers such as Caruso, until 1921. It was also used for religious services during the early 1900s. Charles Taze Russell, founder of the bible students movement (now

Jehovah's Witnesses Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...

and International Bible Students Association), gave sermons there the first Sunday of the month from 1908 until 1912. BAM is adjacent to downtown Brooklyn, near the

Long Island Rail Road The Long Island Rail Road , often abbreviated as the LIRR, is a commuter rail system in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk Co ...

's Atlantic Terminal, the

Barclays Center Barclays Center is a multi-purpose list of indoor arenas, indoor arena in the New York City Boroughs of New York City, borough of Brooklyn. The arena is home to the Brooklyn Nets of the National Basketball Association and the New York Liberty o ...

arena, and the

Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower The Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, also known as One Hanson Place, is a skyscraper in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City. Located at the northeast corner of Ashland Place and Hanson Place near Downtown Brooklyn, the t ...

, once the tallest building in Brooklyn. BAM is part of the Brooklyn Cultural District.

1960s–1999

The Waltann School of Creative Arts (WSCA), founded in 1959, located at 1078 Park Place, Brooklyn, was a BAM venue during the 1960s and 1970s. One of the dance teachers there was African American contemporary dancer Carole Johnson, and the

Eleo Pomare Dance Company Eleo Pomare (20 October 1937 – 8 August 2008) was a Colombian-American modern dance choreographer. Known for his politically-charged productions depicting the Black experience, his work had a major influence on contemporary dance, especially Bla ...

performed there in 1967. In 1967, Harvey Lichtenstein was appointed executive director and during his 32 years in that role, BAM experienced a turnaround, attracting audiences with new programming and establishing an endowment. BAM, a multi-venue cultural center, hosts the annual Next Wave Festival in the fall. It began in 1983, and features performances by international and American artists. Its Winter/Spring season of theater, dance, and music is presented from January through June. Humanities, education, and events for children take place throughout the year, plus first-run and repertory films and series. From 1999 to 2015,

Karen Brooks Hopkins Karen Brooks Hopkins is the president emerita of Brooklyn Academy of Music, having served as its president from 1999 to 2015. Previously she was an adjunct professor for the Brooklyn College Program for Arts Administration. In the spring of 1995 ...

was president and Joseph V. Melillo was executive producer through 2018. The

Chelsea Theater Center The Chelsea Theater Center was a not-for-profit theater company founded in 1965 by Robert Kalfin, a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. It opened its doors in a church in the Chelsea district of Manhattan, then moved to the Brooklyn Academy of ...

was in residence from 1967 to 1977.

2000–present

A regular event was BAMcinemaFest, a festival focusing on

independent film An independent film, independent movie, indie film, or indie movie is a feature film or short film that is produced outside the major film studio system, in addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies (or, i ...

People

Artists who have presented work at BAM include

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...

Trisha Brown Trisha Brown (November 25, 1936 – March 18, 2017) was an American choreographer and dancer, and one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theater and the postmodern dance movement. Brown’s dance/movement method, with which she and her dancers ...

, Peter Brook,

Pina Bausch Philippine "Pina" Bausch (27 July 1940 – 30 June 2009) was a German dancer and choreographer who was a significant contributor to a neo-expressionist dance tradition now known as . Bausch's approach was noted for a stylized blend of dance mov ...

, Merce Cunningham,

Bill T. Jones William Tass Jones, known as Bill T. Jones, (born February 15, 1952) is an American choreographer, director, author and dancer. He is the co-founder of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. Jones is Artistic Director of New York Live Ar ...

/Arnie Zane Company, Laurie Anderson,

Lee Breuer Esser Leopold Breuer (February 6, 1937 – January 3, 2021) was an American playwright, theater director, academic, educator, filmmaker, poet, and lyricist. Breuer taught and directed on six continents. Career Breuer was a founding co-artistic ...

ETHEL Ethel (also '' æthel'') is an Old English word meaning "noble", today often used as a feminine given name. Etymology and historic usage The word means ''æthel'' "noble". It is frequently attested as the first element in Anglo-Saxon names, b ...

, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan,

Steve Reich Stephen Michael Reich ( ; born October 3, 1936) is an American composer known for his contribution to the development of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, a ...

, Seal, Mark Morris, Robert Wilson,

Peter Sellars Peter Sellars (born September 27, 1957) is an American theatre director, noted for his unique contemporary stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays. Sellars is professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where ...

, BLACKstreet,

Ingmar Bergman Ernst Ingmar Bergman (14 July 1918 – 30 July 2007) was a Swedish film director, screenwriter, Film producer, producer and playwright. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time, his films are known ...

Ralph Lemon Ralph Lemon (born August 1, 1952 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American choreographer, company director, writer, visual artist and a conceptualist. Raised in a religious environment, he developed his artistic creativity as a child.Diana Stockon, � ...

Ivo van Hove Ivo van Hove (born 28 October 1958) is a Belgian theatre director known as the artistic director of Toneelgroep Amsterdam in the Netherlands and for his Off-Broadway avant-garde experimental theatre productions. On Broadway, he has directed re ...

, and the Mariinsky Theater, directed and conducted by Valery Gergiev, among others. Alice in Chains recorded their live album '' Unplugged'' at the Academy on April 10, 1996 at the Majestic Theater (now the Harvey Theater) for '' MTV Unplugged.

Alanis Morissette Alanis Nadine Morissette ( ; born June 1, 1974) is a Canadian-American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known for her emotive mezzo-soprano voice and confessional songwriting, Morissette began her career in Canada in the early 1990s with tw ...

also recorded her live album '' MTV Unplugged'' at the Academy on September 18, 1999.

Facilities

Brooklyn Academy of Music New York October 2016 001

The Peter Jay Sharp Building houses the Howard Gilman Opera House and the BAM Rose Cinemas (formerly the Carey Playhouse). It was designed by the firm

Herts & Tallant Henry Beaumont Herts (January 23, 1871 – March 27, 1933) was an American architect. Herts was born in New York City, attended Columbia University without graduating, and apprenticed under Bruce Price. He studied architecture in Europe at th ...

in 1908. It is a U-shaped building with an open court in the center of the lot between two theater wings above the first story. The building has a high base of gray

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

with cream colored brick trimmed in

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, a ...

with some

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...

detail above. It is located within the

Fort Greene Historic District Fort Greene Historic District is a national historic district in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York, New York. It consists of 1,158 contributing buildings, two contributing sites, one contributing object, and two contributing structures. It is cha ...

. ''See also:'' ''and'' The Howard Gilman Opera House has 2,109 seats and BAM Rose Cinemas, which opened in 1998, comprises four screens, and shows first-run, independent and repertory films and series. Also within the Peter Jay Sharp Building is the Lepercq Space, originally a ballroom and now a flexible event space which houses the BAMcafé, and the Hillman Attic Studio, a flexible rehearsal/performing space. The BAM Strong, an array of spaces, includes the 874-seat BAM Harvey Theater at 651 Fulton Street. Formerly known as the Majestic Theater, it was built in 1904 with 1,708 seats and eventually showed vaudeville and then feature films, and was named in Lichtenstein's honor in 1999. A renovation by architect

Hugh Hardy Hugh Hardy (July 26, 1932 – March 17, 2017) was an American architect, known for designing and revitalizing theaters, performing arts venues, public spaces, and cultural facilities across the United States. ''The New Yorker'' writer Brendan ...

left the interior paint faded, with often exposed masonry, giving the theater a unique feel of a "modern ruin". In April 2014, CNN named the BAM Harvey as one of the "15 of the World's Most Spectacular Theaters". Today, the BAM Harvey has become a top choice of venues at BAM among directors and actors for presenting traditional theater. The complex also features a dedicated art gallery. The BAM Fisher Building, opened in 2012, contains Fishman Space, a 250-seat

black box theater A black box theater is a simple performance space, typically a square room with black walls and a flat floor. The simplicity of the space allows it to be used to create a variety of configurations of stage and audience interaction. The black ...

, and Fisher Hillman Studio, a flexible rehearsal and performance space, as well as administrative offices. The BAM Hamm Archives are located off-site in Crown Heights at 1000 Dean St. and maintain the publicly accessible Levy Digital Archive. The BAM Sharp and Fisher Buildings are located within the Brooklyn Academy of Music Historic District created by the

New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...

in 1978; the BAM Strong is not.

br>"Brooklyn Academy of Music Historic District Designation Report"
(September 26, 1978)

References

External links

*
Brooklyn Academy of Music on NYC-ARTS.org

Brooklyn Academy of Music on NYCkidsARTS.org

Brooklyn Academy of Music at Google Cultural Institute
{{authority control 1861 establishments in New York (state) Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in New York City Cinemas and movie theaters in New York City Concert halls in New York City Culture of Brooklyn Downtown Brooklyn Fort Greene, Brooklyn Entertainment venues in Brooklyn Event venues on the National Register of Historic Places in New York City Historic districts in Brooklyn Leopold Eidlitz buildings Music venues in Brooklyn National Register of Historic Places in Brooklyn New York City designated historic districts New York City Designated Landmarks in Brooklyn Performing arts centers in New York City Special Tony Award recipients Theatres in Brooklyn Tourist attractions in Brooklyn United States National Medal of Arts recipients