In today’s (3/8) New York Times, James Oestreich writes about the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, which opens today in a building shared with the Baryshnikov Arts Center on West 37th Street in Manhattan. “The center is intended as a boon not only to the Orchestra of St. Luke’s,” which created the center and will make its home there, “but also to the New York classical music world as a whole, with the various rehearsal spaces available for rental at what the orchestra calls affordable rates.” The center houses a large rehearsal hall for full orchestra that Oestreich terms “bright, clean, acoustically live, with even a bit of natural light filtering in,” a smaller rehearsal space for chamber orchestras, and lounges and green rooms for musicians, “as well as more intimate rooms for rehearsal, recording, education, and administrative offices. … The [acoustic] isolation of individual rooms was an intriguing challenge for the project’s acoustical company, Akustiks, of South Norwalk, Conn., acclaimed for its work in the renovated Severance Hall in Cleveland and the new Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville.” Orchestra of St. Luke’s co-founder Marianne C. Lockwood terms the center a “dream come true” that “will change the lives of an enormous number of musicians.”
Posted March 8, 2011
