With Geffen Hall, NY Phil gets a fresh, better sounding home

NEW YORK — Forced from their offices early in the pandemic, key leaders of the New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center met in July 2020 under the trees of the venue’s Capital Grove patio to try to finally solve a decadeslong problem. “Well, let’s get started.” After a $550 million renovation that took two years, the 180-year-old orchestra returns to David Geffen Hall for a series of openings beginning with a Thursday night ribbon-cutting, a Friday performance for construction workers and Saturday community concerts featuring the world premiere of Etienne Charles’ “San Juan Hill: A New York Story.” The orchestra celebrates its return with a pair of formal opening galas, on Oct. 26 featuring Renée Fleming, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Bernadette Peters and Vanessa Williams, and two days later with the world premiere of Angélica Negrón’s “You Are the Prelude” and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. “For Lincoln Center, this had been such a cloud for so long that we had to address this first,” said Henry Timms, who became Lincoln Center’s president in 2019. “We completely carved out the old room.” Based at Carnegie Hall since 1891, the orchestra moved about a half-mile north in 1962 to Philharmonic Hall, the first building to open at Lincoln Center. “The third side tier directed too much sound energy back down to the orchestra floor, where the audience would absorb it.” Walls and tiers were resurfaced with rippled beech wood paneling to improve reverberation, replacing the 1976 renovation’s beige plaster and mahogany-hued lumber.