Mannes School of Music will celebrate its 100th birthday at Carnegie Hall on April 25 with the Mannes Centennial Celebration.
The event will be “honoring the school’s rich history and the next 100 years ahead,” according to The New School’s announcement.
The music school was founded in 1916 by violinist and conductor David Mannes and his wife Clara Damrosch. It was originally called The David Mannes Music School. Damrosch was the school’s first administrator, according to the Mannes history website.
Mannes was integrated into The New School in 1989. It is now part of the College of Performing Arts, which includes the School of Drama and the School of Jazz. Starting in 1984, it was located on West 85th Street before moving to Arnhold Hall in the West Village in 2015.
Performers at the celebration will include Mannes alumni Theo Lebow, Maya Lahyani and Jennifer Zetlan. Music director David Hayes will be conducting the Mannes Orchestra.
For many Mannes students performing, it will be their first time on the stage at Carnegie Hall and many are thrilled.
“It’s one of the iconic concert halls in the world. It’s also the sense of knowing all of the other people that have trod upon the stage. Which is sometimes inspiring and sometimes daunting,” Hayes said.
Production meetings for the event have been intense, according to Hayes. With all of the moving pieces involved, they’ve been planning for months.
The works being performed reflect “little pieces of history,” Hayes said.
For example, they will be playing Erwin Schulhoff’s Allegro moderato from Concerto for String Quartet, composed in 1930. Schulhoff would die in a concentration camp 12 years after composing the piece.
Schulhoff was “one of the great artists snuffed out during the Holocaust. It’s a nod to this world history. We’re really taking stock of the past 100 years,” Hayes said.
Matthew Sullivan, assistant to executive dean of CoPA and dean of Mannes Richard Kessler, said that they expect most attendees to be from out of the university. They said they expect to fill “hopefully 2,000 seats. We expect almost a full house.”
Hayes described the final piece, Gustav Mahler’s Finale from Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection,” as transformative.
“It gives you a moment to touch the sublime. And any time you have the opportunity to touch the sublime… I think people will be very happy they came.”
The event will take place from 7 to 10 p.m. and is open to the general public. Tickets are $35 for the general public, but students and faculty can request complimentary tickets through this form. Complimentary tickets will be available for pick up on the day of the event at the box office.
Photo by Orlando Mendiola