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American Writers’ Congress.
However, let’s not fool ourselves into think- ing that everything went smoothly. The build- ing was the seat of the New York Philharmonic until 1962, when the orchestra was relocated to the newly built Lincoln Center and Carne- gie Hall was threatened with demolition and the construction of a skyscraper. Through the e orts of violinist Isaac Stern and other mu- sicians brought together by him, a law was passed that saved Carnegie Hall. It was tak- en over by the City of New York, after which a non-pro t corporation was founded with the aim of further managing the hall. As a thank you to the famous violinist, the main hall of this building was later renamed the Stern Au- ditorium. This beauty of a hall, housed in a building close to Central Park, has 2,804 seats. Enticing red satin seating is arranged on ve levels. It is extremely high, and if you nd yourself seat- ed on the top balcony, you will have to nego- tiate 137 steps. And even if you are sitting so high up, perfect acoustics will enable you to hear everything as if you were right in front of the stage. It is precisely the high quality of sound that sets this hall apart, and in terms of that criterion it could be said to be superi- or to the more modern Lincoln Center, which has been “embraced” by institutions like the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Op- era and the New York Ballet. But how far is the route that a musician has to take to even reach the main auditori- um of Carnegie Hall? There is an urban leg- end about this, which grew into a joke that has since morphed into countless versions. It is rumoured that a pedestrian on 57 th Street stopped Jascha Heifetz and asked“Could you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?”,“I can,”re- plied the violinist,“Practise!”This joke became part of folklore... It is as though the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra heeded the same ad- vice when it managed to make its historic ap- pearance in this hall in 2014. Just imagine how it was for our musicians, the rst generation of Belgrade philharmonic musicians to per- form on the American continent in the almost 100-year tradition of this institution, to nally see a poster of their orchestra on the famous Carnegie! That golden October, the nale of the rst American tour in the history of this orchestra was right here in the Holy Grail of every musician. The concert began with an intona- tion of the Serbian national anthem, and the standing ovations of the international audience prevented the Belgrade Philhar- monic’s artists from leaving the stage of the Stern auditorium for a long time. There are few other successes that have succeeded in overshadowing this one. That’s simply Car- negie Hall – If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere ...
T he Carnegie Hall building, despite be- ing among the lowest in Midtown New York, preserves within its walls more than a century and a quarter of American and world history. This fact exudes from each of its bricks, the rst of which was laid in 1890, during a time when wealthy people had splendid visions. And thus Andrew Carn- egie created a building that would, over time, become a vibrant and pulsating archive of the world’s most important events, and not just in the music world. Imagine how it all began, when the grand opening ceremony in 1891 was conducted by none other than Pyotr Il- yich Tchaikovsky! After that came only ever more famous names and historical events. Dvořák’s New World Symphony had its world premiere here; Richard Strauss conducted his Symphonia Do- mestica and Gustav Mahler hid Symphony No. 2. Performances were given by Arthur Rubin- stein, Pablo Casals, Jascha Heifetz, Enrico Caru- so, Vladimir Horowitz, Leonard Bernstein, Isaac Stern, Maria Callas... the list is extremely long. But“Carnegie”is known in particular for open- ing its doors to all styles and cultures. That’s how its history came to include the likes of Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gil- lespie, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Holi- day, all the way to the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Frank Zappa, the Rolling Stones and David Bowie. And that’s not all! Speakers here have also included Winston Churchill, Wood- row Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt, with top- ics addressed such as women’s voting rights, while Chaplin had a lm premiere, Einstein re- ceived a medal and Hemingway spoke at the
ći da po tom kriterijumu prednjači u odnosu na moderniji Linkoln cen- tar , koji je obgrlio institucije kao što su Njujorška filharmonija, Metropo- liten opera i Njujorški balet. Ali koliki je put koji treba da pređe muzičar da bi uopšte stigao do glavne dvorane Karnegi hola? O tome govo- ri urbana legenda prerasla u vic, koji je potom doživeo bezbroj verzija. Gla- sine kažu da je pešak na 57. ulici zau- stavio Jašu Hajfeca i upitao ga: „Da li biste mi mogli reći kako da dođem do Karnegi hola?“. „Mogu“, odgovorio je violinista, „vežbajte“. Ova šala posta- la je deo folklora... Kao da je isti savet poslušala i Beogradska filharmonija kada je 2014. godine uspela da dođe do istorijskog nastupa u ovoj dvora- ni. Zamislite samo kako je bilo našim muzičarima, prvoj generaciji filharmo- ničara koji su nastupili na američkom kontinentu u gotovo stogodišnjoj tra- diciji institucije, da napokon ugledaju plakat svog orkestra na zgradi čuve- nog Karnegija! Tog zlatnog oktobra, finale prve američke turneje u istoriji orkestra bilo je upravo tu, na svetom mestu svakog muzičara. Koncert je otpočeo intoniranjem srpske himne, a ovacije svetske publi- ke dugo nisu dozvolile Beogradskoj fi- lharmoniji da siđe sa bine Štern audi- torijuma . Malo je drugih uspeha koji su uspeli da zasene ovaj. To je jedno- stavno Karnegi hol – If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere...
Beogradska filharmonija u Karnegi holu The Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall
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