Levy '66 on Morning Joe
18 May 2011 Levy '66 on Morning Joe
Reynold Levy 66, president of Lincoln Center and the honorary chair of fundraising efforts for the HWS Performing Arts Center, was a guest on MSNBCs Morning Joe this week discussing fundraising challenges the arts are facing and how the Lincoln Center, as the worlds largest performing arts center, has managed to overcome those challenges for decades.
Theres a lot of entrepreneurship at Lincoln Center, explains Levy, who cites as examples the efforts of the New York City Opera to broadcast to movie theatres and to outdoor spaces; the New York City Ballets commissioning of a piece composed by Paul McCartney specifically for performance by the Ballet, and the redevelopment of the Center itself to open it up, create more green, and make the place much younger.
Levy was asked how Lincoln Center manages to have a balanced budget every year. Weve got a board that insists on it, for starters; weve got a kind of clear accountability. Weve decided to change the economic model of the Lincoln Center, so we wanted to create sources of income that were unrelated to ticket revenue and unrelated to contributed income. And, so, we created those sources, Levy says.
He notes such sources include Fashion Week taking place at Lincoln Center annually, the location of Channel 13s studio there, increased catering and restaurant revenue on site and a new venture consulting clients from around the world who might want to adopt the centers model of cultural programming.
Levy is a Hobart Medal of Excellence recipient who was a political science major and a member of Phi Beta Kappa while a student. He served as a member of the William Smith Centennial Honorary Committee.
His appearance on the show is online.