Start on the plaza of a facility that says “make mine music”. We are at the home of the world’s largest opera house, and turn around to see the home of the oldest symphony orchestra in the US and it faces the place where ballet fans from all over the world yearn to go. Even the fountain has had musical roles.
A Broadway theater that has been a “magnet” for Tony Awards is next door to a library where you can see for free manuscripts by world famous composers and videos of every Broadway production staged since 1974! And before we leave this remarkable complex we see the Juilliard School of Music, Drama, and Dance. Composers and performers who have enriched the world’s stages, screens and concert halls call Juilliard “alma mater.”
Leaving Lincoln Center we cross streets honoring great stars who graced the stages and podiums at Lincoln Center, the late great tenor Richard Tucker and legendary composer and conductor, Leonard Bernstein. We make our way to Central Park West and on the way enjoy two sites from the megahit film Ghostbusters
In the vanguard of the 1960’s “British Invasion” were the Beatles. John Lennon loved New York and New York loved him and we pay homage when we visit Strawberry Fields in Central Park and enjoy the busker musicians in New York’s 843 acre oasis, Central Park. The Dakota where John Lennon lived and died has a rich musical heritage – Bernstein, Roberta Flack and legendary music publisher George Schirmer who had as a house guest the Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
We will also see the place that has been called home by Harold Arlen, the composer of such classics of the American Songbook as Over the Rainbow and I’ve Got the World on a String and the late Fred Ebb, the man who wrote all of the lyrics for Chicago, Cabaret and New York, New York, coining the term “the city that never sleeps”. Currently residing there is U2 leader Bono – yes in New York there is always music in the air!
Price: $25
Schedule: Saturday & Sunday 1:45 PM to 3:45 PM
Address/Meeting Place: Meet at the fountain on the South Plaza of Lincoln Center (Columbus Avenue at 63rd Street)
