Who the Hell Was Alice Tully?
The ‘reenvisioned’ Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center opens Sunday. I hope they haven’t moved the chairs closer together. It was the only concert hall in New York where you could walk across a row without stepping on a fellow patron’s feet.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaWYSvlCZH4[/youtube]
The quick obit:
Alice Tully, a philanthropist and patron of the arts and an important figure in the cultural life of New York City for nearly five decades, died there on December 10, 1993. She was ninety-one years old.
Although best known for her patronage of musical organizations and especially singers, Miss Tully was also a prominent supporter of dance, living generously to the Martha Graham Dance Company and to Feld Ballets/NY. She was a board member of many museums and arts and educational institutions, including the Metropolitan Opera and the Juilliard School.
Born in Corning, New York, Miss Tully was heiress to the Corning Glass Works fortune. She had a moderately successful career as a concert and opera singer in the 1920s and 1930s: after coming into her inheritance in 1958, she devoted herself to arts patronage and philanthropy. She paid most of the $4.5 million cost of Alice Tully Hall, one of the component theaters of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
Who was Alice? Alice was an incredible woman.