Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a 16.3-acre (6.6-hectare) complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Reynold Levy has been its president since 2002.[citation needed]
A consortium of civic leaders and others led by, and under the initiative of John D. Rockefeller III, built Lincoln Center as part of the "Lincoln Square Renewal Project" during Robert Moses's program of urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s. Respected architects were contacted to design the major buildings on the site, and over the next thirty years the previously blighted area around Lincoln Center became a new cultural hub.
Rockefeller was Lincoln Center's inaugural president from 1956 and became its chairman in 1961. He is credited with raising more than half of the $184.5 million in private funds needed to build the complex, including drawing on his own funds; the Rockefeller Brothers Fund also contributed to the project. The center's three buildings, Avery Fisher Hall (formerly Philharmonic Hall), the Metropolitan Opera House and the David H. Koch Theater (formerly the New York State Theater), were opened in 1962, 1964 and 1966, repsectively.
Wynton Learson Marsalis (born October 18, 1961) is a trumpeter, composer, teacher, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, United States. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences. Marsalis has been awarded nine Grammys in both genres, and a jazz recording of his was the first of its kind to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Marsalis is the son of jazz musician Ellis Marsalis, Jr. (pianist), grandson of Ellis Marsalis, Sr., and brother of Branford (saxophonist), Delfeayo (trombonist), Mboya, and Jason (drummer).
Wynton was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 18, 1961, the second of six sons of Dolores (née Ferdinand) and Ellis Louis Marsalis, Jr., a pianist and music professor. At an early age, he exhibited an aptitude for music. At age eight, Wynton performed traditional New Orleans music in the Fairview Baptist Church band led by banjoist Danny Barker, and at 14, he performed with the New Orleans Philharmonic. During high school, Wynton performed with the New Orleans Symphony Brass Quintet, New Orleans Community Concert Band, New Orleans Youth Orchestra, New Orleans Symphony, various jazz bands and with a local funk band, the Creators.
Patti Ann LuPone (born April 21, 1949) is an American singer and actress, known for her Tony Award-winning performance as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical Evita and for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Fantine in the original London cast of Les Misérables.
LuPone was born in Northport, New York, on Long Island, the daughter of Angela Louise (née Patti), a college library administrator, and Orlando Joseph LuPone, a school administrator. Her great-grand-aunt was the celebrated nineteenth-century opera singer Adelina Patti. Her brother Robert LuPone is an actor, dancer, and director who originated the role of Zach the choreographer in A Chorus Line. Her other brother William LuPone is a teacher. When they were young, they performed on Long Island as the LuPone Trio. She is of Italian/Abruzzese descent and a graduate of Northport High School, where she studied under the musical direction of voice coach Esther Scott.
LuPone was part of the first graduating class of Juilliard's Drama Division (1968-1972: Group 1), which also included actors Kevin Kline and David Ogden Stiers. She graduated from Juilliard in 1972 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.
Robert "Bobby" McFerrin, Jr. (born March 11, 1950) is a virtuoso American vocalist and conductor. He is best known for his 1988 hit song "Don't Worry, Be Happy". He is a ten-time Grammy Award winner. He is well known for his unique vocal techniques and singing styles.
Bobby McFerrin was born in Manhattan, New York City, the son of operatic baritone Robert McFerrin and singer Sara Copper. Robert Sr. was the first African American to be a regular with New York's Metropolitan Opera. Sara is a former soloist with regional opera companies and in Broadway shows, and is a professor emeritus of music at Fullerton College in Fullerton, California.
Bobby McFerrin married Debbie Green in 1975. They have three children.
McFerrin's song "Don't Worry, Be Happy" was a No. 1 U.S. pop hit in 1988 and won Song of the Year and Record of the Year honors. McFerrin has also worked in collaboration with instrumental performers, including pianists Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Joe Zawinul, drummer Tony Williams, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea (born June 12, 1941) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.
Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever. Along with Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Keith Jarrett, he has been described as one of the major jazz piano voices to emerge in the post-John Coltrane era.
His career has been driven by his will to operate as a free agent and compulsively explore different avenues of music making. This hunger has positioned him as an important catalyst in the world of serious, mainstream acoustic jazz, and he is one of the most influential and widely studied figures in the last 40 years.
Corea continued to pursue other collaborations and to explore various musical styles throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He is also known for promoting and fundraising for a number of social issues, such as eradicating social illiteracy, and is a Scientologist.