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Marking Manhattan School of Music’s 90th Anniversary, we pay tribute this season to the style and sophistication of the great music born in our magnificent city, from Irving Berlin to Miles Davis to Leonard Bernstein and beyond. We have prepared the following timeline of important music-related events in our great city's history over the past 90 years.

* Events in red are Manhattan School of Music-related.

1917–1918

Community Music School (original name of Manhattan School of Music) founded by Janet D. Schenck at Union Settlement (East 104th Street)

1918
• Rachmaninoff moves to New York moves to New York
• Irving Berlin writes “God Bless America”
• Rosa Ponselle makes Metropolitan Opera debut in La forza del destino
• The Harlem Hellfighters, James Reese Europe’s 369th Regiment band, with Rafael Hernandez (who will become known as Puerto Rico’s greatest composer) and 17 other Puerto Rican soldiers, records 21 songs and is the first group to play ragtime and jazz in Europe
• Lewisohn Stadium opens, with 6,000 seats and standing room for 1,500, to hold summertime orchestral concerts (between West 136th and 138th Streets and Convent and Amsterdam Avenues; demolished in 1975)

1919
• George Gershwin, 19, writes “Swanee,” with lyrics by Irving Caesar, featuring 60 chorus girls with electric light bulbs attached to their slippers (Capitol Theater)
• Irving Berlin incorporates Irving Berlin Music Corp. to publish his own music
• Pete Seeger born in NYC, May 3
• Roseland Ballroom opens (Broadway and 51st Street)

1920
• The Community Music School’s first charter incorporates it as the Neighborhood Music School
• Enrico Caruso gives last public performance in La juive at Metropolitan Opera
• Jazz pianist (James) Fletcher Henderson, 23, begins playing piano on a Hudson riverboat and works as a plugger for a sheet music company
• The Ziegfeld Follies, music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, opens with Fanny Brice and W.C. Fields at the New Amsterdam Theater (123 performances)
• Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey, Bessie Smith (“Empress of the Blues”), Alberta Hunter, and Ethel Waters introduce the blues to Harlem

1921
• Constance Keene, MSM piano faculty, born in Brooklyn, February 9
• Edgar Varèse organizes International Composers’ Guild to promote the cause of 20th-century music
• Fanny Brice introduces songs “My Man” and “Secondhand Rose” at Ziegfeld Follies
• Shuffle Along, music by Eubie Blake, starring Florence Mills and teenaged Josephine Baker, opens at the 63rd Street Music Hall (504 performances)

1922
• “Charleston,” in the revue Runnin’ Wild, launches a dance craze
• Bessie Smith makes her first recording for Columbia Records
• Edwin Franco Goldman’s New York Military Band moves outdoor summer concerts to Central Park Mall
• New York Philharmonic conducted by Willem Mengelberg makes first recording for the Victor, Co.

1923
• Bruno Walter makes American debut conducting New York Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall
• Cotton Club opens at Lexington Avenue and 142nd Street
• Tito Puente (Ernest Anthony Puente Jr.) born in Spanish Harlem, April 20
• Maria Callas born in NYC, December 2
• Louis Armstrong debuts at Harlem’s Lafayette Theater as a member of Fletcher Henderson’s Big Band

1924
• Pianist Harold Bauer gives a master class at Neighborhood Music School
• Paul Whiteman commissions George Gershwin to write Rhapsody in Blue, premiered by Gershwin at the piano and Paul Whiteman’s orchestra at Aeolian Hall
• Lady Be Good by George and Ira Gershwin opens with Fred and Adele Astaire at the Liberty Theater. Songs include “Somebody Loves Me,” “The Man I Love,” and “Fascinating Rhythm”

1925
• New York Philharmonic and conductor Walter Damrosch premiere Symphony for Organ and Orchestra by Brooklyn-born Aaron Copland, featuring organist Nadia Boulanger
• George Gershwin’s Concerto in F premiered (Carnegie Hall)
• Paul Robeson gives first concert recital, consisting solely of spirituals, at the Greenwich Village Theater
• Contralto Marian Anderson makes her debut with the New York Philharmonic at Lewisohn Stadium
• Popular song “My Yiddishe Momme” by Jack Yellen and Lew Pollack is a hit
• Smalls’ Paradise jazz club opens (7th Avenue and 135th Street)
• Sammy Davis, Jr., born in Harlem, December 8

1926
• Metropolitan Opera gives American premiere of Puccini’s Turandot, with Maria Jeritza and more than 650 performers on stage
• Tony Bennett (Anthony Dominick Benedetto) born in Astoria, Queens, August 3
• Fats Waller records organ solos in New York
• Savoy Ballroom opens (596 Lenox Avenue, between 140th and 141st Streets)
• Walter W. Naumburg establishes a foundation “to give public hearings for deserving music students”

1927
• The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson, produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, is first sound movie released
• New York-born prodigy Yehudi Menuhin, 11, makes Carnegie Hall debut
• Harry Belafonte born in Harlem, March 1
• Showboat, music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, starring Paul Robeson singing “Ol’ Man River,” opens at the Ziegfeld Theater (527 performances)
• Pianist Charlie Palmieri born in NYC, November 21

1928
• Concert by the Philharmonic Society of New York conducted by Arturo Toscanini benefits Janet Schenck’s Neighborhood Music School
• Bela Bartók makes American debut performing Rhapsody, op. 1 for piano with New York City Symphony Orchestra conducted by Willem Mengelberg
• Rudy Vallée, 27, the first ‘crooner’, forms his own band, using a megaphone to amplify his voice, and opens at New York’s Heigh-Ho Club
• Composer Nicolas Flagello born NYC, March 15 (MSM faculty 1950–77, MSM alumnus)
• Vladimir Horowitz, 23, and contralto Marian Anderson, 31, make Carnegie Hall debuts

1929
• Mario Bauzá, 19, influential Latin jazz musician, emigrates to New York from Cuba
• Ezio Pinza sings Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera
• Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians begin annual New Year’s Eve broadcasts from the Roosevelt Hotel
• WNYC begins airing Masterwork Hour, which will become radio’s oldest recorded program of fine music
• Beverly Sills (Belle Miriam Silverman) born in Brooklyn, May 25
• Conguero Ray Barretto born in Brooklyn, April 29

1930
• Girl Crazy, music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Walter Donaldson and Ira Gershwin, opens at the Alvin Theater (272 performances) and Astoria-born Ethel Merman, 21, knocks ‘em dead with “I Got Rhythm”
• Stephen Sondheim born in NYC, March 22

1931
• Samuel Barber composes Dover Beach, op. 3 for voice and string quartet
• Brill Building opens, with 11 stories occupied by Tin Pan Alley publishers / bandleaders (1619 Broadway)
• Steinway becomes the standard piano used in radio broadcasting

1932
• Duke Ellington writes “It Don’t Mean a Thing, If It Ain’t Got that Swing”
• Radio City Music Hall opens, housing the largest organ built by Rudolf Wurlitzer, with Morton Gould, 19, as staff pianist

1933
• Ruth Crawford Seeger’s String Quartet premiered by New World String Quartet at the New School for Social Research
• Lena Horne, 16, debuts at the Cotton Club
• Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady” and Rodgers and Hart’s “I Gotta Get Back to New York” written

1934
• Arnold Schoenberg moves to NYC to teach at Malkin Conservatory (stays at the Ansonia Hotel, Broadway and 73rd Street)
• Antonia Brico appointed conductor of the Women’s Symphony Orchestra of New York
• Harlem’s Apollo Theater opens as a showcase for black performing artists; first year performers include Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and, on “Amateur Night,” 16-year-old Ella Fitzgerald
• Anything Goes by Cole Porter opens with songs including “I Get a Kick Out of You” and “You’re the Top” at the Alvin Theater (420 performances)
• Glenn Miller joins the Dorsey Brother’s Orchestra and debuts at the Rainbow Room

1935
• Benny Goodman hires pianist Teddy Wilson for his trio, breaking the racial color line in jazz
• Popular song “Lullaby of Broadway” by Harry Warren, lyrics by Al Dubin, is a hit
• Max Gordon opens the Village Vanguard jazz club on Seventh Avenue
• Porgy and Bess by George and Ira Gershwin premieres at the Alvin Theater

1936
• Steve Reich born in NYC, October 3
• Roger Sessions composes his String Quartet No. 1
• Billboard magazine publishes first pop music chart on record sales
• Rudolf Serkin, 32, makes Carnegie Hall debut
• Bobby Darrin (Walden Robert Cassotto) born in the Bronx, May 14
• WQXR begins broadcasting as first U.S. classical radio station

1937
• John Brownlee (future MSM president) makes Metropolitan Opera debut
• Samuel Barber composes First Essay for Orchestra
• Lukas Foss, 15, moves to New York from Germany
• NBC Symphony, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, founded by National Broadcasting Co.
• Brooklyn-born radio hobbyist Avery Fisher, 31, founds Philharmonic Radio Co., to market improvements he has made to audio designs
• Babes in Arms by Rodgers and Hart opens with songs including “My Funny Valentine” and “The Lady is a Tramp” at the Shubert Theater (289 performances)
• The Cradle Will Rock, music and book by Marc Blitzstein, direction by Orson Welles, production by John Houseman, opens at the Venice Theater

1938
• Neighborhood Music School renamed Manhattan School of Music
• Benny Goodman and his Orchestra give first Carnegie Hall big-band jazz concert
• Antonia Brico becomes first woman to conduct the New York Philharmonic
• Minton’s Playhouse jazz club opens on 18th Street and 7th Avenue
• John Corigliano (MSM alumnus) born in NYC, February 16

1939
• Blue Note Records founded by German-born
• Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, who have come to NYC to escape Nazi persecution
• Billie Holiday performs “Strange Fruit” at Café Society on Sheridan Square
• Saxophone innovator Charlie Parker moves to NYC, hears pianist Art Tatum at Jimmie’s Chicken Shack
• Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) founded
• Manhattan School of Music benefit performance given at the Metropolitan Opera of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, with a cast including Lauritz Melchior and Kirsten Flagstad

1940
• Bela Bartók moves to New York from Hungary
• Frank Sinatra joins the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra
• Virgil Thomson becomes a music critic for the New York Herald-Tribune
• Pianists Harold Bauer, Rudolf Serkin, and Dora Zaslavsky give concerts at Manhattan School of Music
• Higher and Higher, music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart, opens with Jack Haley and Marta Eggerth at the Shubert Theater (84 performances)
• Texaco begins sponsorship of the Metropolitan Opera’s Saturday afternoon broadcasts, with Ezio Pinza and Licia Albanese in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro

1941
• Folk singer and songwriter Joan Baez born on Staten Island, January 9
• Lady in the Dark, music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, opens with Gertrude Lawrence and New York-born Danny Kaye at the Alvin Theater (162 performances)
• Billy Strayhorn composes “Take the A Train”

1942
• Rock singer-songwriter and guitarist Lou Reed born in Brooklyn, March 2
• Irving Berlin composes White Christmas
• Charlie Parker joins Earl Hines band, alongside Dizzy Gillespie
• 12-year-old Lorin Maazel conducts the New York Philharmonic
• Barbra Streisand born in Brooklyn, April 24
• Aaron Copland’s Rodeo, with Harlem-born dancer Agnes de Mille, debuts
• Frank Sinatra breaks contract with Tommy Dorsey, then opens at the Paramount Theater on a program headed by Benny Goodman
• Steinway & Sons retools its factory to begin producing gliders for the U.S. Air Force, some of which are used on D-Day

1943
• Bela Bartók composes Concerto for Orchestra, a commission from the Serge Koussevitsky Foundation, at the urging of conductor Fritz Reiner and violinist József Szigeti
• Isaac Stern, 22, makes Carnegie Hall debut
• Duke Ellington, 44, makes Carnegie Hall debut
• The New York City Center of Music and Drama opens (West 55th Street)
• New York City Opera founded, debuts with Puccini’s Tosca at City Center
• Oklahoma by Rodgers and Hammerstein, choreography by Agnes de Mille, starring Alfred Drake, Celeste Holm, and Howard da Silva, opens at the St. James Theater (2,212 performances)
• First authentic Afro-Cuban jazz tune, Tanga, by Mario Bauzá, is recorded by Machito and the Afro-Cubans
• Leonard Bernstein, 25, makes conducting debut with the New York Philharmonic, substituting for Bruno Walter, at Carnegie Hall

1944
• Ned Rorem (MSM current faculty) begins studies with Virgil Thompson
• Miles Davis moves to NYC to study at Juilliard
• New York jazz singer William Clarence “Billy” Eckstine forms big band playing new “bebop” jazz; Sarah Vaughan, 20, records “I’ll Wait and Pray” with the Billy Eckstine big band
• Pianist Leon Fleisher, 16, debuts with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Pierre Monteux at Carnegie Hall
• National Negro Opera Theater brings Verdi’s La Traviata to Madison Square Garden
• Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis premieres, conducted by Artur Rodzinsky

1945
• Up in Central Park, music by Sigmund Romberg, lyrics by Dorothy Fields, opens at the Century Theater (504 performances)
• New York Philharmonic joins in mourning President Roosevelt’s death by cancelling its concert, April 13
• Carousel by Rodgers and Hammerstein opens at the Majestic Theater (890 performances)

1946
• Juilliard String Quartet is founded, Robert Mann (MSM faculty) and Robert Koff violins; Raphael Hillyer, viola; Arthur Winograd, cello
• Annie Get Your Gun by Irving Berlin opens at the Imperial Theater with Ethel Merman, includes “There’s No Business Like Show Business” (1,147 performances)
• Virgil Fox begins 19-year tenure as organist at Riverside Church

1947
• Atlantic Records is founded by Ahmet and Neshuri Ertegun and Jerry Wexler at Jefferson Hotel
• New York-born Tito Puente leads his first band, The Picadilly Boys
• Pianist George Shearing emigrates to New York from England
• Café Society and Café Society Uptown close following savage attacks by newspaper columnists Walter Winchell and Lee Mortimer
• Street Scene by Kurt Weill premieres (Adelphi Theater); Kurt Weill receives first TONY Award for best original score
• Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday appear at Carnegie Hall
• Brigadoon by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick “Fritz” Lowe opens at the Ziegfeld Theater (581 performances)
• Brooklyn-born Lena Horne, alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, and Ella Fitzgerald make Carnegie Hall debuts
• The Mother of Us All, music by Virgil Thomson with libretto by Gertrude Stein, premieres (Brander Matthews Hall, Columbia University)

1948
• George Rochberg awarded the George Gershwin Award for Overture in C
• Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Orpheus, choreography by George Balanchine, opens at City Center
• The Weavers founded by Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman, and Ronnie Gilbert
• While studying at MSM, pianist John Lewis joins Miles Davis’s nonet
• Kiss Me Kate by Cole Porter opens at the New Century Theater (1,077 performances)

1949
• Vladimir Horowitz premieres Samuel Barber’s Piano Sonata, op. 26
• Miles Davis records “Birth of Cool”; musicians include pianist John Lewis (MSM alumnus)
• Pianist George Shearing debuts “Lullabye of Birdland”
• Robert Sirota (MSM president) born NYC, October 13
• Birdland opens with saxophonist Charlie Parker as headliner (on Broadway)

1950
• Metropolitan Opera appoints Rudolph Bing general manager
• Mahalia Jackson makes Carnegie Hall debut
• Gunther Schuller (MSM alumnus) joins Manhattan School of Music faculty
• Manhattan School of Music Opera department formed

1951
• Elliott Carter writes his String Quartet No. 1
• Sammy Davis, Jr.,26, makes Carnegie Hall debut
• Charlie Parker records “My Little Suede Shoes” and scores a hit
• The King and I, by Rodgers and Hammerstein, choreography by Jerome Robbins, with Gertrude Lawrence and Yul Byrnner, opens at the St. James Theater (1,246 performances)
• Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, the first opera written for television, airs on NBC

1952
• MSM students include Max Roach and John Lewis
• Dave Brubeck makes New York debut
• Goddard Lieberson oversees Columbia Record’s introduction of the long-playing record (“LP”), the 33 1/3 rpm vinyl discs developed by engineer Peter Carl Goldmark
• Percussionist Candido Camero moves to New York from Cuba and begins recording with Dizzy Gillespie
• Modern Jazz Quartet founded with John Lewis, piano (MSM alumnus); Kenny Clarke, drums; Milt Jackson, vibraphone; and Percy Heath, bassist

1953
• Tony Bennett’s recording of “Rags to Riches” reaches #1 on the Billboard charts
• Pat Benatar born in Brooklyn, January 10
• Wonderful Town, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Comden and Green, opens with Rosalind Russell and Edie Adams at the Winter Garden Theater (559 performances), receives New York Drama Critics Award
• Can Can by Cole Porter opens with Gwen Verndon at the Shubert Theater (892 performances)
• Cyndi Lauper born in Ozone Park, Queens, June 22

1954
• Composer Elliot Goldenthal (MSM alumnus) born in NYC
• Van Cliburn receives the Leventritt Award Kurt Weill’s Three Penny Opera opens with Lotte Lenya at Theatre de Lys, renamed the Lucille Lortel Theater in
1981

1955
• Marian Anderson and baritone Robert McFerrin are the first African Americans to perform at the Metropolitan Opera
• Brooklyn Philharmonic is founded
• Elvin Jones fails audition for the Benny Goodman band, instead joins the Charles Mingus band, and releases J is for Jazz
• Charlie Parker makes final appearance at Birdland
• Lukas Foss’s opera Griffelkin broadcast on NBC
• The Mayor’s Slum Clearance Committee (Robert Moses, chairman) is given the go-ahead to designate Lincoln Square for urban renewal to become Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

1956
• Janet D. Schenck retires as director of Manhattan School of Music; John Brownlee appointed director
• Maria Callas debuts at Metropolitan Opera
• Mstislav Rostropovich makes New York debut
• Harry Belafonte records Calypso, for RCA Victor, the first LP to sell more than 1 million copies
• Alan Freed, “the father of rock and roll,” introduces European audiences to African-American Rhythm and Blues on his Radio Luxembourg show Jamboree, broadcast via New York’s 1010 WINS
• Paul Simon, 15, and Art Garfunkel, 15, meet at Forest Hills High School and begin singing as the duo “Tom and Jerry”
• My Fair Lady by Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner, with Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison, opens at the Mark Hellinger Theater (2,717 performances)

1957
• Julius Rudel appointed conductor at New York City Opera
• Gil Evans/Miles Davis collaboration Miles Ahead recorded for Columbia Records
• Thelonius Monk relaunches his career with a landmark residency at the Five Spot Café leading a quartet that includes John Coltrane
• John Cage teaches “Experimental Composition” at the New School for Social Research
• Grammy Awards presented for first time
• West Side Story, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, choreography by Jerome Robbins, opens at the Winter Garden Theater (732 performances)

1958
• Mignon Dunn (current MSM faculty) makes Metropolitan Opera debut
• Leonard Bernstein appointed musical director and conductor of New York Philharmonic
• Itzhak Perlman, 13, appears on Ed Sullivan Show
• Vanessa, with music by Samuel Barber and libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti, premieres at the Metropolitan Opera
• Pablo Casals gives a master class at Manhattan School of Music
• Gil Evans/Miles Davis collaboration Porgy and Bess recorded for Columbia Records
• Photographer Art Kane shoots historic photo of 58 jazz musicians on East 126th Street for Esquire’s January 1959 issue
• Van Cliburn makes his Carnegie Hall debut after winning the Tchaikovsky Competition; becomes the only classical musician honored with a ticker-tape parade

1959
• Elliott Carter’s String Quartet No. 2 receives Pulitzer Prize and New York Music Critics Award
• Gil Evans/Miles Davis collaboration Sketches of Spain recorded for Columbia Records
• Bobby Darrin releases “Mack the Knife” from Kurt Weill’s Three Penny Opera
• Sound of Music by Rodgers and Hammerstein opens with Mary Martin at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater (1,443 performances)
• President Dwight D. Eisenhower breaks ground for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

1960
• Max Roach (MSM alumnus) records “We Insist! Freedom New Suite,” lyrics by Oscar Brown, vocals by Abbey Lincoln
• Isasc Stern saves Carnegie Hall from demolition
• Yehudi Menuhin gives a string seminar at Manhattan School of Music
• George Solti debuts at Metropolitan Opera
• Yusel Lateef arrives in New York to begin flute studies at MSM

1961
• Rosina Lhevinne appears as piano soloist with Manhattan School of Music Symphony
• Henry Mancini receives Oscar for his score for Breakfast at Tiffany’s
• Seiji Ozawa makes New York conducting debut
• Milton Babbitt produces Music for Synthesizer, working as a consultant composer with RCA on their RCA Mark II Synthesizer
• Celia Cruz and her orchestra begin performances at the Palladium Ballroom
• Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland make landmark performances at Carnegie Hall
• MSM students include Donald Byrd, Larry Rosen, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, and Hugh Masekela
• The Fantasticks, music by Harvey Schmidt and lyrics by Tom Jones, opens off-Broadway at the Sullivan Street Playhouse (17,163 performances)
• Bob Dylan moves to New York and begins playing in Greenwich Village clubs

1962
• Money Jungle by Duke Ellington, piano, Max Roach, drums (MSM alumnus), and Charles Mingus, bass, recorded for Blue Note Records
• William Schuman named president of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
• Pianists Richard Goode, Ruth Laredo (former MSM faculty) and Ann Schein make New York debuts
• Leonard Bernstein conducts the first of the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts to be televised from Lincoln Center

1963
• Alfred Brendel and Andre Watts make New York debuts
• Barbra Streisand’s first album, The Barbra Streisand Album, wins two Grammy Awards
• James Brown reaches national fame with self-financed LP, Live at the Apollo, released on King Records

1964
• Elizabeth Schwarzkopf makes Metropolitan Opera debut in Der Rosenkavelier
• Pierre Boulez makes New York conducting debut
• Yo-Yo Ma, 9, makes Carnegie Hall debut
• Hello Dolly by Jerry Herman with Carol Channing opens at the St. James Theater (2,844 performances)
• Beatles arrive in New York, perform on Ed Sullivan Show and to sold-out audiences at Carnegie Hall in 2 concerts the same day
• Funny Girl by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill with Barbra Streisand opens at the Winter Garden Theater (1,348 performances)
• Rolling Stones make Carnegie Hall debut
• Fiddler on the Roof by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick with Zero Mostel opens at the Imperial Theater (3,242 performances)

1965
• David Diamond joins Manhattan School of Music composition faculty (1965–67)
• Monserrat Caballe, Renata Scotto, and Mirella Freni debut at Metropolitan Opera
• Rev. John C. Gensel becomes pastor to NYC jazz community
• Popular songs include “The Sounds of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel and “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan
• Artur Balsam joins Manhattan School of Music piano and chamber music faculties (1965–93)
• An Evening with P.D.Q. Bach features Prof. Peter Schickele at Town Hall

1966
• Modern Jazz Quartet gives benefit concert for MSM, arranged by alumnus and MJQ pianist John Lewis, at Carnegie Hall
• Leon Kirchner’s String Quartet No. 3 wins Pulitzer Prize
• George Rochberg’s Black Sounds wins Prix Italia
• Metropolitan Opera House opens at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, with the premiere of Samuel Barber’s Anthony and Cleopatra starring Leontyne Price and Ezio Flagello (MSM alumnus)

1967
• Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson is honorary chairperson for MSM’s Salute to American Musical Theater, presented at the Waldorf-Astoria and at the White House
• Grateful Dead gives free afternoon concert in Tompkins Square Park
• Carnegie Hall is designated a New York City landmark
• Harvey Lichtenstein becomes executive director of Brooklyn Academy of Music
• Brooklyn-born Clive Davis becomes president of Columbia Records and begins signing rock artists
• Hair opens off-Broadway at the Public Theater, founded by Joseph Papp

1968
• The Boy’s Choir of Harlem is founded by Walter J. Turnbull (MSM alumnus)
• Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia receives New York premiere
• Bobby Short appears with Mabel Mercer at Town Hall, then later that year opens at Café Carlyle
• Alumnus Clem DeRosa co-founds and becomes president of the National Association of Jazz Educators in NYC, later the IAJE
• Dave Grusin (MSM alumnus) wins a Grammy Award for his score to The Graduate
• Duke Ellington’s Second Sacred Concert premieres at Cathedral of St. John the Divine
• Fillmore East opens at corner of 6th Street and 2nd Avenue
• Luciano Pavarotti makes Metropolitan Opera debut
• Placido Domingo makes Carnegie Hall debut

1969
• Manhattan School of Music moves to 120 Claremont Avenue
• George Schick appointed president of Manhattan School of Music (1969–1976)
• Miles Davis records In a Silent Way, with pianist Herbie Hancock (MSM alumnus), and Bitches Brew
• Pinchas Zukerman (current MSM faculty) makes New York debut
• Sean Jean Combs also known as Diddy, Puff Daddy, and P. Diddy, born in NYC, November 4
• The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center is founded

1970
• Marilyn Horne, Frederica Von Stade, and Enrico di Giuseppe make Metropolitan Opera debuts
• Rev. John G. Gensel holds All-Nite Soul marathon at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
• New York-born Arthur Mitchell founds the Dance Theater of Harlem
• Company by Stephen Sondheim, directed by Hal Prince, with Elaine Stritch, Donna McKechnie, and Dona D. Vaughn (MSM faculty) opens at the Alvin Theater and wins Tony and New York Drama Critics Award (706 performances)
• Lincoln Center offers first season of outdoor events through efforts of Leonard de Paur

1971
• Isaac Hayes’ theme from Shaft wins Oscar
• Brooklyn-born Carole King releases Tapestry album (which will have sales of more than 13 million by 1983)
• The rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice opens at the Mark Hellinger Theater (711 performances)
• Mary J. Blige born in the Bronx, January 11
• Fillmore East closes, June 27

1972
• Schuyler Chapin appointed general manager of Metropolitan Opera
• Lou Reed releases “Walk on the Wild Side”
• John Lennon and Yoko Ono perform at Madison Square Garden
• 40-year old Radio City Music Hall holds first ‘pop’ concert, featuring James Taylor

1973
• Lincoln Center renames its 11-year old Philharmonic Hall Avery Fisher Hall
• CBGBs opens as a venue for country, bluegrass and blues on Lower East Side
• A Little Night Music by Stephen Sondheim opens with Len Cariou, Hermione Gingold, and Glynis Johns at the Shubert Theater (600 performances)
• Stevie Wonder, 22, makes Carnegie Hall debut

1974
• José Carreras and Kiri Te Kanawa make Metropolitan Opera debuts
• Joey, Johnny, and DeeDee Ramone form the Ramones in Forest Hills, Queens
• New York-born composer Marvin Hamlisch writes “The Way We Were,” lyrics by Brooklyn-born writer Alan Bergman and his wife Marilyn
• Maria Calas gives farewell performance at Carnegie Hall
• New York-born Soprano Catherine Malfitano (MSM alumnus) makes her New York City Opera debut
• The Avery Fisher Artist Program is established to recognize outstanding American instrumentalists with both the Avery Fisher Prize and Avery Fisher Career Grants

1975
• NYC U.S. District Court Judge Richard Owen (MSM alumnus and member of board of trustees) rules that John Lennon and his lawyers can have access to Department of Immigration files pertaining to his deportation case
• Billy Joel records hit song “New York State of Mind”
• James Levine appointed musical director of Metropolitan Opera
• Beverly Sills makes Metropolitan Opera debut
• Three Led Zeppelin concerts at Madison Square Garden sell out in hours
• At the bequest of Jack Norworth, writer of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” the ASCAP Foundation is incorporated to honor and support young composers
• Chicago by Kander and Ebb, opens at 46th Street Theater with Chita Rivera, Gwen Verdon, and Jerry Orbach (922 performances)
• Michael Bennett’s A Chorus Line, music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban, opens at the Public Theater and later moves to the Shubert Theater (6,137 performances)

1976
• John Crosby appointed president of Manhattan School of Music (1976–86)
• American Composers’ Orchestra founded
• Philip Glass’s opera Einstein on the Beach debuts at the Metropolitan Opera
• First telecast of “Live From Lincoln Center” broadcast over PBS
• Bubblin’ Brown Sugar, based on music by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Eubie Blake, Fats Waller, and others, opens at the ANTA Theater (766 performances)
• Eddie Palmieri wins first Grammy awarded to Latin music for his masterpiece, The Sun of Latin Music

1977
• Chamber Music America is founded
• Annie, music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, with Andrea McArdle, Reid Shelton, and Dorothy Loudon, opens at the Alvin Theater (2,377 performances)
• West 106th Street, between Riverside Drive and Central Park West, renamed Duke Ellington Boulevard (The ‘Duke’ owned a Riverside Drive mansion at 106th Street)
• John Kander and Fred Ebb write title song for Martin Scorsese’s film New York, New York

1978
• Zubin Mehta appointed conductor of New York Philharmonic
• David Starobin (MSM current faculty) makes New York debut
• Samuel Barber composes Third Essay for Orchestra
• Liza Minelli sets a Carnegie Hall record with 17 consecutive sold-out concerts
• Ain’t Misbehavin’, music and lyrics mostly by the late Thomas Wright “Fats” Waller, opens at the Longacre Theater (1,604 performances)

1979
• James Taylor performs in Central Park’s Sheep Meadow
• Jazz Pianist Marian McPartland performs with Manhattan School of Music Jazz Band
• Walkman cassette player introduced by Sony Corp.
• Sweeny Todd by Stephen Sondheim, with Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury, opens at the Uris Theater (558 performances)
• Evita by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, with Patti Lupone, opens at the Broadway Theater (1,556 performances)

1980
• Film musical Fame, based on the High School for the Performing Arts, is released, with Bronx-born actress-singer Irene Cara (auditions held at MSM)
• Double Fantasy album recorded by John Lennon and Yoko Ono

1981
• Glenn Dicterow (MSM faculty and chair of Orchestral Performance Program) appointed concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta, music director and conductor
• Joan Tower’s Sequoia composed for the New York Philharmonic
• Philip Glass’s opera Satyagraha premieres at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
• Wynton Marsalis signs recording contracts for both classical and jazz labels simultaneously
• MTV debuts to New York cable TV subscribers playing music videos 24 hours a day
• While sitting in Tom’s Restaurant at West 112th Street, Suzanne Vega composes “Tom’s Diner”
• Martin E. Segal is elected Chairman of the Board of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

1982
• Cats by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics adapted from T.S. Eliot, opens with Betty Buckley at the Winter Garden Theater (7,485 performances)
• Little Shop of Horrors, music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman, with Brooklyn-born Ellen Greene, opens off-Broadway at the Orpheum Theater (2,209 performances)
• Violinists Midori and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg make New York debuts
• Conductor Zubin Mehta, Itzahk Perlman, Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, and New York Philharmonic receive Grammy for Best Classical Performance for Isaac Stern’s 60th Anniversary Celebration

1983
• Ellen Taaffe Zwilich becomes first woman to receive a Pulitzer Prize in Composition for her Three Movements for Orchestra (Symphony No. 1)
• Birgit Nilsson teaches her first master class at Manhattan School of Music (Dawn Upshaw and Lauren Flanigan, participants)
• Jessye Norman makes her Metropolitan Opera debut
• The Next Wave Festival of new music is inaugurated at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
• Popular songs include Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” and Queens-born Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”

1984
• Jazz/Commercial Music degree program is announced at Manhattan School of Music
• American String Quartet become Artists in Residence at Manhattan School of Music
• Madonna causes controversy with her performance of her hit single “Like a Virgin” at first annual MTV Video Music Awards

1985
• Leontyne Price gives farewell performance at the Metropolitan Opera
• Compact discs and CD players are introduced
• Dawn Upshaw (MSM alumnus) receives the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation Voice Award
• Radio City Music Hall designated a New York City landmark
• Ebony Opera gives the world premiere of Dorothy Rudd Moore’s Frederick Douglass in Aaron Davis Hall at City College
• Sonny Rollins records an album of live solo-saxophone improvisations at MOMA

1986
• Gideon Waldrop becomes president of Manhattan School of Music (1986–1989)
• James Levine becomes Artistic Director of the Metropolitan Opera
• Carnegie Hall closes for 7-month, $60 million renovation
• Michael Feinstein records first CD, Pure Gershwin, a collection of music by George and Ira

1987
• Gunther Schuller (MSM alumnus of the Precollege) awarded an honorary doctorate from Manhattan School of Music
• Bang on a Can Festival founded
• John Adams’ opera Nixon in China given New York premiere at Brooklyn Academy of Music
• Les Miserables, music by Claude-Michel Schonberg, lyrics by Alain Boubil and Herbert Kretzmer, opens at the Imperial Theater (6,680 performances)
• Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim, with Bernadette Peters, opens at the Martin Beck Theater (764 performances)

1988
• David Del Tredici (former MSM Composition Faculty) appointed composer in residence of New York Philharmonic
• New York-born Bobby McFerrin releases Simple Pleasures record, including single, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”
• Phantom of the Opera, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Charles Hart, directed by Harold Prince, with Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman, opens at the Majestic Theater (6,075 + performances)
• Irving Berlin declines invitation to attend 100th birthday celebration held at Carnegie Hall
• Atlantic Records celebrates 40th Anniversary with 11-hour concert featuring Phil Collins, Mick Jagger, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and others (Madison Square Garden)

1989
• Peter Simon appointed president of Manhattan School of Music (1989–1991)
• Blue Note jazz recording label celebrates 50th anniversary with Carnegie Hall concert, part of JVC Jazz Festival
• Mannes School of Music joins the New School for Social Research (known now as the New School)

1990
• Steve Reich receives Grammy for Best
• Contemporary Composition for Different Trains, recorded by Kronos Quartet on Nonesuch label
• Joan Tower is first woman awarded Grawemeyer Award in Composition
• Evgeny Kissin gives New York debut

1991
• Manhattan School of Music founds Professional Musical Theater Workshop, Paul Gemignani, Director
• Kurt Masur appointed conductor of New York Philharmonic
• Lionel Hampton, age 82, records live with his Golden Men at Blue Note
• Paul Simon gives free concert with African and South American bands in Central Park to an audience of more than 600,000
• Carnegie Hall celebrates 100th birthday
• Mario Bauzá comes out of retirement to record his suite Tanga, orchestrated by Chico O’Farill, with Bobby Sanabria (MSM faculty) on drums, and receives Grammy nomination
• Manhattan School of Music founds Graduate Program in Orchestral Performance

1992
• Phillip Glass’s opera The Voyage premiered at Metropolitan Opera to mark the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the Americas
• Marta Istomin appointed president of Manhattan School of Music
• Jelly’s Last Jam, music by “Jelly Roll” Morton, lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, with Gregory Hines as the late Morton, opens at the Virginia Theater (569 performances)
• Ghosts of Versailles, by John Corigliano (MSM alumnus) premieres at Metropolitan Opera, a commission to mark the Met’s centenary

1993
• Manhattan School of Music inaugurates Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program
• Tania León becomes Music Advisor to Kurt Masur and New York Philharmonic
• Luciano Pavarotti gives concert on Great Lawn in Central Park, drawing an audience of more than 250,000
• Mayor David Dinkins renames the corner of Broadway and 65th Street “Leonard Bernstein Place”

1994
• Kurt Masur conducts Manhattan School of Music Orchestra in world premiere of Siegfried Mathus’s Manhattan Concerto, the culminating concert of 75th anniversary season; Maestro Masur is given honorary doctoral degree at concert’s intermission
• Frank Sinatra receives Lifetime Grammy Achievement Award
• Beverly Sills elected Chairman of the Board of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the first woman and first professional musician to hold this position

1995
• Max Roach (MSM alumnus) is inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame
• Ellen Taaffe Zwilich becomes first occupant of Carnegie Hall’s Composer’s Chair and creates the “Making Music” concert series, focusing on living composers
• Barbara Fritolli makes Metropolitan Opera debut
• Empire State Building displays two rows of blue lights to celebrate Frank Sinatra’s 80th birthday on December 12

1996
• Videoconferencing, brought to MSM by Pinchas Zukerman, is inaugurated at Manhattan School of Music, the first conservatory to use technology in music performance education
• Paul Kellogg is appointed general and artistic director of New York City Opera
• Jonathan Larson’s Rent premieres at the Nederlander Theater (still running)

1997
• Manhattan School of Music releases recordings of Ned Rorem’s Miss Julie, Donizetti’s Il campanello di notte, Britten’s Albert Herring, and Daniel Catan’s Rappacinin’s Daughter
• The Lion King, music and lyrics by Elton John and Tim Rice, directed by Julie Taymor, opens at the New Amsterdam Theater (2,500 + performances)
• Mstislav Rostropovich receives honorary doctorate from Manhattan School of Music via videoconference while in Evian, France

1998
• Aaron Jay Kernis (MSM alumnus) receives Pulitzer Prize for second string quartet, musica instrumentalis
• Jazz bassist Ron Carter (MSM alumnus) and soprano Dawn Upshaw (MSM alumna) given honorary doctorates from Manhattan School of Music
• Yuri Temirkanov leads Manhattan School of Music Symphony in a reading of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 as part of a Shostakovich symposium
• New York City Board of Education establishes the JD Award (named for MSM faculty member Justin DiCioccio) to be awarded annually for outstanding service to music in NYC schools

1999
• Manhattan School of Music Summer Music Camp opens for NYC public school children, grades 5–8, created in association with New York City Board of Education and ASCAP
• Bronx-born Jennifer Lopez releases debut album On the 6 (referring to the #6 train), and the single If You Had My Love peaks at #1
• New York composer John Corigliano (MSM alumnus) wins an Academy Award for Original Music Score for The Red Violin
• John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby premieres at the Metropolitan Opera, conducted by James Levine, with MSM alumnae Dawn Upshaw and Susan Graham
• James Levine’s 25th anniversary at the Met is celebrated

2000
• Symphony No. 2, by John Corigliano (MSM alumnus), receives Pulitzer Prize
• Isaac Stern is honored at Carnegie Hall with concerts celebrating his 80th birthday and his 40th anniversary as president of Carnegie Hall
• Dawn Upshaw (MSM alumnus) is Musical America’s “Vocalist of the Year”
• Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra created, Bobby Sanabria, Director

2001
• Manhattan School of Music Symphony travels to Caracas, Venezuela for musical and cultural exchange with National Children’s Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela
• “Concert for NYC” airs on VH1, featuring Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, The Who, and Billy Joel

2002
• Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater gives New York premiere of Thomas Pasatieri’s The Seagull
• Brooklyn-born Norah Jones receives 6 Grammy Awards for her debut album, Come Away With Me
• John Adams composes On the Transmigration of Souls for New York Philharmonic in commemoration of first anniversary of September 11, 2001
• Simon and Garfunkel release their album Live in New York City, 1967, a recording of their performance at Lincoln Center on January 22, 1967

2003
• DMA in Jazz Arts Advancement offered at Manhattan School of Music
• Judy and Arthur Zankel Hall opens at Carnegie Hall
• Hairspray wins Tony Award for Best Musical
• Stefon Harris (MSM alumnus) releases Grand Unification Theory, his third consecutive CD to receive a Grammy nomination

2004
• Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham (MSM alumnus) is named Musical America’s “Vocalist of the Year”
• Wynton Marsalis is named Musical America’s “Musician of the Year”
• Luciano Pavarotti gives his last performance in an opera, Tosca, at the Metropolitan Opera
• Jazz at Lincoln Center opens the Frederick P. Rose Hall, with the Rose Theater, the Allen Room, and Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola

2005
• Robert Sirota assumes presidency of Manhattan School of Music
• Pierre Boulez and IRCAM spend week-long residence at Manhattan School of Music
• The Juilliard School celebrates its centenary
• John Harbison’s Milosz Songs for Soprano and Orchestra, a New York Philharmonic commission, receives its world premiere
• Margaret Juntwait (MSM alumna) succeeds Milton Cross and Peter Allen as host of the Metropolitan Opera Saturday Broadcast and begins presenting the Met’s broadcasts on Sirius radio
• Keith Jarrett plays solo concert at Carnegie Hall

2006
• Manhattan School of Music awards Marilyn Horne an honorary doctorate
• Tania León is named Distinguished Professor at City University of New York
• Steve Reich saluted at BAM and Carnegie Hall with 70th birthday celebrations
• New York Philharmonic is first major orchestra to sign an agreement to produce downloadable concerts on DG Concerts label and first recording immediately reaches #1 on the iTunes classical charts
• Manhattan School of Music Jazz Orchestra gives world premiere of Gunnar Mosblad’s arrangement of John Coltrane’s Meditations Suite during MSM’s Coltrane Summit
• Peter Gelb becomes general manager of the Metropolitan Opera and offers opera to the masses, simulcasting Madama Butterfly in Times Square and on the plaza at Lincoln Center
• Thelonius Monk is posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Music

2007
• Manhattan School of Music inaugurates graduate degree program in Contemporary Performance, the first of its kind
• Ornette Coleman receives Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and the Pulitzer Prize for his quartet album, Sound Grammar
• Margaret Garner by Richard Danielpour (MSM faculty), with libretto by Toni Morrison, receives New York debut at New York City Opera
• Alan Gilbert appointed music director of New York Philharmonic to succeed Lorin Maazel
• Dawn Upshaw (MSM alumnus) awarded a MacArthur Award
• October 18 is declared Manhattan School of Music Day by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in honor of the School's 90th Anniversary

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