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(New York, August 4, 2004) – The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced its schedule of weekend and weekday programs for children and their families for the period October 2004 through January 2005. In addition to an extensive range of age-specific art programs, the Metropolitan's amenities for families include special greeters on weekends and on Holiday Mondays, family Audio Guide tours, free printed guides for independent activities within the Museum, family-friendly dining – including a special children's menu in the cafeteria – a MetKids catalogue, Children's Shop, and "MuseumKids" Web page.
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(New York, August 3, 2004) -- The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that, in response to enthusiastic public support of the "Holiday Mondays" program inaugurated in 2003, it will continue to offer these special viewing days – which take place on the Mondays of major holiday weekends – for a second year. The Metropolitan Museum's main building will be open to the public on the following Monday holidays: September 6 (Labor Day), October 11 (Columbus Day), December 27, 2004 (the Monday between Christmas and New Year's Day), January 17 (Martin Luther King Jr. Day), February 21 (Presidents' Day), and May 30, 2005 (Memorial Day). The Museum had previously been closed to the public on Mondays for some 30 years.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art launches its second half-century of presenting concerts in the 2004-2005 season with a diverse selection of world-renowned artists and young talent, upholding the Concerts & Lectures 50-year tradition.
"The success of the Museum's 50th anniversary concert season has renewed our dedication to excellence, continuity, and innovation in programming," said the Metropolitan's Director, Philippe de Montebello. "That these qualities are carried forward is evidenced by the dynamic combination of hand-picked artists and programs in our 51st season. The year's pianists, following the 50th anniversary's impressive piano roster, range from a festival of young competition winners to The Art of André Watts, while notable early-music events are complemented by a series devoted to contemporary composer Steve Reich."
Highlights of the 62 concerts comprising the 2004-2005 season, the 36th programmed by Hilde Limondjian, Concerts & Lectures General Manager since 1969, include two spring festivals – Celebrating Jordi Savall, three concerts in April presenting the viola da gamba artist and early music leader with his three acclaimed ensembles, and A Festival of International Competition Winners, also in April, of six young pianists, first-prize winners of major competitions, many in their U.S. debuts. The U.S. premiere of Steve Reich's 2003 work Dance Patterns highlights The Music of Steve Reich, a three-concert series performed by Steve Reich and Musicians. Continuing an initiative from the 50th anniversary season celebrating the multifaceted artistry of one musician, The Art of André Watts showcases the pianist in a recital, a chamber program, and an illustrated talk. Three major ensembles – Orpheus, New York Collegium, and Chanticleer – offer early-music programs in gallery spaces, and two singers make their Metropolitan Museum debuts at The Temple of Dendur in The Sackler Wing: soprano Olga Borodina and tenor Rolando Villazón, whose performance will also be his U.S. recital debut.
The Beaux Arts Trio, which celebrates its own 50th anniversary in 2004-2005, will begin a three-year Beethoven project that will present all of the composer's piano trios, sonatas for violin and piano, and sonatas for cello and piano. Complementing this is a series of six concerts, Surrounding Beethoven, of music that anticipated, mirrored, or followed this core repertoire, performed by a diverse roster of artists: Frederic Chiu and Windscape, Jonathan Biss and Miriam Fried, the Juilliard String Quartet with Heinz Holliger, the Prague Symphony Orchestra with Navah Perlman, the Borromeo String Quartet, and the Salzburger Kammerphilharmonie with Kate Dillingham. The chamber music of Dvorák is the anchor for the Guarneri String Quartet's five concerts, which feature eminent guest artists including Peter Serkin, Ida Kavafian, Anton Kuerti, and former member David Soyer. Paula Robison continues her exploration of The Great Vivaldi with two programs. And the artist roster of the season's Musicians from Marlboro series includes Kim Kashkashian and Samuel Rhodes.
In addition to the Festival of International Competition Winners, two series showcase some of today's finest young talent. The Accolades young artist series features four violinists: Stefan Jackiw, Giora Schmidt, Corey Cerovsek, and Jennifer Koh. Also, in its second season, the newest of the Museum's resident ensembles and the first to bear its name, Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert, presents three programs of classic repertoire mirroring the new, which will be broadcast live on 96.3 FM WQXR.
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(NEW YORK, JUNE 15, 2004)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced a major restructuring and redefinition of curatorial responsibilities at the Museum with the creation of a new and expanded department: Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art, embracing European paintings from 1800 to the present, as well as international 20th-century sculpture, drawings, prints, decorative arts, and design. The integrated and broadened new department will enjoy the mandate—and, within several years, additional new gallery space as well—to bring to the public the full and dynamic story of modern art, in all media, from its beginnings to the present day.
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(New York-June 4, 2004)—Due to the exceptional public response to The Metropolitan Museum of Art's acclaimed international loan exhibition Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557), the Museum announced today that it will extend the run of the show through Monday, July 5, which is a special "Holiday Monday" viewing day at the Museum. The exhibition was originally scheduled to close on Sunday, July 4.
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(New York, June 11, 2004)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced that the Museum's President, David E. McKinney, would retire in January 2005, soon after he reaches the age of 70.
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The following English- and Spanish-language weekday and weekend programs for children up to age 12 and their adult companions will be offered by The Metropolitan Museum of Art from Tuesday, July 6, through Sunday, August 8, 2004. These drop-in programs are free with Museum admission, and all materials are provided.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that Malcolm Daniel, Acting Curator in Charge of the Department of Photographs for the past seven months, would assume the post of Curator in Charge, effective immediately. The appointment – ratified February 10 by the Executive Committee of the Museum's Board of Trustees – will allow Maria Morris Hambourg, founding curator of the department and its head for the past 12 years, to assume the post of Consulting Curator. In this new role, Ms. Hambourg will continue to work closely with the department on special projects, exhibitions, and acquisitions, free of day-to-day administrative duties.
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His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual head of the worldwide Orthodox Christian Church, will deliver the lecture "Byzantine Icons: A Legacy for Humanism" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Thursday, March 18. Presented in conjunction with the upcoming international loan exhibition Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557), the lecture will take place at 2 p.m. in the Museum's Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. Reservations, which are required, may be obtained on a first-come, first-served basis by calling (212) 570-3792. The event is free to the public with Museum admission.
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(NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 24, 2004)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced plans to launch—and fund—a series of milestone 21st-Century Met interior construction projects aimed at dramatically enhancing the Museum's displays of Hellenistic and Roman art, Etruscan art, Islamic art, 19th-century art, modern art, and modern photography. Additionally, the major new "building-from-within" program will substantially upgrade the Museum's Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education, the traditional welcoming point of entry for some 125,000 school visitors each year. To finance the projects, the Museum announced a new plan to complete private funding for the construction and rehabilitation work.