Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts

Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts
South (front) elevation, 2008
General information
Architectural style	Deconstructivist
Town or city	Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
Country	USA
Completed	2003
Cost	$62 million
Design and construction
Client	Bard College
Architect	Frank Gehry

The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College is a performance hall located in New York's Hudson Valley. The center provides audiences with performances and programs in orchestral, chamber, and jazz music and theater, dance, and opera by American and international artists. Designed by architect Frank Gehry, the 110,000-square foot (10,000 m²) center houses two theaters, four rehearsal studios for dance, theater, and music, and professional support facilities. The total cost of the project reached $62 million. The New Yorker calls it "[possibly] the best small concert hall in the United States." [1]

West profile in winter 2005

Summertime view

The Sosnoff Theater, an intimate, 900-seat theater with an orchestra, parterre, and two balcony sections, features an orchestra pit for opera and acoustics designed by Yasuhisa Toyota, including an acoustic shell that turns the theater into a concert hall for performances of chamber and symphonic music.

The flexible 200-seat Theater Two houses Bard’s Theater and Dance Programs during the academic year. The Fisher Center is also the home of the Bard Music Festival, entering its 20th season in July 2009, hosting companies from the United States and abroad during Bard SummerScape, a festival of opera, theater, and dance.

The PAC is devoted primarily to teaching and college events during the academic year and used as a public performing arts facility and venue for the college’s graduate programs in the arts during the summer months.

External links

• Official Site for the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College
• Review of the Fisher Center in the New Yorker
• Review of Fisher Center in "Live Design"

See also

• Richard B. Fisher namesake of the hall, chairman emeritus of Morgan Stanley.