Wednesday, October 24, 2012 | 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM
Gino Francesconi, Director of Archives and Rose Museum at Carnegie Hall, will discuss industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie's founding of Carnegie Hall at this Lunch and Learn event.
Francesconi joined Carnegie Hall in 1974 as an usher while studying to be a conductor. He held various positions at the Hall, including 10 years as the artist attendant backstage working for such celebrated artists as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Vladimir Horowitz and Leonard Bernstein. In 1986, he undertook the responsibility of establishing Carnegie Hall’s first archives. Since no archives existed, much of the Hall’s documented history had disappeared. Appeals to collectors and the public through advertisements and the media generated the donation of thousands of items. Prompted by the gift of one of Benny Goodman’s clarinets by his family, the opening of the Rose Museum in 1991 provided a place to share Carnegie Hall’s history with the public and to do temporary exhibitions to coincide with an event on stage or Hall-related anniversary. Mr. Francesconi has curated nearly three dozen exhibitions in the museum displaying more than $100 million worth of music manuscripts never before seen in the United States. He and his staff have documented nearly 50,000 Carnegie Hall events and, in January 2012, grants totaling nearly $3 million were given to digitize the archival holdings to make them available to the public online worldwide.
$5 tickets may be purchased at the door and include Museum admission. Museum members are admitted free of charge. Feel free to bring your lunch. For information call 212-908-4110 or e-mail info@moaf.org.