Debut recitals that once helped launch Juilliard vocalists onto the big stage are struggling to draw crowds and the school is looking to downsize the events.
Last year, only 141 guests showed up to the famed 1,000-seat Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center for the vocal arts debut.
Since 2016, the performances, which began in 1997 with the intention of being a “prestigious and visible” event, have struggled to draw 300 people.
Smaller crowds even result in poorer acoustics, according to a petition the famed music school filed in Manhattan Supreme Court last week.
The paltry audiences can be “demoralizing” for artists and suggest a “lack of appreciation and interest in their art,” Juilliard argued.
The petition asks that the nonprofit law that governs how a $1.5 million grant from The Alice Tully Foundation is used be amended.
Rising production costs are part of the challenge.
It costs up to $31,000 for each school year’s recital in part because the staff at the hall is unionized, the petition notes.
The reputations of Julliard and Alice Tully are also at stake, it argues.
Tully, a Juilliard graduate and philanthropist, was hesitant to attach her name to the venue, which opened in 1969, for fear it would become an “acoustical disaster,” according to her 1993 obituary.
Attendance at other Juilliard performances has plummeted, according to the court documents, a trend extending to most classical concerts.
Performances have been moved to Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center and one alternative is Carnegie Hall’s Joan and Sanford I. Weill Recital Hall.