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Alice Tully Hall is scheduled to reopen in February 2009.

Corning Glass heiress Alice Tully enjoyed a modest singing career as a dramatic soprano, but her greatest artistic achievement was the construction of venue at Lincoln Center for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Opened on September 11, 1969, the concert hall (designed by Pietro Bellusch) makes up part of the building that houses the larger Juilliard School on the northern end of Lincoln Plaza. Instituted for chamber music, the space has hosted such world-class ensembles as the Emerson string quartet (performing complete Shostakovich and Beethoven string quartet cycles), the Russian Patriarchate Choir and the Piccolo Teatro di Milano. A 4,224-pipe organ designed by Friedrich Jako dominates the proscenium stage in the airy wood-paneled hall that consists of a multi-tiered balcony and floor seating for over 1000 people. Concertgoers seated in the plush red seats may notice the extra legroom�a detail Tully insisted on. Like renovations over the years to other buildings in the Lincoln Center complex, Alice Tully Hall is due for its own facelift. Changes designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro are scheduled to be completed by 2009 and will include a modern, towering glass lobby topped by a canopying Juilliard extension that will help open up the subterranean space to artists and fans old and new. — Aaron Rasmussen

Benefactress Alice Tully still holds court in the form of a large portrait in the front reception area.