History
It began with a wake-up call
In early February 1961, Albany newspaperman Duane La Fleche noted a wire service report about a group hoping to entice New York Philharmonic to make Stowe, Vermont its summer residence.
The item set off alarm bells
"It seems very wrong," La Fleche wrote in his column, "that a New York orchestra should have to look outside the State for a summer residence. Wouldn't the State Reservation at Saratoga Springs make a nice location?"
The Big Bang, Circa 1961
La Fleche's modest proposal triggered a chain reaction of historic proportions. Local civic, cultural and legislative leaders, who had previously considered a Saratoga Arts Center an interesting possibility, were galvanized into action. Within a week, they held their first meeting; within a month they were focusing on Saratoga Spa State Park as the site, had won the support of State Conservation Commissioner Harold Wilm, and begun discussions with both the Philharmonic and New York City Ballet.
Show us the money
The group funded start-up costs out of their own pockets. Then came the more formidable challenge of demonstrating community-wide support to foundations and philanthropists whose backing would be critical. The community came through in record time. Money came from nickels and dimes from school kids; tens, hundreds, and thousands raised at dinners and galas; and even in donated stud fees from the area racing community. By summer 1963, generous contributions from Rockefeller Brothers Fund and New York State supplemented community support to ensure the dream would become reality.
The vision takes form
Ironically, New York Philharmonic had dropped out of consideration. But the project had a momentum of its own. New York City Ballet's cofounders, George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein helped define both SPAC's physical form and artistic agenda. Soon, The Philadelphia Orchestra came into the picture, with artistic director Eugene Ormandy offering his input.
In February 1964
Just three years after La Fleche's article, Richard Leach became SPAC's first executive director, adding his programming experience at Lincoln Center to the mix. Shortly, thereafter, The Philadelphia Orchestra and New York City Ballet formalized their commitments to the center. Ground was broken by Governor Rockefeller on June 30.
The Amphitheatre
The SPAC Amphitheatre was created as a nurturing environment for great art. One hundred ten feet high (the equivalent of 10 stories), it is sited in a natural, curved bowl surrounded by towering pines and sweeping lawns. Inside are sheltered seats for 5,200 people; outside, the sloping lawn accommodates an additional 20,000.
The stage was designed to accommodate a full symphony orchestra, with a floor especially engineered for NYCB. Arnold H. Vollmer designed the floor honoring the wishes of George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein making the original floor a design marvel. With insights from Maestro Ormandy and working with a scale model and exotic testing devices, Paul S. Veneklassen designed a series of baffles and sound-reflecting surfaces to draw out the full depth of the music, making SPAC one of the world's most acoustically acclaimed outdoor performance venues.
SPAC BRIEF CHRONOLOGY
And so it began - On July 8, 1966, New York City Ballet Orchestra Conductor Robert Irving raised his baton, and Balanchine's A Midsummer Night's Dream enchanted the opening night audience. Not quite a month later, Maestro Ormandy stepped on the podium to lead The Philadelphia Orchestra in Beethoven's Consecration of the House Overture, a fitting tribute to the new Amphitheatre.
Special events were programmed in 1967, when Harry Belafonte was the first popular star to entertain in a non-classical concert. Popular programming was introduced to please audiences and as a means of funding the residencies of NYCB and The Philadelphia Orchestra. The Doors performed in 1968, riding a wave of popularity based on their hit single Light My Fire.
The arts thrived at SPAC during the 1970s and '80s.
1973: Pink Floyd performed in front of 13,000 attendees to support the band's legendary Dark Side of the Moon.
1974: SPAC commissioned Balanchine's Coppelia, and NYCB presented its world premiere on the Amphitheatre stage. SPAC looked beyond its basic responsibilities to the classics introduced jazz with the Upstate Jazz Festival and Gunther Schuller's New England Conservatory's Ragtime Ensemble.
1975: Margot Fonteyn and Chicago Ballet danced at SPAC as a special event. Soprano Beverly Sills was guest soloist that year on opening night of The Philadelphia Orchestra and Victor Borge with the Orchestra attracted more than 11,000 people.
1976: World premiere of SPAC's first music commission - Gian Carlo Menotti's Symphony No. 1, Halcyon.
1977: Jackson Browne, a veteran of eight gigs at SPAC, had his first Amphitheatre performance and recorded Rosie while backstage.
1979: Charlie Daniels, a mainstay on the Amphitheatre stage from the late '70s to early '80s, simulcast live on local PBS affiliate WMHT while being aired nationally.
1982: SPAC hosted London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Neville Marriner.
1984: World Premiere Season - Dennis Russell Davies was introduced as SPAC's principal conductor and classical music program director.
1985: 20th Anniversary Season - World premiere of Peter Martins' Eight Easy Pieces with Eight More and Eight Miniatures and Jerome Robbins' Eight Lines, Balanchine's Gounod Symphony, and Martins' Poulenc Sonata. Philip Glass was introduced as SPAC's first composer-in-residence, and a Philadelphia Orchestra performance with Henry Mancini as guest conductor and flutist James Galway as soloist set a classical music concert attendance record: 11, 919. The Grateful Dead drew SPAC's largest crowd to date, 40,231 people attended the June 27th concert.
1986: Former SPAC president, Herb Chesbrough, joined with George Wein, founder of Newport Jazz Festival and Festival Productions, Inc., to co-produce the first Saratoga Jazz Festival. SPAC welcomed New York City Opera to an annual residency opening with performances of Carmen and Candide.
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