Brooklyn Academy of Music
Multi-venue performing arts centre in Fort Greene, home of the Next Wave Festival since 1983.
Founded in 1861, the Brooklyn Academy of Music is among the oldest performing arts institutions in the United States. Its first home stood on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights until a fire in 1903; the present Peter Jay Sharp Building on Lafayette Avenue, designed by Herts & Tallant, opened in 1908. The Renaissance Revival block contains the Howard Gilman Opera House, seating around two thousand, together with the four-screen BAM Rose Cinemas, the BAM Cafe and rehearsal spaces.
BAM now operates across several buildings in Fort Greene. The Harvey Theater on Fulton Street opened in 1904 as the Majestic and was reopened in 1987 in a deliberately semi-ruined state for Peter Brook's Mahabharata. BAM Fisher, completed in 2012, adds the flexible Fishman Space and a rooftop terrace. The Next Wave Festival, launched in 1983, established the institution's reputation for contemporary theatre, dance and music, and long-standing associations include Mark Morris, Philip Glass and Pina Bausch.
Highlights
- Howard Gilman Opera House in the 1908 Herts & Tallant building
- BAM Harvey Theater, reopened in 1987 in a stripped, semi-ruined state
- Next Wave Festival of contemporary performance each autumn
- BAM Rose Cinemas, showing repertory and first-run film
