Thank you and farewell—A message from Karen Brooks Hopkins

Dear Friends,

Today is my last day at BAM after 36 years of service in many different capacities, including the last 16 years as president. During my tenure, we have added many programs, built new facilities, quadrupled the size of our audience and budget, and played a key role in the revitalization of our beloved Brooklyn.

I am so proud to have worked with a generous and committed Board of Trustees, led by Alan Fishman, Adam Max, and Bill Campbell, and the BAM Endowment Trust, headed by Tim Ingrassia. In addition, I salute a brilliant and hardworking staff, including my dear partner, BAM’s Executive Producer Joseph V. Melillo, and former president, Harvey Lichtenstein. Our donors, many of whom believed in BAM when it was the punchline of a Brooklyn joke, have transformed the institution through their generous support. And through it all, the elected officials from the Borough of Brooklyn and the City of New York, including the Borough President and Mayor’s Office, the City Council, and the Department of Cultural Affairs have been true partners in assuring a bright future for BAM.

Running a cultural institution with such diverse programs—in music, dance, theater, opera, film, visual art, and humanities—and so many constituents—from teachers and students, to artists, to seniors, toddlers, teenagers, and adults—is both complicated and exhilarating. Every choice is fraught with financial considerations, programming alternatives, and workload.

But at the end of the day, this is the best job on the planet. For 36 years, I have been privileged to live in the community of the arts—a special and magical place where the creative churn of ideas, passion, and expression bubble up to illuminate our lives. What else but the arts energizes education, generates tourism, builds community, celebrates great collections and architecture, and endures from century to century as mankind’s finest achievement?

BAM is, as our mission states, the home for adventurous artists, audiences, and ideas. It certainly has been my home and I hope that you share that experience.

It is a bittersweet moment as I move on to new endeavors but the work on our stages and screens and the exciting new venues here in the Brooklyn Cultural District are forever in my heart.

I wish my successor Katy Clark the very best of luck and I thank you for this extraordinary journey.

Cordially,

Karen Brooks Hopkins

About the Other Night: The Karen Gala

Photo: Kristine Bumphrey, Starpix

Oh what a night!

You don’t celebrate 36 years and a leader like Karen Brooks Hopkins with just any old party. You do it with dinner in a greenhouse, a champagne boat ride under the Brooklyn Bridge, a massive light show for all of Fort Greene, late night hot dog vendors, and a 2am dance off. And that’s not even including the main highlights of the night (Steve Reich! Mavis Staples! Rufus & Martha Wainwright! Illstyle & Peace Productions! Paul Simon! Laurie Anderson! The BAM Karen!). To paraphrase the guest of honor’s signature expression, the Karen Gala wasn’t a party, it was a crusade.

Duggal Greenhouse. Photo: Beowulf Sheehan

BAM Illustrated: A Karen Brooks Hopkins timeline

BAM President Karen Brooks Hopkins retires this summer after 36 years of service. Her career and many achievements would be impossible to condense into a simple timeline, but we've done our best to include some highlights, key moments, and KBH favorites in the following illustration by Nathan Gelgud.

We realize this is a tad hard to read—click here (or on the image) for a larger version ...or swing by the Peter Jay Sharp Building to see the much bigger original version hanging in our third floor hallway.

The Executive Files: Preparing for a Princess

Conceiving, organizing, preparing, and attending galas go with the job description of the president of any arts institution. During Karen Brooks Hopkins’ 36 years at BAM—the last 16 as president—she has overseen plenty of those. And on April 28, 2015, she will preside over her last one in that capacity. BAM is putting on the Karen Gala to thank her for her tireless work in making BAM the crown jewel of a revitalized downtown Brooklyn. (It’s okay to gloat a little at galas—some would say it goes with the definition!) It will be “a gala to beat all galas,”—well, maybe except for that one time, when she held a gala for true royalty. This is her recollection of how the late Princess Diana came to BAM. (And dare we hope that someone someday will remember THIS gala as fondly?) 

Princess Diana with Harvey Lichtenstein at BAM.

by Karen Brooks Hopkins

The phone rang in the office. It was one of those gray mid-March mornings in New York when you are positive spring will never come and no one interesting will call, until it does. Anyway, the phone rang.

My secretary informed me that Brian McMaster, executive director of the Welsh National Opera, was on the line with important news from Wales. A ray of sunlight shot across the Brooklyn skyline. Perhaps… perhaps this would be the morning. This could be the call.

Briefly, to provide some historical background: We had been negotiating to bring the Welsh National Opera to New York since the summer of 1987. It takes a long time with opera, and the WNO’s production of Verdi’s Falstaff, which we hoped to bring to BAM, was large and expensive, making the negotiations extremely complex. We (BAM & WNO) had reviewed the budgets at least 500 times. It was clear the only way this project could happen was if someone like the Queen herself opened the production with a royal gala. Well, we couldn’t have the Queen, but what about the young, beautiful, and vivacious Princess of Wales, who, it turned out, was the patron of the Welsh National Opera!

This was it. This was our plan. We had to convince the Princess of Wales to say yes. If she would come, the gala to end all galas would be launched. BAM Opera, a new program initiative of the Academy would be inaugurated with her visit. Bankruptcy would be avoided. The company could come to New York. All would be well. It was a long shot. After all, how many times in history has the future Queen of England come to Brooklyn?

BAM President Karen Brooks Hopkins inducted into Crain’s New York Business Hall of Fame

Karen Brooks Hopkins accepting the honor. Photo: Buck Ennis

BAM President Karen Brooks Hopkins was inducted into the inaugural Crain’s New York Business Hall of Fame on November 10th at a ceremony at Cipriani, alongside Michael Bloomberg, Diane von Furstenberg, and others. She was introduced by Ford Foundation President Darren Walker, who said through Karen’s leadership BAM “joined the pantheon of the world’s great cultural centers in London, Paris, Berlin, and beyond.” In accepting the honor Karen celebrated the fact that Brooklyn’s Cultural District embraces the cultural diversity of New York City and that arts organizations feed the souls and minds of residents and tourists alike. And as these institutions endure for generations, Karen called support for the arts "the best deal in town.”

BAM Receives National Medal of Arts!

President Barack Obama presents the National Medal of Arts to Karen Brooks Hopkins, BAM president, on behalf of BAM in a White House ceremony on July 28, 2014. Photo by Jocelyn Augustino.

We here at BAM like to think of ourselves as well-seasoned cultural citizens, routinely interacting with some of the world's greatest artists—often bold-faced names—as well as national public figures.

But we were collectively truly humbled and honored as we gathered in BAM Rose Cinemas to watch a livestream of BAM President Karen Brooks Hopkins accepting a 2013 National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama at the White House yesterday. (Watch the ceremony here.)

BAM was the sole organization to receive the arts award this year, and thus the only recipient to take home the medal in a handsome box. Individuals had their medals personally draped around their necks by President Obama, and included several BAM artists: choreographer Bill T. Jones, filmmaker Albert Maysles, and filmmaker Stanley Nelson (who received a National Humanities Medal). Other arts recipients included writer Maxine Hong Kingston and musician Linda Ronstadt, on whom President Obama confessed to having a crush back in the day.

The official citation (full brief here) reads:

Brooklyn Academy of Music for innovative contributions to the performing and visual arts. For over 150 years, BAM has showcased the works of both established visionaries and emerging artists who take risks and push boundaries.

As the citation was read, President Obama confided to Karen Hopkins that he saw The Gospel of Colonus at BAM in 1983. She invited him to return in the near future, perhaps setting the stage for another historical moment at BAM.

—Susan Yung

About Last Night: DanceAfrica Opening Celebration Party

Dancers turned the reception into a virtuosic showcase.

The opening performance of DanceAfrica Sunday afternoon marked the 37th anniversary of the historic festival. In celebration of the event, which featured guest company Groupe Bakomanga from Madagascar, BAM hosted a reception in the Lepercq space.

Ambassador of Madagascar to the United Nations, Zina Andrianarivelo-Razafy, with guests and artists.

A Message from Karen Brooks Hopkins

Photo by Erin Treib

I wanted to elaborate, in my own words, on the announcement in today’s New York Times that I have decided to retire from BAM in June 2015.

In 1979 I joined BAM as an assistant in the development department, and in 1999 I succeeded Harvey Lichtenstein as president of the institution. My years at BAM have been remarkable. I was fortunate to work for Harvey for 20 years and then join forces with my dear colleague and professional partner Joseph Melillo, BAM’s executive producer, for the last 15 seasons.

It has been my privilege to work alongside the best staff in the world. They share my passion for our artists, historic venues, and the great borough of Brooklyn, which has evolved so brilliantly during my tenure. I also want to acknowledge the elected officials who believed in BAM and the artists who gave it meaning.

But most of all I’d like to thank you, BAM’s audiences, who trusted us even when the work was unfamiliar and challenging. Some of you stepped up when no one believed a large institution in Brooklyn could thrive. Some of you are new to BAM—and have helped us to continue to expand and pursue ever greater excellence. I salute you all and want to express my gratitude from the bottom of my heart.

Over the next 16 months, I will work closely with our board in the search for a new president. What is of paramount importance is that BAM become an even greater, even stronger institution in the years ahead. We have very exciting plans in the works and your continued support will be crucial to their success.

As for my own plans, I hope to spend more time with my three spectacular granddaughters and with the rest of my family and friends. Professionally, I would like to work on projects that require strategic thinking, and to write and speak about the field of arts and culture and its importance to the well-being and success of great urban destinations.

It has been a great run for me and I look forward to continuing to lead BAM for the coming 16 months—and to being a passionate supporter and audience member for the rest of my life!

Cordially,

Karen Brooks Hopkins

Only God Forgives' Star-Studded Premiere at the BAM Harvey

Ryan Gosling. Photo: Godlis

On July 16, BAMcinématek presented the New York premiere of Nicolas Winding Refn’s (Drive) newest film Only God Forgives on the brand new Steinberg Screen at the BAM Harvey Theater. The sold-out screening was followed by a star-studded Q&A with Refn, Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, Vithaya Pansringarm, and Yayaying Rhatha Phongam.

BAM Celebrates Presidents Day for 150 years

1993 BAM publication

BAM has a long history of hosting presidents and their families—150 years, to be exact. In fact, Mary Todd Lincoln was in the audience of BAM’s opening night performance in 1861. Every president from Cleveland to Truman appeared at the Academy. FDR, who spoke here 10 times, drew the largest recorded crowd in BAM history—7000, with the approximately 4800 who couldn't be seated spilling onto Lafayette Avenue. In more recent history, then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke here in 1998 for the Martin Luther King Junior celebration.

Check out our record:

Ulysses Simpson Grant  (Memorial service was held at BAM for Grant)
James Abram Garfield
Chester Alan Arthur  (Officiated at opening of Brooklyn Bridge celebration)
Grover Cleveland  (Spoke at BAM both as governor of New York State and as President)
Theodore Roosevelt
William Howard Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Warren Gamaliel Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Clark Hoover
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Harry S. Truman

The spirit of America's presidents is very much alive at BAM!

Secretary of State (and then-First Lady) Hillary Rodham Clinton with BAM President Karen Brooks Hopkins in 1998

The Executive Files: LL Cool J Orders Chinese Food

BAM President Karen Brooks Hopkins has been at BAM since 1979, first working with Harvey Lichtenstein in the development department. The blog will feature anecdotes from her storied BAM tenure, as well as from Executive Producer Joseph V. Melillo.

Historical reenactment of LL and Karen in 1988.

With the Grammys tonight and LL Cool J serving as host, I reflect back on a Next Wave Gala in 1988 when LL attended as our guest.

It was one of those evenings that featured a fairly lengthy performance followed by dinner. LL was unhappy with the menu (wild mushroom flan and salmon with sorrel sauce) and decided to order Chinese food, which was delivered to the gala. It was pretty hilarious to see the delivery man show up, be directed to LL’s table, and then to watch LL and other guests ditch the gala food in favor of pork fried rice and chicken wings!

—Karen Brooks Hopkins, President of BAM