MacCombie Takes Reins at J@LC

Jazz at Lincoln Center has named Bruce MacCombie, dean of the School of the Arts at Boston University and accomplished composer, as the organization’s new executive director effective September 1, 2001.

Prior to his position in Boston, the 57-year-old executive served as Dean of The Juilliard School. He has also held positions on the faculty at Yale University and as vice president and director of publications for G. Schirmer. He earned a Ph.D. in music from the University of Iowa in 1971.

MacCombie succeeds Rob Gibson, who is credited with guiding J@LC through its growth from a department of Lincoln Center to a full-fledged constituent organization with a $115 million performance complex currently under construction. The venue is scheduled for completion during the fall of 2004. However, citing cost overruns, management problems, and a number of staff firings, the Board requested Gibson’s resignation in December 2000.

When announcing the Board’s choice for Gibson’s replacement, J@LC Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis noted that MacCombie “knows that the arts are the most powerful means of communication and integration in the world. A member of the Lincoln Center family, he understands how it functions and how it contributes to the cultural life of New York City.”

Marsalis also pointed out that “as Jazz at Lincoln Center moves into our new facility, we will intensify our involvement with other arts disciplines, as well as education, publishing, recording, business management, and facility management.” He expressed confidence that MacCombie’s experience and history of success in these areas “will provide the progressive leadership our organization needs going into the future.”

For his part, MacCombie is looking forward to his return to New York and to Lincoln Center. “Jazz at Lincoln Center is one of the most extraordinary cultural entities being developed in New York at this time, and the new facility going up at Columbus Circle will be one of the most unique performance venues in the world.” MacCombie also admits that he’s a “big fan” of Marsalis. “We met when I was dean at Juilliard, and I have enjoyed following the progress of his career and the growth of Jazz at Lincoln Center since then.”

One of MacCombie’s top priorities when he comes on board in September will be to make sure that plans related to the new performance space are firmly in place. “This is a complex project, and the shape of the organization will change and evolve rapidly over the next few years. It will require a great deal of teamwork and a lot of internal and external support to complete this new home for jazz, and I hope we will be able to keep it all on track and on schedule.” The $35 million left to be raised to complete the new facility on top of the $80 million already in the coffers is also no small matter.

Though his formal training lies outside the jazz world, MacCombie says he has had a long-time interest and deep respect for the jazz tradition. “When I was student in the 1960s, I played keyboards in a number of blues bands, including a year with a group featuring Taj Mahal,” and he continued to explore the jazz world while studying in Europe at the Freiburg Conservatory in the 1970s. However, it is MacCombie’s professional career experience with “managerial, budgetary, and developmental responsibilities” he says, that will be most needed at J@LC. After Gibson’s departure, J@LC hired noted jazz concert and record producer Todd Barkan as artistic administrator to assist Marsalis with concert planning so MacCombie will not inherit his predecessor’s artistic role as well.

Citing past J@LC collaborations with the New York Philharmonic, the Chamber Music Society, the Film Society, and The Juilliard School, MacCombie says he hopes to build on these while exploring new ways that jazz might intersect further with them and with other organizations. “But I am not arriving armed with plans to push for specific projects,” he cautions. “I want to meet with lots of people and discuss ideas in the months ahead.”

Though the new facility’s panoramic view of the New York skyline is a far cry from the more traditional basement venues and smoky lounges usually associated with jazz, MacCombie expects that “performers are going to enjoy playing in the new facility, whether it’s in the large Frederick P. Rose Hall, the Allen Room, or the intimate Jazz Cafe.” He acknowledges that “the midtown area and the views of Central Park, will be different from the feel of downtown or uptown clubs, but I think having jazz represented so visibly right in the middle of New York’s newest development will generate interest in the art form, and I hope this increased interest will bring new audiences to all of the jazz venues in the city.”

Currently finishing up a year-long composing sabbatical from Boston University, MacCombie says he has been able to finish several new works and had premieres of a chamber piece in Washington, D.C., a solo guitar piece at the Bath International Guitar Festival in England, and an orchestral overture for the re-opening of Glazunov Hall in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Though the first couple of years will likely keep him running, MacCombie says he usually manages to complete “one, or at most two new pieces by composing very early in the morning before the office day begins.” So with all that jazz going on around him, will he be tempted to try his own hand at it? “I think the feel of jazz has already had an impact on my creative work, as it has on so many American composers, but I don’t envision writing for jazz ensembles, at least not at this point. Later perhaps…who knows?”