First Look: Historic Newark Symphony Hall Unveils New Façade, Streetscape Design 

Newark Symphony Hall (NSH), New Jersey’s largest Black-led arts and entertainment venue, today unveiled designs for its exterior renovation—part of a five-year, three-phase $50 million project set to wrap on the venue’s 100^th birthday in 2025. The design, from Trenton, N.J.-based architectural firm Clarke Caton Hintz (CCH), includes a new marquee and streetscape. Design upgrades make Broad Street—a gateway into the state’s largest city—a distinct visual marker highlighting Newark’s creativity and ingenuity.

NSH—located at 1020 Broad St. in Newark—was built in 1925 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. In addition to restoring the building’s façade, the renovation will reimagine the city block—adding bike lanes, improved curbing, a central island and transportation access.

“With the help of historic preservation experts Clarke Caton Hintz and our wider project team, we’ll be revitalizing our corner of Broad Street while modernizing—and paying tribute to – our historic venue, an anchor institution for the city,” said Taneshia Nash Laird, president and CEO of Newark Symphony Hall, and the sole Black female leader of a performing arts center in New Jersey.

CCH’s work includes historical and contemporary design influences that match the venue’s longstanding presence in the “Brick City.” Specifically, the hall’s new marquee is reminiscent of the one that stood at NSH between the 1960s-70s. The translucent dome will shine directional light onto the building’s columns—making it a “beacon” for Broad Street. The canopy face will be lit with LED bulbs and an illuminated “Newark Symphony Hall” sign.

“Our partnership with Taneshia and the folks at Newark Symphony Hall has been wonderful, and we very much appreciate the opportunity to breathe new life into such hallowed ground,” said John Hatch, FAIA, principal with CCH. “Our idea behind the entry canopy/dome is to think of it as a delicate yet bold structure, a kind of beacon that lights-up the entire entry sequence and invites everyone to come in. The dome’s curved glass and chevron shape, along with the creative streetscape, make the hall a gathering agent and, surely, one of the city’s most unique and historic attractions.”

Design features also include a series of in-ground directional LED up-lights to wash onto the façade from the sidewalk (top image). This will be accompanied by new streetlights with “tear-drop” light fixtures in front of the building—matching other sections of Broad Street.

Another standout design element is the “NSH Plaza” in front of the hall – functioning as a crosswalk for pedestrians. Also, a public works and public art component involves large “NSH” letters set into the pavement celebrating NSH’s artistic history. Each letter of the abbreviation will house a word-cloud consisting of the hall’s prominent musical alumni.

NSH, located in an Opportunity Zone, expects the renovation to be financed by philanthropy, historic tax credits and other state and federal programs. NSH is currently fundraising for this building envelope and marquee work. The venue has engaged both the Newark Landmarks and Historic Preservation Commission, along with the New Jersey Historic Preservation Office—which retains project oversight from a $750,000 N.J. Historic Trust Grant awarded to the venue in November 2020.

Nash Laird added: “The unveiling of our design is just one step toward reaching our final mark in 2025. Through immense determination and collaboration at the city, state and federal levels, we know that this will be a monumental project and one that will spur job growth and engagement, particularly for BIPOC artists and individuals in our great city and across the Tri-State Area.”

The entire renovation is set to create 500 jobs and assist 50 local small businesses.

CCH is also preparing an interior space plan to accommodate building tenants beyond Newark Performing Arts Corporation, the nonprofit that operates NSH. As part of the five-year project, NSH will also improve as much as 50,000 square feet of tenant space, including reactivating an entire floor of the hall that has been dormant for more than 30 years. Design specifications also include accessible restaurant space on the street level.

Last fall, NSH created a volunteer-based, seven-member Investment Committee to shape oversight policy and provide fund-management guidance—with members from Goldman Sachs, AllianceBernstein and more. Members will help the venue achieve fundraising milestones, including the planned renovation. In March 2021, the venue also announced the creation of “The Lab,” its business incubator and career accelerator program for live and filmed performance. The program kicks off with resident company, Yendor Theatre Company (YTC), which will stage Richard Wesley’s Black Terror this fall.

NSH is owned by the City of Newark and operated by the nonprofit Newark Performing Arts Corporation. Some of the Symphony Hall’s legendary acts over the years have included Placido Domingo, The Rolling Stones, Amalia Rodrigues, Celia Cruz, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan and Aretha Franklin, among others.

About Newark Symphony Hall

Born in 1925, Newark Symphony Hall (NSH) has been the home of almost a century of arts and culture in what is now one of New Jersey’s oldest and largest arts and entertainment venues. NSH remains as committed as ever to providing an artistically rich experience for art lovers of all ages, while creating career pathways for people of color from around the world—and bettering both its community and the Greater Newark region. In 2021, the venue will stream the play, “Black Terror” on its 50^th anniversary from playwright Richard Wesley. Directed and co-produced by Richard Lawson of WACO Theater Center, the NSH production comes from its company-in-residence, Yendor Theatre Company—also the first member its “Lab” business incubator. For more information, visit: www.NewarkSymphonyHall.org.

About Clarke Caton Hintz

Clarke Caton Hintz believes that architecture, planning and landscape architecture are fundamentally interdependent, that each discipline is enhanced by expertise in the other. Through the firm’s multi-faceted approach, CCH collaborates with clients and partners to produce enduring architecture, livable places and sustainable environments. For more information, visit: clarkecatonhintz.com.  

Newark Symphony Hall Creates Black-Led Investment Committee

Newark Symphony Hall, one of New Jersey’s oldest and largest arts and entertainment venues, has announced the creation of a volunteer-based, seven-member Investment Committee to shape oversight policy and provide fund-management guidance. Committee members come from companies such as Goldman Sachs and AllianceBernstein, among other financial entities, and will help the venue achieve fundraising milestones while supporting its various social and racial justice initiatives.

Committee members are:

• Ka’Neda Bullock, president, Master Plan Investment Group
• Kevin Clark, senior director of investment banking, Navistar
• Chidi Erike, client partner, Facebook
• Jerald Gooden, investment associate, AllianceBernstein
• Darren Harris, senior vice president, Goldman Sachs
• Kwame Marfo, board chair, Accompany Capital
• Crystal J. Mullins, vice president – public finance, FHN Financial 

“As a Black-led institution, it was paramount for us to create a volunteer-based body that understands and supports our goals and mission,” said Taneshia Nash Laird, president and CEO of Newark Symphony Hall. “This team—comprised largely of millennials—will help our 95-year-old venue continue its unique programming and outreach initiatives.”

Nash Laird added: “Our committee members epitomize the concept of ‘Black Excellence,’ and will signal an important step toward ensuring the longevity and sustainability of our organization in New Jersey’s largest city.”

The committee will establish investment policies while setting goals, timeframes and restrictions. An initial fundraising goal includes the first phase of a $40 million renovation slated to begin in early-2021.

Newark Symphony Hall Board Treasurer, Travis Reid, an ex-officio member of the committee, said, “The supplemental guidance provided by this committee will assure donors that their funds will be invested wisely. Our members have also expressed a willingness to support our many fundraising efforts.”

“I cannot express enough just how important Newark Symphony Hall is for the City of Newark. It has hosted legendary acts, served as a landmark for ‘Brick City’ and now aims to strengthen community economic development initiatives,” said Harris, a committee member who also serves on the venue’s board of directors. “I’m honored to be a part of the committee and to be in such good company.”

The venue is now also shifting from a first-come, first-served, multipurpose rental model to a more intentional framework that centers around the creation of opportunities for local performing artists and a home for creators of color, according to Nash Laird.

“The people of the Greater Newark region are from the African diaspora, of Portuguese descent, Hispanic/Latinx, and Asian and Pacific Islanders,” she added. “Our new programming will give these groups a place to see their culture celebrated.”

Newark Symphony Hall has developed four new community-based initiatives: the New Jersey Youth Poet Laureate, a program designed to maximize participation from young writers of color, “The Lab,” which will cultivate artistic career pathways for local residents, an Artist-in-Residence program, which will support individual artists of color from around the world, and the Greater Newark Performing Artist Registry, a virtual resource and platform for local, self-identifying performing artists.

The venue is owned by the City of Newark and operated by the nonprofit Newark Performing Arts Corporation.

Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka recently appointed four new board members including the city’s Chief Financial Officer, Danielle Smith, Arts and Cultural Affairs Director, fayemi shakur, Keith Hamilton, of Newark’s Housing & Economic Development Department, and Goldman Sachs’ Darren Harris.

About Newark Symphony Hall

Born in 1925, Newark Symphony Hall (NSH) has been the home of almost a century of arts and culture in what is now one of New Jersey’s oldest and largest arts and entertainment venues. NSH remains as committed as ever to providing an artistically rich experience for art lovers of all ages, while creating career pathways for people of color from around the world – and bettering both its community and the Greater Newark region. The venue recently began production on “The Soul of Newark Symphony Hall,” its celebration of “Black Newark” developed by scholar and composer Guthrie Ramsey, told through narration, reenactments, music and cinematic and photographic montage. Its “Symphony of Survival,” a creative project led by Newark poet Jasmine Mans as part of the venue’s #EmbraceNewark initiative, features writings, footage and photos by 10 talented local Black artists documenting their pandemic experience. For more information, visit: b

Newark Symphony Hall Announces Live Stream with "WNET ALL ARTS Talks: A Symphony of Survival "

WNET ALL ARTS Talks: A Symphony of Survival 

WHEN: Thursday Aug 20, at 7PM ET
WHERE: on the ALL ARTS Facebook and YouTube channels and allarts.org

ALL ARTS, the broadcast and digital platform created by The WNET Group, will be hosting virtual conversations with artists and arts leaders as part of its ALL ARTS Talks conversation series addressing current events and their impact on arts and culture.

ALL ARTS Talks: Symphony of Survival will discuss Blackness and art during the pandemic and this time of racial unrest with artists of the Symphony of Survival, a 2020 creative project by Embrace Newark, a Newark Symphony Hall initiative.

Moderated by editor and creative director of Symphony of Survival  and poet, visual artist & author of “Black Girl, Call Home” (Berkley Penguin Random 2021), Jasmine Mans, and featuring multidisciplinary artist, Jillian  M. Rock; American poet, writer, and creative artist, LaQuan Ford; Nigerian artist—poet, photojournalist, and scholar, Bimpé Fageyinbo; Brooklyn born Panamanian-American poet and author, K. Desireé Milwood; Newark native and fine art photographer, teaching artist, & filmmaker, Chrystofer Davis; Chair and Professor of Women’s & Gender Studies at New Jersey City University, mixed media artist & poet, Dr. Antoinette Ellis-Williams; writer and public librarian, Maisy Card; arts administrator, curator & researcher, Kristen J. Owens; and Photo Artist, Documentarian, Journalist & Community Organizer, Joseph V. Moore Jr.

Newark Symphony Hall Announces #EmbraceNewark Creative Team

#EmbraceNewark

As the nation continues to struggle with the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and worldwide calls for justice sparked by the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police, Newark Symphony Hall announced the creative team behind #EmbraceNewark, its artist-activated recovery and wellness initiative. At the helm of the effort is Jasmine Mans, multidisciplinary artist, and author of the forthcoming poetry collection “Black Girl, Call Home.” This project is supported by a grant to Newark Symphony Hall from the City of Newark’s Creative Catalyst Fund (CCF).

As #EmbraceNewark’s creative director Mans has assembled a group of gifted and accomplished photographers, poets, journalists, and essayists who have banded together in a joint effort to make a bold public statement about the times.

“Faced as we are today with the crises of a global pandemic, economic collapse, and civil rights turmoil, the artists of #EmbraceNewark are speaking truth and resistance,” said Taneshia Nash Laird, President & CEO of Newark Symphony Hall. “Artistic voices have always been a powerful force in times of great turbulence, and #EmbraceNewark is carrying them forward in this venerated tradition.”

Nash Laird described each member of this collective as a formidable presence in his or her own right. In gathering them together for the Newark Symphony Hall, Mans earnestly stated their purpose: “Our goal is to chronicle the COVID-19 pandemic and racial unrest by way of the storyteller. By collaborating with the most brilliant and innovative photographers and poets in Newark, we will create a platform for artists to project the true Newark Narrative, rendered to the most vulnerable human experience”. This cohort of artists include: in photographers Chrystofer Davis and Joseph Moore, authors K. Desiree’ Milword, Laquan Ford, Bimpe Fageyimbo, Maisy Card, Kristen Owens, and Jasmine Mans herself, plus multidisciplinary artists Jillian M. Rock and Dr. Antoinette Ellis.

Mans added that the Symphony Of Survival campaign will engage the artists of #EmbraceNewark as they chronicle their lives in quarantine from their individual personal spaces. The group will build a sweeping compendium of historical storytelling utilizing poetry, photography, documentary self-discussion, and video journalism. With this transformative, collective effort, #EmbraceNewark seeks to bring forth a healing of our souls through the rich tapestry of their words, images, and thoughts.

The full project is currently housed on symphonyofsurvival.com and will continue rolling out through the summer months. Mans is also using Newark Symphony Hall as a canvas, by taking excerpts of photos and poetry from the project and curating a public exhibition in the Hall’s Broad Street windows - beginning July 15, this ground level display will facilitate the community’s social distancing needs. It will also be available on multiple online and social media platforms.

Additionally, The President’s Coterie - a friends group helmed by Lauren Wells, PhD, the president of the board of trustees at Newark Public Library - has committed to a subsequent exhibition of the work at the library’s main branch.

To discover more about the #EmbraceNewark, Symphony Of Survival, and the participating artist,s log onto symphonyofsurvival.com.

About #EmbraceNewark

#EmbraceNewark was born at the height of the early COVID-19 plague in late March of this year, when a trove of personal protective equipment (PPE) was discovered at Newark Symphony Hall, cached in the theater during the years following the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. On April 2, Newark Symphony Hall turned over to the City of Newark tens of thousands of these PPE materials—including 9,000 N95 masks that were critically needed at the time—as the virus tightened its deadly grip on the city.

About Newark Symphony Hall

First opened in 1925 as the Salaam Temple built by the Shriners, an order of the Masons, Newark Symphony Hall has been the home of almost a century of arts and culture in what is now New Jersey’s oldest arts and entertainment venue.

About the Creative Catalyst Fund

Mayor Ras J. Baraka, via Arts and Cultural Affairs Director fayemi shakur, deployed the city's newly-created Creative Catalyst Fund (CCF) to support long-term sustainability and assist Newark-based artists and small to mid-sized arts and cultural organizations impacted by COVID-19. On June 22, the city's Division of Arts and Cultural Affairs, the Department of Economic and Housing Development, and Newark Arts, announced the CCF had awarded $750,000 in grants to 120 artists and arts organizations.

STAGED READING OF NEW PLAY @ NEWARK SYMPHONY HALL

A new dramatic staged reading by Lori Roper and Rick Sordelet at the Newark Symphony Hall Newark Stage (Black Box Theater). Directed by Marshall Jones III GET TICKETS CALL BOX OFFICE 973.643.8014 WHERE: Newark Symphony Hall, 1030 Broad Street, Newark

R&B MUSICAL THIS FRIDAY @ NEWARK SYMPHONY HALL

Love Jones: The Musical
WHEN: Friday, October 21, at 8pm
WHERE: Newark Symphony Hall, 1020 Broad St., Newark
TICKETS: CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE TICKETS

Some of R&B’s biggest names—Tony Grant, Chrisette Michele, Musiq Soulchild, Marsha Ambrosius, Raheem DeVaughn, MC Lyte, Dave Hollister and others—star in this musical stage version of the acclaimed romantic comedy Love Jones, celebrating 20 years! This must-see event is at Newark Symphony Hall.

Fusing chart-topping hits and fan-favorite songs from the artists, along with a few original songs, Love Jones The Musical will be a transformative experience for the audience. Written by Timothy Allen Smith and directed by Zadia Ife, Love Jones The Musical tells a universal and timeless story of love, heartbreak and starting over.

In association with SJ Presents and NJPAC Productions