PLANS FOR N.Y. ARTS FESTIVAL ANNOUNCED

Promising “a new climate of cultural excitement here, nationally and throughout the world,” Martin E. Segal, retiring chairman of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Thursday announced plans for the first biennial New York International Festival of the Arts.

Scheduled to open June 13, 1988, the monthlong festival will celebrate the music, drama, opera, film, dance and musical theater conceived and created in the 20th Century, and performed by what Segal called “internationally acclaimed performers and accomplished newcomers.” He said the festival will showcase specially commissioned works as well as “traditional and avant-garde” arts of this century.

“Our hope is that we will have enough representational works in all of the arts to have a broad spectrum of the 20th Century,” Segal, founder and chairman of the festival, said at a press conference.

Planning and development for the first festival are being underwritten by a three-year $2.85-million grant from the American Express Co. Segal estimated the budget for the first festival at between $10 million and $12 million. Although many of the events in public spaces will be free, Segal said at least 50% of the budget would be covered by box-office revenues.

“As a major tourist attraction, the festival will generate millions of dollars more for New York’s multibillion-dollar culture and arts industry--including hotels, restaurants and related facilities,” Segal said. “At the same time, the festival will benefit other American cities where many of the artists and groups will continue on tour.”

Louis V. Gerstner Jr., president of American Express, said tourism was one of the primary reasons his company had chosen to support the festival. “This event is going to bring an enormous number of performers and tourists to New York City,” Gerstner said.

Gerstner said his company’s involvement was also reflective of growing corporate support for the arts in this country.

“Business support for the arts has arrived at the point where I think the debate is over,” he said.

Retiring in June as head of Lincoln Center, Segal will continue as chairman and treasurer of the nonprofit New York International Festival of the Arts Inc. Board members include Gerstner as well as Javier Perez de Cuellar, secretary general of the United Nations.

“The New York International Festival of the Arts will serve to remind all nations and their peoples that man’s achievement in the arts transcends national boundaries and can be a uniting force in a world beset by political sociological and economic problems,” Perez de Cuellar said.

An arts advisory committee that will oversee selection of performers will include Ingmar Bergman, Michael Benett, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Peter Brook, Robert Brustein, Alistair Cooke, Aaron Copland, Merce Cunningham and Colleen Dewhurst. Also serving on the advisory committee will be Eliot Feld, Benny Goodman, Martha Graham, John Houseman, Bill Irwin, James Levine, Peter Martins, Zubin Mehta, Arthur Mitchell and Meredith Monk.

Other arts advisory committee members are Gregory Mosher, Joseph Papp, Jason Robards, Mstislav Rostropovich, William Schuman, Peter Sellars, Beverly Sills, Stephen Sondheim, Isaac Stern, Ellen Stewart, Toru Takemitsu and Charles Wadworth.