NEW YORK, October 27, 2003 – Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) announced today that it has selected Great Performances to be the exclusive caterer for Frederick P. Rose Hall, its new home opening in the Fall of 2004 in the Time Warner Center located at Columbus Circle in New York. JALC is the world’s first performing arts facility designed specifically for jazz performance, education and broadcast. As New York’s largest full-service catering and event planning company, Great Performances is dedicated to creating outstanding events and memorable experiences while weaving fine food and genuine service into modern and distinctive celebrations. Great Performances will handle catering for all JALC and corporate rental events and will provide food and beverage service in the jazz club, intermission bars and donor lounge.

Great Performances will handle catering for functions in Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, one of the three performances venues within the hall. Great Performances will create recipes, the menu and cocktail selections for the club, named in honor of jazz legend John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie with a leadership gift from The Coca-Cola Company. Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola will offer a variety of programming during the day and in the evening. The club menu will reflect the diversity of jazz and the cities that epitomize it – New Orleans, St. Louis, Memphis and Chicago.

“Great Performances and Spoonbread are well-known for placing an emphasis on superior quality foods and innovative presentation,” said Hughlyn F. Fierce, President & CEO, JALC. “Their team of event and culinary professionals will ensure that the menu is first-rate and that patrons have an experience that includes both great jazz and delicious food.”

“We are thrilled to have been chosen as the exclusive caterers of Frederick P. Rose Hall, which we believe will become the focal point for jazz internationally,” said Liz Neumark, President, Great Performances. “We will look to the origins of jazz in the United States to find our culinary inspiration. We will seek to incorporate traditional offerings as well as contemporary interpretations. The distinctive feeling of jazz music and this exquisite cuisine will come together for this partnership.”

Designed by world-renowned architect Rafael Viñoly under the direction of JALC’s Artistic Director and acclaimed trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, the 100,000-square-foot Frederick P. Rose Hall will feature three distinct venues all conceived for the function and feeling of jazz and engineered for warmth and clarity of sound. The facility will allow JALC to continue its mission to enrich the artistic substance and perpetuate the democratic spirit of jazz. FPRH will also accommodate dance, opera, theatre and symphony.

About Jazz at Lincoln Center
Jazz at Lincoln Center is a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to jazz. With the world renowned Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra and a comprehensive array of guest artists, Jazz at Lincoln Center advances a unique vision for the continued development of the art of jazz by producing a year-round schedule of performance, education, and broadcast events for audiences of all ages. These productions include concerts, national and international tours, residencies, a weekly national radio program, television broadcasts, recordings, publications, an annual high school jazz band competition and festival, a band director academy, a jazz appreciation curriculum for children, advanced training through the Juilliard Institute for Jazz Studies, music publishing, children’s concerts, lectures, film programs, and student and educator workshops. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis and President & CEO Hughlyn F. Fierce, Jazz at Lincoln Center will produce hundreds of events during its 2003-04 season. Currently, Jazz at Lincoln Center is building its new home - Frederick P. Rose Hall - the first performance, education, and broadcast facility devoted to jazz, slated to open in fall 2004.

About Great Performances
Great Performances is New York’s largest full-service catering and event planning company. Conceived and established by Liz Neumark in 1979 as a staffing organization, the company provided women in the visual and performing arts the ability to work in the catering industry as waitresses while pursuing other goals. Today, as a result of more than a decade’s worth of work, Great Performances is the approved caterer at all of New York’s leading cultural institutions. Great Performances has exclusive or contractual relationships with the Asia Society Museum, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Central Park Wildlife Conservation Society, Big Apple Circus, sports venues at Chelsea Piers, Ellis Island, The Show Piers, Ian Schrager’s Hudson Hotel, MoMA QNS, Staten Island Yankees and Wave Hill. Recent accomplishments include the wedding of the Honorable Rudy Giuliani and Judith Nathan at Gracie Mansion, 50th Anniversary of the United Nations, Warner Music Grammy Party, World Premiere of “La Boheme” and the Mayor Bloomberg inauguration event. Great Performances operates a 17,000 square foot commissary located at 287 Spring Street in Hudson Square which includes state-of-the-art kitchens, catering services, client tasting rooms, Mae Mae Café, and a forty-seat enoteca di vino. The company has the largest on-call wait staff in New York City. Celebrated as the industry leader in taste and presentation, Great Performances offers a team of culinary experts whose creative flexibility allows for catered events both large and small, from formal corporate galas to casual in-office get-togethers and outdoor affairs. Dedicated to outstanding events and memorable experiences, Great Performances weaves fine food and genuine service into modern and distinctive celebrations. For more information please visit www.greatperformances.com or www.workhousepr.com

Press contact Workhouse Publicity, CEO Adam Nelson via email at nelson@workhousepr.com. For High-resolution, downloadable rendering and photos available at: http://www.jazzatlincolncenter.org/jalc/facility/archrend.html