Perhaps it’s about injecting Hollywood glamour into New York’s classical musical world. Or maybe it’s about a local boy coming home to make good. Or maybe it’s just about getting a name in granite.
However you look at it, the world of New York high culture was given a surprise dose of glitz on Wednesday, when Lincoln Center announced that David Geffen, the entertainment mogul who has shaped cultural tastes in pop music, art and movies, will donate $100 million to renovate — and rename — Avery Fisher Hall, home of the New York Philharmonic, at Lincoln Center.
Mr. Geffen’s gift will help pay for the hall’s gut renovation, which is expected to cost more than $500 million. Although construction is not scheduled to begin until 2019, the building will become David Geffen Hall this September, with the start of the Philharmonic’s 2015-16 season.
The hall, built in 1962, has long been viewed as outdated and acoustically problematic. But raising money promised to be a challenge; the family of Avery Fisher had threatened legal action 13 years ago if the concert hall were to be rebuilt or renovated under a new name. That obstacle was overcome in November, when the Fisher family agreed to give up the naming rights with the help of inducements including a $15 million check.
The leaders of Lincoln Center say they reached out to Mr. Geffen soon after persuading the Fisher family to give up the name of the auditorium.
“It was a quick yes for me,” Mr. Geffen said in an interview at Lincoln Center with the organization’s executives.
The gift catapults the Brooklyn-born Mr. Geffen, 72, into the stratosphere of New York’s major power brokers, something he may have been seeking when he expressed an interest in buying The New York Times Company six years ago. Mr. Geffen’s gift, while among the largest donations to New York cultural institutions, is not Mr. Geffen’s most generous. In 2002, he gave a $200 million donation to the U.C.L.A. School of Medicine — now the David Geffen School of Medicine at U.C.L.A. He gave another $100 million to the school for scholarships in 2012.
Listed at No. 68 on the Forbes 400 list in 2014 with an estimated worth of $6.9 billion, Mr. Geffen has also made substantial contributions to organizations fighting AIDS, including Gay Men’s Health Crisis, God’s Love We Deliver and the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
New York cultural institutions have received other $100 million gifts in the past. In 2008, David H. Koch, the oil-and-gas billionaire, gave that sum to the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center, which now bears his name. And Stephen A. Schwarzman, the Wall Street financier, gave that amount for renovation of the New York Public Library’s flagship on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, which is now named for him.
Though some naming agreements have sunset provisions — Mr. Koch’s says the State Theater can be renamed after 50 years, with the Koch family retaining the right of first refusal — Mr. Geffen insisted that the Philharmonic’s hall bear his name in perpetuity.
“I think it’s appropriate,” he said. “How often can you change the name of this hall?”
Asked how she felt about the Geffen name, Nancy Fisher, one of the Fisher children, said simply, “I wish him well.”
The $15 million paid to the Fishers will come out of the project’s overall expense budget, not Mr. Geffen’s gift, Lincoln Center said.
Given the five years that have elapsed since the Koch gift, one might expect Lincoln Center to up the ante or that Mr. Geffen might want to one-up his counterpart across the Lincoln Center plaza, if only because of their political differences (he’s fiercely liberal; Mr. Koch is staunchly conservative). But Katherine G. Farley, Lincoln Center’s chairwoman, said the contribution was just what was needed to jump-start fund-raising. “It’s going to really transform the hall,” she said, “and galvanize the giving for the renovation.”
And Mr. Geffen said he imagined other donors would now step up. “If it costs more to make it as good as it can be, I’m quite sure there are New Yorkers who will be willing to rise to the occasion,” he said.
Lincoln Center, which owns the hall and has agreed to join the Philharmonic in seeking donations for the renovation, said that Ms. Farley approached Mr. Geffen after the agreement had been made with the Fisher family.
“I think Katherine called me the next day,” Mr. Geffen said jokingly.
Ms. Farley said she and Mr. Geffen knew each other socially and over the last two years had been talking about “how he might become involved in Lincoln Center.”
“David has been in the music world forever and here you have this iconic music hall,” she said, “so it seemed like a very good match.”
Mr. Geffen said, “And I had the money.”
The gift comes at a time of transition for both the Philharmonic and, perhaps, Mr. Geffen.
The Philharmonic recently announced that its music director, Alan Gilbert, would step down in 2017, after eight seasons. The planned departure of Mr. Gilbert, 48, has prompted a search for a successor to lead the Philharmonic through the hall’s renovation, which will force the orchestra to perform away from its Lincoln Center home for two seasons.
Mr. Geffen said he would not be weighing in on artistic decisions. “I don’t feel like I have a vote,” he said.
Matthew VanBesien, the Philharmonic’s executive director, said the orchestra was brought “into the loop at the appropriate time.” The full board was informed Wednesday morning, a few hours before the gift was publicly announced, said Paul B. Guenther, the Philharmonic’s chairman emeritus.
Mr. Geffen’s gift may signal a renewed commitment to New York, where he has kept an apartment since 1976 and where started his career at William Morris — though Mr. Geffen said he has always maintained his connection to the city.
“I’m a kid from Brooklyn,” he said. “I love New York.”
His profile in Los Angeles has ebbed since he abruptly stepped away from DreamWorks Studios in 2008, declaring himself finished with entertainment and shifting his focus to philanthropic pursuits and more time both in New York and on his yacht. Steven Spielberg, one of his partners at the time, was openly flummoxed by the decision.
The Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, which took his name in the mid-1990s, has a national reputation for its support of new plays, but the theater has struggled to find its footing since its founder, Gilbert Cates, died in 2011. The most recent managing director stepped down on Monday.
At the same time, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, which operates a space called the Geffen Contemporary, has teetered on the brink of insolvency and undergone one strategic retrenchment after another. Mr. Geffen, whose personal art collection includes works by Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and Willem de Kooning — one curator said it “is to postwar American art what the Frick Collection is to old master painting” — has broad cultural interests. As a music producer, he fostered the careers of stars including the Eagles, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt and Nirvana. And he produced films including “Beetlejuice.”
“I’m an arts junkie,” he said.
Mr. Geffen said he regularly goes to Walt Disney Concert Hall, home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
“I love classical music,” he said.
As to whether Mr. Geffen is a good fit for the Philharmonic, the violinist Itzhak Perlman, who serves on the board, said: “Music is music. We need all the support that we can get.”
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