HILDE LIMONDJIAN

LIMONDJIAN--Hilde. Hilde Limondjian, the music impresario at the Metropolitan Museum, whose career spanned four decades, died on January 24, 2026, at the age of 89. She devoted her life to creating and running the Metropolitan Museum's Concerts & Lectures program, a mission she cherished. Appointed by the pioneering Director Thomas Hoving in 1969, she was taking over from the renowned educator William Kolodney, who had trained her in the "art" of administration. What she brought to the position was a knowledge and love of music and a degree in art history from Barnard College. As an eleven-year-old she was transfixed by a performance of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" on the radio and tracked down the score in the music room of the Jamaica Library, having been given a few nickels for the subway by the local librarian who told her where it could be found. At thirteen, she began piano lessons in earnest. Soon after, she saw a photograph of Myra Hess in the Times announcing an upcoming concert. She made a trip to Carnegie Hall and befriended the box office attendant, who selected a special seat for her: First row Balcony A105 keyboard side. At the end of the concert, amidst the wild applause, she felt a desire to be of support to Myra Hess and other musicians on the concert stage. At seventeen, she was offered a "practice" concert tour in small European towns. She turned it down because traveling alone engendered a sense of anxiety in her. She realized she was not cut out to be a performing musician. Most of her tenure at the Met was during the directorship of Philippe de Montebello. While keeping the Western classical music canon as the core of her programming, she innovated and experimented. Some concerts took place in the galleries for the first time. During the Mozart year, she presented a festival of works by Haydn. A series called "Masterworks at 7:00" offered discussion and performance of a single work. She invited festivals such Marlboro and Lockenhaus to the Met's stage and she herself created three festivals of talks, performances, and films devoted to Glenn Gould. Her scope of programming mirrored the Met's permanent collections and extended from Nubian Songs in the Temple of Dendur to premieres of works by contemporary composers She discovered and championed yet unknown young musicians, many of whom are heralded as today's greatest artists. During her career at the Met, Hilde Limondjian created more than 8000 events.