"While athletes and rock stars have long had permanent homes honoring their top achievers, the performing arts had no singular location to pay tribute to our exceptional talent, and inspire future generations, until now," said Bernstein in a statement.

All resident organizations—The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, The Film Society of Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Juilliard School, Lincoln Center Theater, The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the School of American Ballet and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts—are participating.

Legends at Lincoln Center will celebrate the performing arts with an annual induction ceremony; the inaugural ceremony will take place at Lincoln Center June 20. The 2016 inductees will be announced this spring.

In order to recognize the individuals who have contributed significantly to Lincoln Center’s history, Legends at Lincoln Center has established a special class of inductees—Founding Legends—who will be celebrated during this inaugural year. The Founding Legends follow:
Amyas Ames
George Balanchine
Morton Baum
Vivian Beaumont
Leonard Bernstein
Rudolf Bing
Anthony Bliss
Gordon J. Davis
Avery Fisher
Bernard Gersten
Lincoln Kirstein
James Levine
John V. Lindsay
Wynton Marsalis
Peter Martins
William F. May
Peter Mennin
Carlos Moseley
Gregory Mosher
Mitzi E. Newhouse
Jerome Robbins
John D. Rockefeller III
Richard Roud
William Schuman
Martin E. Segal
Beverly Sills
Charles M. Spofford
Carleton Sprague Smith
Alice Tully and Charles Wadsworth

A ceremony for the Founding Legends will take place at a later date. Legends at Lincoln Center, according to a press statement, is committed to "enhancing Lincoln Center as a destination to visit anytime, making interactive exhibits and installations available for free in campus buildings and public spaces to educate, inspire, and entertain new and existing audiences."

The 2016 Nominating Committee for the inaugural Legends at Lincoln Center follow: Ted Chapin, president and chief creative officer at Rodgers and Hammerstein: An Imagem Company; Patricia Cruz, executive director of Harlem Stage; Michael Dorf, founder and CEO of City Winery; Anna Kisselgoff, reporter, lecturer and former New York Times chief dance critic; Rajendra Roy, The Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film at the Museum of Modern Art; Marc A. Scorca, president and CEO of OPERA America; Matías Tarnopolsky, executive and artistic director of Cal Performances at University of California, Berkeley; Marietta Ulacia, executive director of Afro Latin Jazz Alliance; and Wayne Winborne, executive director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, Newark.