TAKE THE N TRAIN.(opening of Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall)

Zankel Hall, the new midsized venue at Carnegie Hall, is billed as a "new space underground." The phrase describes not only Zankel's location--about forty feet below Seventh Avenue, and three yards to the east of the Fifty-seventh Street station--but also its promise of a mildly rebellious attitude. With an opening two-week festival that includes contemporary composition, jazz, performance art, and a modicum of traditional repertory, Zankel aims to go against the grain, to shake things up, to provide an alternative to the solemn concert rituals that unfold in such places as, well, Carnegie Hall. How can an institution go underground and rebel against itself? Such are the ...