FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 16, 2015 Contact: Katherine E. Johnson (212) 875-5718; [email protected]

MANFRED HONECK AND AUGUSTIN HADELICH TO RETURN TO THE

Johann STRAUSS II’s Die Fledermaus Overture MOZART’s No. 5, Turkish BRAHMS’s Symphony No. 4

May 28–30, 2015

Manfred Honeck will return to the New York Philharmonic to conduct Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus Overture; Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5, Turkish, with Augustin Hadelich as soloist; and Brahms’s Symphony No. 4. The program of works by Austrian and German composers, featuring an Austrian conductor and German violinist, takes place Thursday, May 28, 2015, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, May 29 at 2:00 p.m.; and Saturday, May 30 at 8:00 p.m.

Augustin Hadelich made his acclaimed Philharmonic debut at Bravo! Vail in July 2010, when on short notice he replaced a soloist who fell ill. Praising the performance, The Denver Post said that Hadelich “easily confirmed his place on the shortlist of today’s top violin virtuosos.” After performing with Mr. Hadelich again in Vail in July 2011 and at the Caramoor Fall Festival in September 2011, the New York Philharmonic nominated him for the Martin E. Segal Award, which he received in 2012. He made his subscription debut in October 2012 performing Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole led by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, and repeated that performance at Bravo! Vail in July 2013.

Manfred Honeck made his Philharmonic debut in January 2013 leading works by Braunfels, Grieg, and Beethoven; he led a one-night-only all-Dvořák program with violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter in December 2013. In Mr. Honeck’s most recent appearance with the Philharmonic, in March 2014 when he replaced a conductor who fell ill, The New York Times wrote that he “drew assured and exciting performances ... from the players, who looked and sounded inspired.”

Related Events  Pre-Concert Insights Writer, music historian, and former Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic Harvey Sachs will introduce the program. Pre-Concert Insights are $7; discounts available for multiple talks, students, and groups. They take place one hour before these performances in the Helen Hull Room, unless otherwise noted. Attendance is limited to 90 people. Information: nyphil.org/preconcert or (212) 875-5656.

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Artists Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck has served as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) since the 2008–09 season; after two extensions, his contract now runs until the end of 2019–20. He and the PSO regularly give acclaimed performances throughout Europe; since 2010, annual tours have taken them to numerous European music capitals (including a week-long residency at Vienna’s Musikverein) and major music festivals. His work with the PSO has been recorded by Reference Recordings; the first three releases (Strauss tone poems, works by Janáček and Dvořák, and Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony) received rave reviews, and several additional recordings are already completed. Born in Austria, Mr. Honeck began his career as conductor of Vienna’s Jeunesse Orchestra (which he co-founded) and as assistant to Claudio Abbado at the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in Vienna. He was subsequently engaged by the Zurich Opera House, where he received the prestigious European Conductor’s Award in 1993. In 1996 he began a three-year stint as one of three main conductors of the MDR Symphony Orchestra Leipzig; he served as music director at the Norwegian National Opera in Oslo for one year, in 1997; and he was principal guest conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic for several years. His other positions have included music director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra Stockholm (2000–06) and principal guest conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (2008–11), a position he resumed for another three years beginning in 2013. As music director of the Stuttgart Staatsoper from 2007 to 2011, he conducted premieres of Berlioz’s Les Troyens, Mozart’s Idomeneo, Verdi’s Aida, Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, and Wagner’s Lohengrin and Parsifal. As a guest conductor, Mr. Honeck has appeared with the finest orchestras around the globe, such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Dresden Staatskapelle, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, and Vienna Philharmonic. In the U.S. he has conducted the New York and orchestras; Chicago, Boston, and National symphony orchestras; and The Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras. Manfred Honeck received honorary doctorates from St. Vincent College in 2010 and Carnegie Mellon University in 2014. He has been artistic director of Germany’s International Concerts Wolfegg for more than 20 years. He made his Philharmonic debut in January 2013 leading music by Braunfels, Beethoven, and Grieg with soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet; he most recently led the Orchestra in works by Vivier and Bruckner in March 2014.

Augustin Hadelich has established himself as one of the most sought-after violinists of his generation in repertoire from Paganini to Thomas Adès. He has appeared in multiple engagements with the Boston and Orchestras, The Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, and the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras, as well as internationally with the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester, BBC Symphony in London, NHK Symphony in Tokyo, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the Stuttgart Radio Orchestra. Mr. Hadelich’s 2014–15 season includes debuts with the Minnesota Orchestra, Danish National Symphony, and the London Philharmonic, as well as returns to the Baltimore, Houston, Indianapolis, Liverpool, St. Louis, and orchestras. Other recent and upcoming projects include debuts with the Chicago and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras as well as the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall; his recital debut at London’s Wigmore Hall; serving as artist-in-residence of the Netherlands Philharmonic; and tours with the Toronto and San Diego Symphony Orchestras. In addition to several recital CDs, Mr. Hadelich’s first major (more) Manfred Honeck / Augustin Hadelich / 3 orchestral recording, featuring violin concertos by Sibelius and Adès with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Hannu Lintu, was released in March 2014 on the AVIE label; nominated for a Gramophone Award, it was listed in NPR’s Top 10 Classical CDs of 2014. A recent recording of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra is scheduled for release on AVIE in spring 2015. The 2006 Gold Medalist of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, Mr. Hadelich is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant (2009), a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship in the UK (2001), and ’s Martin E. Segal Award (2012). He received an artist diploma from The , where he was a student of Joel Smirnoff. He plays the 1723 “Ex- Kiesewetter” Stradivari violin, on loan from Clement and Karen Arrison through the Stradivari Society of Chicago. He made his Philharmonic debut playing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with Alan Gilbert during the Bravo! Vail residency in July 2010; most recently he performed Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole, conducted by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, in New York in October 2012 and during the Orchestra’s Bravo! Vail residency in July 2013.

Repertoire Johann Strauss II (1825–99) continued his family’s tradition of lighthearted, enjoyable creativity, and though he is primarily known for his waltz tunes, his operetta Die Fledermaus remains one of the stage’s most cherished works. Set on New Year’s Eve and with a second act that takes place at a masked ball, it was the composer’s third operetta for Vienna’s Theatre an der Wien (it was premiered in April 1874) and is inspired by popular French vaudevillian works. Carl Haffner and Richard Genée’s book and libretto follow the antics surrounding Dr. Falke’s revenge on Gabriel von Eisenstein, who had played a practical joke on him years earlier and is about to serve a short prison sentence for slander. The Overture offers a glimpse of the operetta’s high-spirited waltzes, polkas, and more, previewing the lightness and fun in store. The Philharmonic’s first performance of the Overture was by the New York Symphony (which merged with the New York Philharmonic in 1928 to form today’s New York Philharmonic) in Philadelphia’s Willow Grove Park, conducted by Walter Damrosch; the Orchestra’s most recent performance was in February 2011, led by Plácido Domingo.

It’s well known that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91) was a child prodigy of the harpsichord and piano, but what’s less frequently noted is that he was also an accomplished violinist from a young age. In the employ of the Archbishop Colloredo, he was not only the conductor but also the concertmaster of the Salzburg Court Orchestra, and it was in that post that he composed his five violin concertos, all in the course of the year 1775, at the age of 19. The Violin Concerto No. 5, Turkish, was the last and most sophisticated of these works. The soloist enters into the opening Allegro aperto movement with a few bars of unexpected adagio in a recitative style, a stroke that the musical analyst Sir Donald Francis Tovey called “one of the greatest surprises ever perpetrated in a concerto.” The lyrical and second movement is followed by a rondo finale, which alternates between markedly contrasting dance styles, passing suddenly from an elegant minuet into the lively, folk-inflected music that lends the work its nickname. The Philharmonic first performed the concerto in February 1904, with soloist Jacques Thibaud and Walter Damrosch leading the New York Symphony (which merged with the New York Philharmonic in 1928 to form today’s New York Philharmonic); the Philharmonic most recently presented it in June 2012, performed and conducted by Pinchas Zukerman. (more) Manfred Honeck / Augustin Hadelich / 4

Johannes Brahms (1833–97) composed his Symphony No. 4 in the Alpine village of Mürzzuschlag, in the Styrian Alps, during the summers of 1884–85. Brahms approached the symphony’s premiere, on October 15, 1885, in Meiningen, Germany, with mounting apprehension, but it proved a success, and the symphony’s popularity only increased with repeated performances. “With his Fourth Symphony,” writes New York Philharmonic Program Annotator James M. Keller, “Brahms achieves a work of almost mystical transcendence, born of opposing emotions: melancholy and joy, severity and rhapsody, solemnity and exhilaration.” The New York Symphony (which merged with the New York Philharmonic in 1928 to form today’s New York Philharmonic) performed the work’s U.S. Premiere on December 10, 1886, led by Walter Damrosch; Kurt Masur led the Orchestra’s most recent performance, in November 2012.

* * * Manfred Honeck’s appearance is made possible through the Charles A. Dana Distinguished Conductors Endowment Fund.

* * * Programs are supported, in part, by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. * * *

Tickets Tickets for these performances start at $30. Tickets for Open Rehearsals are $20. Pre-Concert Insights are $7; discounts are available for multiple talks, students, and groups (visit nyphil.org/preconcert for more information). Tickets may be purchased online at nyphil.org or by calling (212) 875-5656, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday; 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Saturday; and noon to 5:00 p.m. Sunday. Tickets may also be purchased at the Avery Fisher Hall Box Office. The Box Office opens at 10:00 a.m. Monday through Saturday, and at noon on Sunday. On performance evenings, the Box Office closes one-half hour after performance time; other evenings it closes at 6:00 p.m. A limited number of $16 tickets for select concerts may be available through the Internet for students within 10 days of the performance, or in person the day of. Valid identification is required. To determine ticket availability, call the Philharmonic’s Customer Relations Department at (212) 875-5656. [Ticket prices subject to change.]

For press tickets, call Lanore Carr in the New York Philharmonic Marketing and Communications Department at (212) 875-5714, or e-mail her at [email protected].

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Manfred Honeck / Augustin Hadelich / 5

New York Philharmonic

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center

Thursday, May 28, 2015, 7:30 p.m. Open Rehearsal — 9:45 a.m. Friday, May 29, 2015, 2:00 p.m. Saturday, May 30, 2015, 8:00 p.m.

Pre-Concert Insights (one hour before each concert) with writer, music historian, and former Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic Harvey Sachs

Manfred Honeck, conductor Augustin Hadelich, violin

J. STRAUSS II Die Fledermaus Overture MOZART Violin Concerto No. 5, Turkish BRAHMS Symphony No. 4

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