FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 28, 2013 Contact: Katherine E. Johnson (212) 875-5718; [email protected]
ALAN GILBERT AND THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC RELEASE NEW ALBUM OF WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS BY MAGNUS LINDBERG ON DACAPO RECORDS
New Album Includes EXPO, Al largo, and Piano Concerto No. 2, Three Works Created During Mr. Lindberg’s Tenure as The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic today releases a new album of World Premiere recordings of works by Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg. Released on Dacapo Records and distributed in the U.S. by the Naxos group, the album features works written for and performed by Music Director Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic during Mr. Lindberg’s tenure as the Orchestra’s Marie- Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence, 2009–12. The CD includes the live World Premiere performances of three New York Philharmonic commissions: EXPO, Al largo, and Piano Concerto No. 2 with pianist Yefim Bronfman, the last of which the New York Philharmonic co- commissioned with Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Gothenburg Symphony.
Performed on Opening Night of the 2009–10 season, EXPO ushered in both the start of the composer’s residency and Alan Gilbert’s tenure as Music Director. In addition, the Orchestra performed EXPO on both of that season’s international tours, Asian Horizons and EUROPE / WINTER 2010. Al largo brought that same season to a close; in the review of the work’s World Premiere The New York Times wrote: “Mr. Lindberg writes brilliantly for orchestra, and Mr. Gilbert and the Philharmonic made the most of it in this glittering, virtuosic performance.” The third featured work, Piano Concerto No. 2 — the fourth and final work Mr. Lindberg composed during his Philharmonic tenure — was written for and performed by Yefim Bronfman in the 2011–12 season and was described by ConcertoNet.com as “ravishingly beautiful.” The piece was also performed on the Philharmonic’s CALIFORNIA 2012 tour.
With special permission from The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), a detail of the painting Wounds and Absent Objects by Anish Kapoor, donated to MoMA by the Jacqueline Brody Fund and Harry Kahn Fund, is featured as the CD’s cover. The album is now available for purchase in the New York Philharmonic store (store.nyphil.org), Amazon.com, and other online music retailers.
“I was so impressed by the quality of our collaboration with Dacapo Records on the first release in The Nielsen Project that they were my first choice to produce this new, ambitious recording,” said Music Director Alan Gilbert. “The technical expertise and artistic sensitivity of their team (more)
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will enrich the presentation of these works’ premieres. I couldn’t be more pleased with how the recording captures the excitement and brilliance of the New York Philharmonic’s performances of music by Magnus Lindberg, who developed a real affinity with the musicians during his three- year tenure.”
“It is a great honor that the New York Philharmonic has wished to collaborate with Dacapo as the recording label for this high-profile Composer-in-Residence CD release,” said Henrik Rørdam, president of Dacapo Records. “It gives Dacapo a quite unique opportunity for further development of the close relationship with the orchestra that was initiated with The Nielsen Project.”
“The three years I worked with Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic was an outstanding time in my life,” said Magnus Lindberg. “In today’s world it is rare for a composer to have the opportunity to live with an orchestra and to get to know them so well that it affects what you write for them. The musicians and I became great friends, and I am excited that their performances of these works can be heard on this CD.”
Dacapo Records was launched in 1989 in Denmark and is dedicated to producing music of the best international standards, with Danish music throughout 1,000 years as its point of departure. The label has received Gramophone and American Grammy Awards, as well as the Cannes Classical Award. Dacapo Records is also releasing The Nielsen Project, the New York Philharmonic’s critically acclaimed cycle of the complete symphonies and concertos of Carl Nielsen. For more information, visit www.dacapo-records.dk.
* * * About the Composer Magnus Lindberg was born in Helsinki, Finland, in 1958. Following piano studies he entered the Sibelius Academy where his composition teachers included Einojuhani Rautavaara and Paavo Heininen. The latter encouraged his pupils to look beyond the prevailing Finnish conservative and nationalist aesthetics, and to explore the works of the European avant-garde. This led around 1980 to the founding of the informal grouping known as the Ears Open Society, which included Mr. Lindberg and his contemporaries Eero Hämeeniemi, Jouni Kaipainen, Kaija Saariaho, and Esa-Pekka Salonen and aimed to encourage a greater awareness of mainstream modernism. Mr. Lindberg made a decisive move in 1981, traveling to Paris for studies with Vinko Globokar and Gérard Grisey. During this time he also attended Franco Donatoni’s classes in Siena, and made contact with Brian Ferneyhough, Helmut Lachenmann, and Karl Höller.
Mr. Lindberg’s compositional breakthrough came with two large-scale works, Action-Situation- Signification (1982) and Kraft (1983–85), which were inextricably linked with his founding with Mr. Salonen of the experimental Toimii Ensemble. After a period in which his works combined experimentalism, complexity, and primitivism, in the late 1980s his music transformed itself toward a new modernist classicism, in which many of the communicative ingredients of a vibrant musical language were re-interpreted afresh for the post-serial era. His output has positioned him at the forefront of orchestral composition, including the concert-opener Feria (1997); large-scale statements such as Fresco (1997), Cantigas (1999), Concerto for Orchestra (2002–03), and Sculpture (2005); and concertos for cello (1999), clarinet (2002), and violin (2006). Recent (more) New Album of Works by Magnus Lindberg / 3
works include Seht die Sonne (2007), commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic under Simon Rattle and the San Francisco Symphony, and his first choral-orchestral work, GRAFFITI, premiered in Helsinki in May 2009. His music has been recorded on the Deutsche Grammophon, Sony, Ondine, and Finlandia labels. In 2003 Mr. Lindberg was awarded the prestigious Wihuri Sibelius Prize. He is published by Boosey & Hawkes.
Magnus Lindberg was The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence of the New York Philharmonic between 2009 and 2012, with new works premiered by the Orchestra including the concert opener EXPO, premiered in September 2009 to launch Alan Gilbert’s tenure as the Orchestra’s Music Director. The Philharmonic performed the World Premieres of Al largo for orchestra and Souvenir for ensemble in 2010, and Piano Concerto No. 2 in 2012 with Yefim Bronfman as soloist. Mr. Lindberg was the pianist when Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic gave the New York Premiere of Kraft in 2010.
About the Artists Music Director Alan Gilbert began his tenure at the New York Philharmonic in September 2009, launching what New York magazine called “a fresh future for the Philharmonic.” The first native New Yorker in the post, he has introduced the positions of The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence and The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence, an annual multi-week festival, and CONTACT!, the new-music series, and he has sought to make the Orchestra a point of civic pride for the city and country.
In 2012–13, Alan Gilbert conducts world premieres; presides over a cycle of Brahms’s complete symphonies and concertos; leads the EUROPE / SPRING 2013 tour; and continues The Nielsen Project, the multiyear initiative to perform and record the Danish composer’s symphonies and concertos, the first release of which was named by The New York Times as among the Best Classical Music Recordings of 2012. The season concludes with Gilbert’s Playlist, four programs showcasing themes he has introduced, including the season finale: a theatrical reimagining of Stravinsky ballets with director/designer Doug Fitch and New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Sara Mearns. Last season’s highlights included tours of Europe and California, several world premieres, Mahler symphonies, and Philharmonic 360, the Philharmonic and Park Avenue Armory’s acclaimed spatial-music program featuring Stockhausen’s Gruppen, about which The New York Times said: “Those who think classical music needs some shaking up routinely challenge music directors at major orchestras to think outside the box. That is precisely what Alan Gilbert did.”
Mr. Gilbert is Director of Conducting and Orchestral Studies and holds the William Schuman Chair in Musical Studies at The Juilliard School. Conductor Laureate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Symphony Orchestra, he regularly conducts leading orchestras around the world. He made his acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut conducting John Adams’s Doctor Atomic in 2008, the DVD of which received a Grammy Award. Renée Fleming’s recent Decca recording Poèmes, on which he conducted, received a 2013 Grammy Award. In May 2010 Mr. Gilbert received an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from The Curtis Institute of Music and in December 2011, Columbia University’s Ditson Conductor’s Award for his “exceptional commitment to the performance of works by American composers and to contemporary music.” (more) New Album of Works by Magnus Lindberg / 4
Yefim Bronfman is widely regarded as one of the world’s most talented virtuoso pianists, winning critical acclaim and enthusiastic audiences worldwide. His 2012–13 season includes concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic (conducted by Simon Rattle) in Berlin, Salzburg, and the London Proms, followed by appearances with Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra (with David Zinman) and London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. He also undertakes a yearlong residency with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; returns to Salzburg’s Easter Festival with the Dresden Staatskapelle; appears with the Vienna Philharmonic in Vienna and London; performs subscription concerts in Spain and Germany; and travels on a spring tour with Ensemble Wien- Berlin. In North America he works with Fabio Luisi and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, and returns to the orchestras in Chicago, Dallas, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Montreal. Mr. Bronman collaborates with mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená in a short winter tour of venues including Carnegie Hall, and he gives solo recitals in Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, Paris, Berlin, and Lisbon. He was appointed the New York Philharmonic’s Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence for the 2013–14 season.
Widely praised for his solo, chamber, and orchestral recordings, Mr. Bronfman was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2009 for his recording of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Piano Concerto, with Mr. Salonen conducting (released on Deutsche Grammophon), having received a Grammy in 1997 for his recording of the three Bartók Piano Concertos with Mr. Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Born in Tashkent, in the Soviet Union, in 1958, Yefim Bronfman immigrated to Israel with his family in 1973. There he studied with pianist Arie Vardi, head of the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University. He later studied in the United States, at The Juilliard School, Marlboro, and The Curtis Institute of Music, and with Rudolf Firkusny, Leon Fleisher, and Rudolf Serkin. He became an American citizen in July 1989.
Founded in 1842, the New York Philharmonic is the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States and one of the oldest in the world; on May 5, 2010, it performed its 15,000th concert — a milestone unmatched by any other symphony orchestra in the world. The Orchestra has always played a leading role in American musical life, championing the music of its time, and is renowned around the globe, having appeared in 432 cities in 63 countries — including its October 2009 debut in Vietnam and its February 2008 historic visit to Pyongyang, DPRK, earning the 2008 Common Ground Award for Cultural Diplomacy. The Philharmonic’s concerts are broadcast on the weekly syndicated radio program The New York Philharmonic This Week, streamed on nyphil.org, and have been telecast annually on Live From Lincoln Center on U.S. public television since the series’ premiere in 1976. The Philharmonic has made almost 2,000 recordings since 1917, with more than 500 currently available. The first major American orchestra to offer downloadable concerts, recorded live, the Philharmonic released the first-ever classical iTunes Pass in 2009–10; the self-produced recordings continue with Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic: 2012–13 Season. The Orchestra has built on the long-running Young People’s Concerts to develop a wide range of education programs, including the School Partnership Program, enriching music education in New York City, and Learning Overtures, fostering international exchange. Alan Gilbert became Music Director in (more)
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September 2009, succeeding Lorin Maazel in a distinguished line of 20th-century musical giants that goes back to Gustav Mahler and Arturo Toscanini. Credit Suisse is the New York Philharmonic’s exclusive Global Sponsor.
* * * Credit Suisse is the exclusive Global Sponsor of the New York Philharmonic.
* * * Programs of the New York Philharmonic are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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