Alan Gilbert, conductor

Biography

New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert began his tenure in September 2009, and is the first native New Yorker to be appointed to that post. He simultaneously maintains a major international presence, making regular guest appearances with orchestras including the , Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, , Boston Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Gilbert is Conductor Laureate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, where he served as Music Director for eight years, and this season marks his tenth anniversary as Principal Guest Conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg. He has led operatic productions for the Metropolitan , Los Angeles Opera, Zurich Opera, Royal Swedish Opera, and , where he served as the first appointed Music Director and conducted repertoire including Carmen, Eugene Onegin, , and Peter Grimes among other works.

At the , Gilbert has widened the artistic reach of the 172-year-old institution. He initiated annual residencies for composers (with the first appointment) and leading performing artists (this season, violinist Lisa Batiashvili and pianist Inon Barnatan). Semi-staged productions of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre, Janácek's Cunning Little Vixen, and Stravinsky's Petrushka have been presented to critical acclaim and capacity audiences. Gilbert also encouraged the development of two series devoted to contemporary music, CONTACT! devoted to premiering new scores, and the New York Philharmonic Biennial, a curatorial approach to exploring a wide range of contemporary and modern composers, inaugurated in spring of 2014.

Alan Gilbert opens the 2014-15 season with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, where he replaces the orchestra’s indisposed music director, Riccardo Chailly, in season-opening concerts and on tour at the Lucerne Festival, Musikfest Berlin, and London’s BBC Proms. Other guest engagements this season include guest weeks with the Berlin Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, and the NDR Symphony Hamburg, as well as returns to the , where he will conduct with Peter Mattei in the title role, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he gives that organization’s first-ever performances of Janácek's Glagolitic Mass.

With the New York Philharmonic, Gilbert conducts programs including a pairing of Mahler's First Symphony with the U.S. premiere of ’s Clarinet Concerto; La Dolce Vita: Music of Italian Cinema featuring Joshua Bell, Renée Fleming, and Josh Groban; Verdi’s Requiem; a staging of Honegger’s Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher featuring Oscar winner Marion Cotillard; and an evening with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. He concludes The Nielsen Project—the multi-year 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—and presides over a tour of major European cities.

Gilbert is Director of and Orchestral Studies and holds the Chair in Musical Studies at the . He made his Metropolitan Opera debut to great acclaim in 2008 conducting ’s Doctor Atomic, the DVD of which received a Grammy Award. Renée Fleming’s recent Decca recording Poèmes, on which he conducted, received a 2013 Grammy Award. His recordings have also received top honors from the Chicago Tribune and Gramophone magazine. 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.” In 2014 he was elected to The American Academy of Arts & Sciences.