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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ARTIST UPDATE January 17, 2018 Contact: Katherine E. Johnson (212) 875-5700; [email protected] FOREIGN BODIES Conducted and Hosted by ESA-PEKKA SALONEN The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence June 8, 2018 Esa-Pekka SALONEN’s Foreign Bodies WORLD PREMIERE of Live Video Installation by TAL ROSNER NEW YORK PREMIERE of Daníel BJARNASON’s Violin Concerto with PEKKA KUUSISTO OBSIDIAN TEAR Choreography by Wayne McGregor Performed by Members of BOSTON BALLET Set to Esa-Pekka SALONEN’s Lachen verlernt and Nyx The New York Philharmonic announces Foreign Bodies, a one-night-only multidisciplinary event conducted and hosted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, concluding his tenure as The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence. The concert, Friday, June 8, 2018, at 8:00 p.m., will feature Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Foreign Bodies, accompanied by the World Premiere of a live video installation by Tal Rosner; the New York Premiere of Daníel Bjarnason’s Violin Concerto, with Pekka Kuusisto in his New York Philharmonic debut; and Obsidian Tear, a dance work choreographed by Wayne McGregor performed by members of Boston Ballet (Philharmonic debut) and set to Mr. Salonen’s Nyx and Lachen verlernt, the latter of which will be performed by violinist Simone Porter. Foreign Bodies will be casual and multi-sensory; drinks and conversation will flow as attendees mingle with the performers, who will give additional impromptu performances throughout the event. The program showcases several cross-pollinating collaborations related to Esa-Pekka Salonen. Tal Rosner previously created a video installation for Lachen verlernt (most recently presented at London’s Barbican Centre in December 2017), and Wayne McGregor previously choreographed a ballet to Foreign Bodies. Mr. Salonen conducted the premiere of Wayne McGregor’s Obsidian Tear in May 2016 in London. The New York Philharmonic performed Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Nyx in New York and Europe in March 2015. Daníel Bjarnason, whose Violin Concerto was written for Pekka Kuusisto, co- curated the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s 2017 Reykjavik Festival with Mr. Salonen. In Foreign Bodies, video designer and director Tal Rosner will manipulate live-feed images of the players and conductor on stage. Mr. Rosner writes that he will “animate textural shifts and instrumental gestures, creating a performance that is in effect a closed circuit –– where the flow of sound and projected images are inherently intertwined. It is a hyper-synched video interpretation of the orchestral (more) Foreign Bodies / 2 piece, drawing inspiration from action paintings and expressionist abstractions. The elemental yet simple approach is rooted in Salonen’s own reading of his composition, prioritizing ‘the physical reality of the music, i.e., the sound itself,’ and celebrating the wild rhythmical variety in the piece.” The New York Times called Wayne McGregor’s Obsidian Tear “a choreographic breakthrough.” He titled the work after the Native American legend about obsidian, volcanic rock formed when lava cools rapidly: a tribe of warriors leap to their deaths over a cliff rather than be defeated by the invading U.S. cavalry, and their families’ tears become obsidian. Mr. McGregor says he found a similarity between obsidian and Nyx, the Greek goddess of night: “Her darkness, her deep unknowability, arising from some hidden source, but also her shimmering almost-translucence, the aspect of night which thins the membrane between worlds so that truths are half-glimpsed in dreams.” Esa-Pekka Salonen — the composer-conductor who displays “a kind of complete musicianship rarely encountered today” (The Boston Globe) — is in his third and final season as The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence. The Orchestra gave the New York Premiere of his Gambit in October 2017, Susanna Mälkki led the New York Concert Premiere of his Helix this month, and in April 2018 he will conduct the World Premiere–New York Philharmonic Commission of Kravis Emerging Composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Metacosmos, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Eroica, and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, with Benjamin Grosvenor (inaugural recipient of the Ronnie and Lawrence Ackman Classical Piano Prize at the New York Philharmonic). Highlights of Mr. Salonen’s residency have included the New York and European Premieres of his Cello Concerto with Yo-Yo Ma (2017); the CONTACT! concerts “Salonen’s Floof and Other Delights” (2016) and “The Messiaen Connection” (2016); and his conducting Messiaen’s Turangalîla-symphonie, as part of Messiaen Week (2016), and Circle Map, a program celebrating Kaija Saariaho presented by Park Avenue Armory (2016). Artists Esa-Pekka Salonen’s restless innovation drives him constantly to reposition classical music in the 21st century. He is currently the principal conductor and artistic advisor of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra and the conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. This is his final of three seasons as The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic and his second of five as artist-in-association at the Finnish National Opera and Ballet. Additionally, Mr. Salonen is artistic director and cofounder of the annual Baltic Sea Festival, now in its 16th year, which invites celebrated artists to promote unity and ecological awareness among the countries around the Baltic Sea. He serves as an advisor to the Sync Project, a global initiative to harness the power of music for human health. Mr. Salonen’s compositions move freely between contemporary idioms, combining intricacy and technical virtuosity with playful rhythmic and melodic innovations. The Los Angeles Philharmonic performs all of Mr. Salonen’s concertos in February 2018, with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, pianist Yefim Bronfman, and violinist Leila Josefowicz — the musicians for whom the works were written. The Violin Concerto won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award and was featured in a 2014 international Apple ad campaign for iPad. The Barbican Centre in London has a season-long focus on Mr. Salonen’s music, including the European Premiere of a new work for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Mr. Salonen and the Philharmonia have experimented in groundbreaking ways to present music, with the first major virtual-reality production from a U.K. symphony orchestra; the award-winning RE-RITE and Universe of Sound installations, which have allowed people all over the world to conduct, play, and step inside (more) Foreign Bodies / 3 the orchestra through audio and video projections; and The Orchestra, the much-hailed app for iPad that allows users unprecedented access to the internal workings of eight symphonic works. Esa-Pekka Salonen made his New York Philharmonic debut in December 1986 conducting the U.S. Premiere of Castiglioni’s Sinfonia con giardino in addition to works by Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Nielsen; most recently, he led the Orchestra in a New York Premiere by Stravinsky, a U.S. Premiere by Tansy Davies co-commissioned by the Philharmonic, and music by Richard Strauss in April 2017. Pekka Kuusisto is renowned for his fresh approach to repertoire and his flair in directing ensembles from the violin. He is artistic partner with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, artistic director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s ACO Collective, and this year became Artistic Best Friend of Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen after a longstanding creative collaboration with the ensemble. In 2018 he will be guest artistic leader of the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. Other directing engagements include the Tapiola Sinfonietta and the Swedish and Mahler Chamber Orchestras. This season he appears with Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, Orchestre de Paris, and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. He also undertakes a European tour with London’s Philharmonia Orchestra and appears with the ensemble throughout the season; play-directs the Berlin Philharmonic’s Karajan Academy with tenor Mark Padmore; and has a mini-residency at Pierre Boulez Saal with REDDRESS, a collaborative project with South Korean artist Aamu Song. An advocate of contemporary music, Mr. Kuusisto has premiered new works by Daníel Bjarnason, Sauli Zinovjev, Andrea Tarrodi, Anders Hillborg, and Thomas Dausgaard. He is also composing, performing, and recording music for a new animated television series of Tove Jansson’s Moomin stories with Samuli Kosminen. A gifted improviser, recent projects include collaborations with Hauschka and Samuli Kosminen, Dutch neurologist Erik Scherder, electronic music pioneer Brian Crabtree, and jazz trumpeter Arve Henriksen. Pekka Kuusisto is artistic director of the award-winning annual Our Festival in Sibelius’s hometown, Järvenpää, Finland. Recent concerto appearances include the Edinburgh International Festival with the Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä, the BBC Proms with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Thomas Dausgaard, and concerts with the Seattle, Cincinnati, and Finnish Radio symphony orchestras. A keen chamber musician, his regular partners include Nicolas Altstaedt, Anne Sofie von Otter, Simon Crawford-Phillips, Alexander Lonquich, and Olli Mustonen. Pekka Kuusisto plays a Stradivarius violin kindly on loan from the Beares International Violin Society. The New York Philharmonic co-presented Pekka Kuusisto performing Ligeti’s Violin Concerto, led by then Music Director Alan Gilbert, in June 2016.This performance marks his New York Philharmonic debut. In the past few years, violinist Simone Porter has made her debuts with the

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