FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 9, 2017 Contact: Katherine E. Johnson (212) 875-5700; [email protected] NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC TO RETURN FOR SECOND RESIDENCY AT THE MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST July 31–August 5, 2017 Alan Gilbert To Conduct Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 At Santa Barbara City College’s La Playa Stadium In Music Academy’s 70th Anniversary Community Concert Concert Also To Feature Academy Festival Orchestra Led by Assistant Conductor Joshua Gersen July 31, 2017 Residency Also To Include Concert with Academy Festival Orchestra and Renée Fleming Conducted by Alan Gilbert; Performance by the New York Philharmonic String Quartet; and Philharmonic Musicians Serving as Guest Faculty The New York Philharmonic will return to the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California, July 31–August 5, 2017, for its second residency in a four-year partnership that began in the summer of 2014 as part of the New York Philharmonic Global Academy. The residency will feature Alan Gilbert leading a Philharmonic concert celebrating the Music Academy’s 70th anniversary as well as a concert featuring the Academy Festival Orchestra, a performance by the New York Philharmonic String Quartet, and Philharmonic musicians serving as guest faculty. In his final appearances conducting the New York Philharmonic as Music Director, Alan Gilbert will lead Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, featuring soprano Susanna Phillips (2002 and 2003 Music Academy of the West alumna), mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke (2002 Music Academy of the West alumna), tenor Joseph Kaiser, bass Morris Robinson, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale directed by Grant Gershon, July 31, 2017, at Santa Barbara City College’s La Playa Stadium, the Music Academy of the West’s 70th Anniversary Community Concert. The performance will open with the Academy Festival Orchestra performing Gabriela Lena Frank’s Three Latin American Dances, led by Philharmonic Assistant Conductor Joshua Gersen. The event will close with a fireworks display over the ocean. With seating for 7,500, it will be the largest classical music event in Santa Barbara history; 7,000 seats will be offered free or for $10 as part of the Music Academy’s Community Access Initiative. Alan Gilbert will also conduct the Academy Festival Orchestra in Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, with soprano Renée Fleming as soloist, August 5, 2017, at the Granada Theatre. Principal Bassoon Judith LeClair, Associate Principal Percussion Daniel Druckman, and the New York (more) Music Academy of the West Residency / 2 Philharmonic String Quartet — comprising Concertmaster Frank Huang, Principal Associate Concertmaster Sheryl Staples, Principal Viola Cynthia Phelps, and Principal Cello Carter Brey — will join Music Academy faculty members in a chamber music concert featuring works by Timo Andres, André Previn, and Beethoven, August 1, 2017, at the Lobero Theatre as part of the Festival Artists Series. Five Philharmonic musicians — Concertmaster Frank Huang, Principal Cello Carter Brey, Principal Bassoon Judith LeClair, Principal Trombone Joseph Alessi, and Associate Principal Percussion Daniel Druckman — will be serving as guest faculty August 1–4, 2017, training Music Academy fellows in collaboration with Academy faculty, including through master classes, chamber music coaching sessions, private lessons, and lectures. They will also judge auditions for the 2018 New York Philharmonic Global Academy Fellowship Program; the selected Fellows will travel to New York City to train and play alongside Philharmonic musicians for ten days in January 2018. The Music Academy of the West is the first American partner in the New York Philharmonic Global Academy — established by the Philharmonic as part of its commitment to develop tomorrow’s leading orchestra musicians, and featuring customized collaborations with partners worldwide that offer intensive training of pre-professional musicians by Philharmonic members, often alongside regular performance residencies by the full Orchestra. The four-year partnership with the Music Academy of the West, which began in the summer of 2014, combines training of Music Academy fellows by Philharmonic musicians; biennial performances by the Philharmonic at the Music Academy Summer Festival; and Academy Festival Orchestra performances at Music Academy Summer Festivals led by Mr. Gilbert. The partnership will continue in January 2018 when a new group of Music Academy of the West students travels to New York to train and play with the Philharmonic as Zarin Mehta Fellows under the Global Academy Fellowship Program. Twelve New York Philharmonic musicians are alumni of the Music Academy. Artists As Music Director of the New York Philharmonic since 2009, Alan Gilbert has introduced the positions of The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence, The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence, and Artist-in-Association; CONTACT!, the new-music series; the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, an exploration of today’s music; and the New York Philharmonic Global Academy, partnerships with cultural institutions to offer training of pre-professional musicians, often alongside performance residencies. The Financial Times called him “the imaginative maestro- impresario in residence.” Alan Gilbert concludes his final season as Music Director with four programs that reflect themes, works, and musicians that hold particular meaning for him, including Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony alongside Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw, Wagner’s complete Das Rheingold in concert, and an exploration of how music can effect positive change in the world. Other highlights include four World Premieres, Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre, and Manhattan, performed live to film. He also leads the Orchestra on the EUROPE / SPRING 2017 tour and in performance residencies in Shanghai and Santa Barbara. Past (more) Music Academy of the West Residency / 3 highlights include acclaimed stagings of Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd starring Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson (2015 Emmy nomination), and Honegger’s Joan of Arc at the Stake starring Marion Cotillard; 28 World Premieres; a tribute to Boulez and Stucky during the 2016 NY PHIL BIENNIAL; The Nielsen Project; the Verdi Requiem and Bach’s B-minor Mass; the score from 2001: A Space Odyssey, performed live to film; Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony on the tenth anniversary of 9/11; performing violin in Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time; and ten tours around the world. Conductor laureate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and former principal guest conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Symphony Orchestra, Alan Gilbert regularly conducts leading orchestras around the world. This season he returns to the foremost European orchestras, including the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Munich Philharmonic, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw, and Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. He will record Beethoven’s complete piano concertos with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and Inon Barnatan, and conduct Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, his first time leading a staged opera there. He made his acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut conducting John Adams’s Doctor Atomic in 2008, the DVD of which received a Grammy Award, and he conducted Messiaen’s Des Canyons aux étoiles on a recent album recorded live at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Mr. Gilbert is Director of Conducting and Orchestral Studies at The Juilliard School, where he holds the William Schuman Chair in Musical Studies. His honors include Honorary Doctor of Music degrees from The Curtis Institute of Music (2010) and Westminster Choir College (2016), Columbia University’s Ditson Conductor’s Award (2011), election to The American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2014), a Foreign Policy Association Medal for his commitment to cultural diplomacy (2015), Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2015), and New York University’s Lewis Rudin Award for Exemplary Service to New York City (2016). In the 2016–17 season Alabama-born soprano Susanna Phillips returned to The Metropolitan Opera for a ninth consecutive season, starring as Clémence in The Met premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s L’Amour de Loin conducted by Susanna Mälkki, and returns as Musetta in Puccini’s La bohème. Other engagements include her Zurich Opera debut as Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni and appearances as Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare with Boston Baroque and Martin Pearlman. Her 2016–17 orchestra engagements include a return to the San Francisco Symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting a program of American songs, Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate and Mass in C minor with Music of the Baroque, Britten’s War Requiem with Kent Tritle and the Oratorio Society of New York, and Euridice in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice with Robert Spano leading the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Phillips also performs recitals at Carnegie Hall, Celebrity Series of Boston, Huntsville Chamber Music Guild, National Museum for Women in the Arts, and a program with bass-baritone Eric Owens at the Washington Performing Arts Society. Highlights of Ms. Phillips’s previous seasons include numerous Met Opera appearances as Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Rosalinde in Richard Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, and Pamina in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Additional highlights include Donna Anna in Frankfurt, Arminda in Mozart’s La finta giradiniera at Santa Fe Opera, Countess in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro with Paul (more)