FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 24, 2012 Contact: Katherine E. Johnson (212) 875-5718; [email protected]

ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE EMANUEL AX FEATURED IN SONG OF THE EARTH CO-PRESENTED WITH LINCOLN CENTER’S WHITE LIGHT FESTIVAL

MAHLER/SCHOENBERG’S DAS LIED VON DER ERDE Featuring Pianist Emanuel Ax, Mezzo- Tamara Mumford, Russell Thomas, and Philharmonic Musicians Conducted by Matthias Pintscher

EMANUEL AX TO PERFORM SOLO PIANO WORKS BY BACH AND SCHOENBERG

The Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center November 4

The New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival will co-present Song of the Earth, a program spotlighting Emanuel Ax, The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in- Residence at the New York Philharmonic, on Sunday, November 4, 2012, at 5:00 p.m. at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater. Mr. Ax will open the program with two solo works: J.S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E-flat minor, from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, and Schoenberg’s Six Little Piano Pieces, Op. 19.

The program will close with Schoenberg’s chamber arrangement of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde conducted by Matthias Pintscher and featuring Mr. Ax, mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford, tenor Russell Thomas, and Philharmonic musicians including Robert Langevin, flute; Liang Wang, oboe/English horn; Pascual Martínez Forteza, clarinet/ clarinet; Judith LeClair, bassoon; Philip Myers, horn; Daniel Druckman, Kyle Zerna, percussion; Eric Huebner, harmonium/celeste; Sheryl Staples, Michelle Kim, violins; Rebecca Young, viola; Carter Brey, cello; David J. Grossman, bass. Schoenberg greatly admired Mahler, and he orchestrated Das Lied von der Erde string and wind quintets, piano, celesta, and harmonium but never finished it; Rainer Riehn completed this version in 1980.

“I think Mahler is full of ecstasy and mystery,” Emanuel Ax said. “I find it funny that the name Schoenberg is somehow still considered frightening. It’s not the music — it’s the name; somehow he developed a reputation for being forbidding, but much of his music is not at all that way, so I am really pleased to be playing some of it during this residency.”

Mr. Ax is also pairing works by Bach and Schoenberg in his first residency program October 4– 6, 2012, conducted by Music Director Alan Gilbert, when he performs Bach’s Keyboard (more)

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Concerto in D minor and Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto; at those concerts Mr. Ax will join Mr. Gilbert in speaking to the audience about Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto. “We’re hoping to elucidate the piece by explaining how it unfolds and showing melodic elements that are graspable once you hear them demonstrated,” the Music Director said.

Mr. Ax’s residency continues November 24, 2012, when he joins Philharmonic principal musicians to perform Brahms’s Piano Quintet on a Saturday Matinee Concert. He will perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 on April 24, 25, and 27, 2012, and in May on the Orchestra’s EUROPE / SPRING 2013 tour. In the last program of his residency, Mr. Ax will perform Seeing, for Piano and Orchestra, by Composer-in-Residence Christopher Rouse June 20–22, 2012, as part of June Journey: Gilbert’s Playlist.

Artists Born in Lvov, Poland, Emanuel Ax moved to Canada with his family when he was a young boy. He studied at The Juilliard School and Columbia University, capturing public attention in 1974 when he won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition. In 1975 he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists, followed four years later by the Avery Fisher Prize. In 2011 Mr. Ax was named an Honorary Member of the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York.

In the spring of 2012 Mr. Ax held a two-week residency with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra celebrating the piano and its repertoire. As The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic for the 2012–13 season, he will perform repertoire ranging from Bach to Christopher Rouse and will appear on the EUROPE / SPRING 2013 tour. He also returns to the orchestras in Los Angeles, St. Louis, Atlanta, Detroit, Washington, and Pittsburgh. Highlights of Mr. Ax’s 2011–12 season included return visits to the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras; the symphonies of Boston, Houston, Toronto, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Cincinnati; and the San Francisco Symphony, with which he collaborated in the “American Mavericks” festival.

Mr. Ax has been an exclusive Sony Classical recording artist since 1987. Due for release later this year is a new recital disc of works from Haydn through Schumann to Copland, reflecting their different uses of the “variation” concept. He has received Grammy Awards for the second and third volumes of his cycle of Haydn’s piano sonatas and for his series of Grammy-winning recordings with Yo-Yo Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. Emanuel Ax resides in New York City with his wife, pianist Yoko Nozaki. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates of music from Yale and Columbia Universities. Mr. Ax made his New York Philharmonic debut in September 1977, when he performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20, Sir Andrew Davis conducting; he made his most recent appearances with the Orchestra on June 20–23, 2012, performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22, conducted by Alan Gilbert.

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Matthias Pintscher is a conductor and composer. In June 2012 he was named Ensemble Intercontemporain’s next music director, beginning in the 2013–14 season. He is in his third season as artist-in-association with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, which he will take to London Proms and the Huddersfield Festival. Other highlights of the 2012–13 season include debuts with the Atlanta, New World, and Colorado symphony orchestras and Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, and appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Curtis Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Grand Tetons Music Festival. He appears with the Scharoun Ensemble for the 25th anniversary celebration of the chamber hall at the Berlin Philharmonie. Mr. Pintscher was awarded the 2012 Roche Commission. His new work, Chute d’Étoiles, received its premiere at the Lucerne Festival in August 2012 by the Cleveland Orchestra led by Franz Welser-Möst.

Recent and past engagements have included the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Staatskapelle Berlin, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Mariinsky Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Sinfonica della RAI, Melbourne Symphony, and Sydney Symphony, among others. He continues to work regularly with distinguished contemporary music ensembles such as Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, and International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE).

Matthias Pintscher began his musical training in conducting, studying with Peter Eötvös, but composing took a more prominent role in his life while he was in his early twenties. His works are frequently performed by orchestras such as the Chicago, London, BBC, and NDR symphony orchestras; the Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Philharmonia orchestras; the New York and Berlin Philharmonics; the London Philharmonic Orchestra; and the Orchestre de Paris.

Mr. Pintscher’s works are published exclusively by Bärenreiter-Verlag. He works and records with Kairos, EMI, ECM, Teldec, Wergo, and Winter & Winter. His Towards Osiris: Study for Orchestra, was performed by the New York Philharmonic in March 2010, led by Christoph Eschenbach, and his songs from Solomon’s garden — a World Premiere–New York Philharmonic Co-Commission — was performed by Thomas Hampson on CONTACT!, the Orchestra’s new-music series, in April 2010 conducted by Alan Gilbert. He was one of the three conductors who led Stockhausen’s Gruppen at Philharmonic 360, the Orchestra’s performances at Park Avenue Armory June 29–30, 2012.

This season mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford makes her debut at Seattle as Angelina in Rossini’s La Cenerentola and tours Europe and the United States with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the premiere of staged performances of John Adams’s The Gospel According to the Other Mary. She also makes debuts with the San Francisco, Milwaukee, Eugene, and Santa Barbara symphony orchestras.

Ms. Mumford’s recent engagements have included productions of Donizetti’s , Wagner’s complete Ring Cycle, John Adams’s Nixon in China, Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, Verdi’s Rigoletto, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades at (more) Song of the Earth with Emanuel Ax / 4

The Metropolitan Opera. Other recent appearances have included the title roles in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia and Hans Wener Henze’s Phaedra at the Opera Company of Philadelphia; the title role in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at Glimmerglass Opera; and Ottavia in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival and the BBC Proms. Also an active concert performer, Ms. Mumford recently appeared in concert with The Cleveland Orchestra, Met Chamber Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, and Grand Teton Festival, as well as on several U.S. tours with Musicians from Marlboro. She has also been presented in recital by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and in New York by both the Marilyn Horne Foundation and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A native of Sandy, Utah, Tamara Mumford holds a bachelor’s of music degree from Utah State University and was a member of the Yale Opera program. She is also a recent alumna of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artists Program.

Tenor Russell Thomas recently was named the first-prize winner of the prestigious Ricardo Viñas Competition and the Competizione dell’Opera in Dresden. His current season begins with the recording and a concert of Donizetti’s Belisario for in London, followed by his role debut in the title role of Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito at The Metropolitan Opera. Later in the season, Mr. Thomas returns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic to reprise the role of Lazarus in John Adams’s The Gospel According to the Other Mary, this time in performances staged by Peter Sellars, which will also be seen in London, Lucerne, Paris, and New York. He ends the season with his Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, debut as Gabriele Adorno in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra and in concert performances of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. Further concerts include Mozart’s at Carnegie Hall and Verdi’s Requiem in Barcelona. Mr. Thomas is also appearing in recital in his hometown, Atlanta, for the opening concert of Atlanta Vocal Arts Society’s new recital series.

Recent engagements include Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the Houston Ballet, followed by Foresto in Verdi’s Attila with Seattle Opera, and his Canadian Opera Company debut in the title role of Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann. In the spring of 2012 Russell Thomas premiered John Adams’s The Gospel According to the Other Mary with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, and most recently he sang Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas.

Russell Thomas is an alumnus of the prestigious Lindemann Young Artist Development Program of The Metropolitan Opera.

Repertoire Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, is a collection of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys dating from 1722, when Bach was court composer at Coethen (he would write a second 20 years later, in Leipzig). Its title page states that it was composed “for the profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning, and especially for

(more) Song of the Earth with Emanuel Ax / 5 the pastime of those already skilled in this study.” The Well-Tempered Clavier is generally regarded as one of the most influential works in the history of Western classical music, and was studied by Haydn and Mozart.

Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) originated in 1907, when the composer was given a copy of Hans Bethge’s The Chinese Flute, a translation of Asian poems. The melancholy, delicate allusiveness of the verses spoke to Mahler with singular urgency, matching his emotional state — his four-year-old daughter, Maria, had recently died of scarlet fever and diphtheria, and he himself had learned he suffered from a severe heart condition. He began sketching ideas, and in the summer of 1908 finished the composition of a song-symphony of six settings to be performed by two vocal soloists and orchestra. This profound meditation on universal themes — death, redemption, nature — contains Chinese motifs that echo the song’s textual origins. He did not live to hear it; his friend Bruno Walter directed its premiere in Munich in November 1911, five months after Mahler’s death. Ten years later, Arnold Schoenberg — who wanted this work to be performed but knew that its logistical demands would make doing so difficult — began an arrangement for chamber ensemble, consisting of string and wind quintets, piano, celesta, harmonium, and three percussionists. Although he never completed the project, the German composer/conductor Rainer Riehn completed Schoenberg’s arrangement in 1983.

In the years leading to 1907 Arnold Schoenberg focused on writing large, dense works such as Pelleas und Melisande, but after that he broke away from creating such expansive, Romantic music to explore more modern expression, as can be seen in his Six Little Piano Pieces, Op. 19. He wrote the first five in a single day — February 19, 1911 — and considered the work complete. However, a few months later, upon hearing of the death of Mahler, whom Schoenberg admired greatly, he was inspired to write a sixth, which he also completed in a single day, June 17, 1911. The pieces are atonal miniatures, condensations of musical ideas that would have been elaborated for many minutes in a Romantic work. This aphoristic style would greatly influence Schoenberg’s pupil Anton Webern, who made it his signature. The set was first performed on February 4, 1912, in Berlin, by Louis Closson.

* * * Credit Suisse is the Global Sponsor of the New York Philharmonic.

* * * Emanuel Ax is The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence.

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

* * *

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Tickets Tickets for these concerts start at $40. All other tickets may be purchased online at nyphil.org or WhiteLightFestival.org, or by calling (212) 875-5656, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and 12:00 noon to 5:00 p.m. on 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. Tickets may also be purchased through CenterCharge by calling (212) 721-6500, Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. 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 Communications Department at (212) 875-5714, or e-mail her at [email protected].

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Chamber Concert with Emanuel Ax, The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Co-Presented by the New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival

The Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center Broadway at 60th Street

Sunday, November 4, 2012, 5:00 p.m.

Emanuel Ax, piano, The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Matthias Pintscher, conductor Tamara Mumford, mezzo-soprano Russell Thomas, tenor Musicians from the New York Philharmonic: Robert Langevin, flute; Liang Wang, oboe/English horn Pascual Martínez Forteza, clarinet/bass clarinet; Judith LeClair, bassoon Philip Myers, horn Daniel Druckman and Kyle Zerna, percussion Eric Huebner, harmonium/celeste Sheryl Staples, Michelle Kim, violins Rebecca Young, viola; Carter Brey, cello David J. Grossman, bass

J.S. BACH Prelude and Fugue in E-flat minor, from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I SCHOENBERG Six Little Piano Pieces, Op. 19 MAHLER/Schoenberg Das Lied von der Erde (chamber orchestra version, completed by Rainer Riehn)

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