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-Soprano Tamara Mumford, Tenor 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/bass 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) Song of the Earth with Emanuel Ax / 2 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. (more) Song of the Earth with Emanuel Ax / 3 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 baritone 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 Opera 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 Anna Bolena, 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.