New York Philharmonic Contact: Katherine E. Johnson

(212) 875 -5718; [email protected] LUCERNE FESTIVAL Contact: Eric Latzky

Culture | Communications NY (212) 358-0223; [email protected]

MetLiveArts Contact: Meryl Cates (212) 650-2684; [email protected]

May 23–June 11, 2016

JUNE 3–5, 2016, AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: LIGETI FORWARD ALAN GILBERT To Conduct Ensemble of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ALUMNI in Three Programs of Works by Unsuk CHIN, Gérard GRISEY, Alexandre LUNSQUI, Marc-André DALBAVIE, Dai FUJIKURA, and John ZORN Alongside György LIGETI Concertos with Soloists Conor HANICK, Jay CAMPBELL, and Pekka KUUSISTO Conceived of and Programmed by Jay Campbell Live Video Webcast

As part of the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, Alan Gilbert will conduct the Ensemble of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ALUMNI at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium in Ligeti Forward, three programs exploring György Ligeti (Hungary, 1923–2006) as a fountainhead of modern music through three of his concertos — the Piano Concerto, performed by Conor Hanick; Cello Concerto, performed by Jay Campbell; and Violin Concerto, performed by Pekka Kuusisto — alongside works by his students Unsuk Chin (South Korea, b. 1961) and Gérard Grisey (France, 1946–98), as well as works by Alexandre Lunsqui (Brazil, b. 1969, now a U.S. resident), Marc- André Dalbavie (France, b. 1961), Dai Fujikura (Japan, b. 1977), and John Zorn (United States, b. 1953). David Fulmer will conduct the works by Lunsqui, Grisey, Fujikura, and Chin. Ligeti Forward will take place approximately ten years after Ligeti’s death on June 12, 2006. Many of these composers have been featured in CONTACT!, the Philharmonic’s new-music series. Ligeti Forward was conceived of and programmed by cellist Jay Campbell.

The first Ligeti Forward program couples Ligeti’s Piano Concerto (1985–88), performed by Conor Hanick, with Alexandre Lunsqui’s Three Short Pieces (2014) and Kinetic Study 2

(1998), as well as Unsuk Chin’s Fantaisie mécanique (1994, rev. 1997). Ligeti’s Piano Concerto illustrates his fascination with polyrhythms, and much of the concerto exists in a state of perpetual motion, with four of the five movements being fast. Alexandre Lunsqui writes of his Kinetic Study 2, which also features perpetual motion: “The friction between a fast moto perpetuo and fragmented melodic lines creates layers of rhythms and harmonic packages in constant motion.” Of his Three Short Pieces — comprising Positions (for flute, clarinet, and piano), Relevo.Eco (for flute and clarinet), and Jeuesquisse (for violin and cello) — Lunsqui writes: “In each one of these short pieces, the instruments are connected like the gears of a mechanical clock. But instead of a single pulse, they generate playful rhythms, colors, and textures.” South Korean composer Unsuk Chin, who studied with Ligeti at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, writes that her Fantaisie mécanique is “a union of two contradictory concepts: improvisation and predetermined structure.”

The second Ligeti Forward program features Ligeti’s Cello Concerto (1966), performed by Jay Campbell, alongside Marc-André Dalbavie’s Axiom (2004) and Dai Fujikura’s ice (2009–10). Ligeti’s Cello Concerto opens with a single note sustained for more than a minute, first on the cello then expanded throughout the ensemble, in an exploration of timbre. Dedicated to Ligeti, French composer Marc-André Dalbavie’s quartet Axiom nods to Ligeti’s rigorous musical logic, including in his 1951–53 Musica ricercata for solo piano. Influenced by the work of Ligeti during his studies at the Trinity College of Music, Japanese composer Dai Fujikura writes of his ice: “I started the piece by imagining the sound of golden dust on the palm of my hand, which I would blow gently, and the sound of ice sheets cracking as they rub against each other.”

The final Ligeti Forward program features Ligeti’s Violin Concerto (1990, rev. 1992– 93), performed by Pekka Kuusisto, alongside Gérard Grisey’s Talea (ou la machine et les herbes folles) (1986) and John Zorn’s Remedy of Fortune (2015), performed by the Mivos Quartet (comprising LUCERNE FESTIVAL ACADEMY alumni). Ligeti’s Violin Concerto blends avant-garde and traditional elements, and utilizes alternate tunings — a violin and a viola are tuned to the natural harmonics of the double bass — producing unusual sonic effects. French spectral composer Gérard Grisey, who studied with Ligeti, begins his Talea with an idea from which elements are gradually removed and others put in their place, a style reminiscent of Medieval and Renaissance motet structures and also popular with 20th-century experimental composers. American composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist John Zorn’s Remedy of Fortune was inspired by a poem by 14th- century composer Guillaume de Machaut that explores, in Zorn’s words, “the changing fortunes of romantic love: pain, desire, devotion, hope, beauty, longing, ecstasy, intoxication, frustration, anger and despair.” Zorn’s connections to Ligeti include his work À Rebours, written as a memorial to Ligeti, and a cadenza for Ligeti’s Violin Concerto commissioned by Jennifer Koh. John Zorn’s music will also be performed on the NY PHIL BIENNIAL program featuring Brooklyn Rider.

Ligeti Forward is co-presented by the New York Philharmonic, LUCERNE FESTIVAL, and MetLiveArts, the performance series at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Related Events  Live Video Webcast The three Ligeti Forward performances will be video webcast live on metmuseum.org/ligeti. The video will also be available later for on-demand viewing.

 Play Date All audience members attending the NY PHIL BIENNIAL concert on June 5 are invited to the NY PHIL BIENNIAL Play Date, post-concert meet-ups with composers and performers over cocktails, with LUCERNE FESTIVAL and MetLiveArts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 #biennialist The New York Philharmonic invites audience members to be a #biennialist. The five attendees who attend the most NY PHIL BIENNIAL events and post about it on social media will win a free pair of tickets to the final concert, featuring the New York Philharmonic conducted by Music Director Alan Gilbert, June 11 at David Geffen Hall. Additional prizes and offerings for #biennialists will be offered; follow the New York Philharmonic on its social media channels (instagram.com/nyphilharmonic and twitter.com/nyphil) for more information.

About the NY PHIL BIENNIAL A flagship project of the New York Philharmonic, the NY PHIL BIENNIAL is a wide- ranging exploration of today’s music that brings together an international roster of composers, performers, and curatorial voices for concerts presented both on the Lincoln Center campus and with partners in venues throughout the city. The second NY PHIL BIENNIAL, taking place May 23–June 11, 2016, will feature diverse programs — ranging from solo works to a chamber opera to large scale symphonies — by more than 100 composers, more than half of whom are American; present some of the country’s top music schools and youth choruses; and expand to more New York City neighborhoods. A range of events and activities will engender an ongoing dialogue among artists, composers, and audience members. Partners in the 2016 NY PHIL BIENNIAL include National Sawdust; 92nd Street Y; Aspen Music Festival and School; Interlochen Center for the Arts; League of Composers/ISCM; Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; LUCERNE FESTIVAL; MetLiveArts; New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival; Whitney Museum of American Art; WQXR’s Q2 Music; and Yale School of Music. For complete information about the 2016 NY PHIL BIENNIAL, see press release.

Artists Music Director Alan Gilbert began his New York Philharmonic tenure in 2009, the first native New Yorker in the post. He and the Philharmonic have 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. As The New Yorker wrote, “Gilbert has made an indelible mark on the orchestra’s history and that of the city itself.”

Alan Gilbert’s 2015–16 Philharmonic highlights include R. Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben to welcome Concertmaster Frank Huang; Carnegie Hall’s Opening Night Gala; and four World Premieres. He co-curates and conducts in the second NY PHIL BIENNIAL and performs violin in Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. He leads the Orchestra as part of the Shanghai Orchestra Academy and Residency Partnership and appears at Santa Barbara’s Music Academy of the West. Philharmonic-tenure 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 (for which Mr. Gilbert was nominated for a 2015 Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Direction), and Honegger’s Joan of Arc at the Stake starring Marion Cotillard; 24 World Premieres; The Nielsen Project, a performance and recording cycle; Verdi Requiem and Bach’s B-minor Mass; the score from 2001: A Space Odyssey alongside the film; Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony on the tenth anniversary of 9/11; and nine tours around the world. In August 2015 he led the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in the U.S. Stage Premiere of George Benjamin’s Written on Skin, co-presented as part of the Lincoln Center–New York Philharmonic Opera Initiative.

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 Mr. Gilbert makes debuts with four great European orchestras — Filarmonica della Scala, Dresden Staatskapelle, London Symphony, and Academy of St Martin in the Fields — and returns to The Cleveland Orchestra and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. He made his acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut conducting John Adams’s Doctor Atomic in 2008, 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 received top honors from the Chicago Tribune and Gramophone magazine. 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 an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from The Curtis Institute of Music (2010), Columbia University’s Ditson Conductor’s Award for his “exceptional commitment to the performance of works by American composers and to contemporary music” (2011), election to The American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2014), a Foreign Policy Association Medal for his commitment to cultural diplomacy (2015), and being named Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

A leader in his generation of composer-performers, Guggenheim Fellow David Fulmer has garnered numerous international accolades for his bold compositional aesthetic combined with his thrilling performances. A surge of new and recent commissions include Ensemble Intercontemporain, Berlin Philharmonic Scharoun Ensemble, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Alte Oper Frankfurt, BMI Foundation, Concert Artists Guild, Washington Performing Arts, and the Fromm Music Foundation. He recently led the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, NFM Wrocław Philharmonic, International Contemporary Ensemble, and the ELISION Ensemble, and will be making important debuts this coming season leading the Ensemble Intercontemporain, South Netherlands Philharmonic, and Asko Ensemble, and returning to the Wrocław Philharmonic. He graduated from The Juilliard School.

Armed with a diverse spectrum of repertoire and eclectic musical interests, cellist Jay Campbell has soloed in major venues around the globe including Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, Avery Fisher Hall, and Lucerne’s KKL, as well as recitals in Carnegie’s Weill Hall and the Kennedy, Mondavi, and Krannert centers. Dedicated to introducing audiences to the music of our time, Mr. Campbell has worked closely with musicians including Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, Matthias Pintscher, and Kaija Saariaho. His close association with John Zorn resulted in the 2015 release of Hen to Pan, featuring works written for Jay Campbell, which was listed in The New York Times year-end Best Recordings of 2015. Forthcoming releases include recordings of Beethoven, Debussy, Stravinsky, and Pintscher (Victor Elmaleh Collection), and of works commissioned for Jay Campbell by David Fulmer on Tzadik records. Mr. Campbell is currently on faculty at Vassar College and has been a guest at the Marlboro, Chamber Music Northwest, Moab, Heidelberger-Fruhling, DITTO, and Lincoln Center festivals. Jay Campbell appeared with the New York Philharmonic as part of a January 2013 Young People’s Concert, led by Joshua Weilerstein.

An advocate of new music, violinist Pekka Kuusisto regularly works with composers such as Nico Muhly and Thomas Adès and gave the World Premiere of Sebastian Fagerlund’s Violin Concerto. This season he returns to the Scottish Chamber, City of Birmingham, and Toronto symphony orchestras, and debuts with the Bamberg Symphony. He will perform recitals at the Bachwoche Festival in Ansbach, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw, Dortmund Konzerthaus, and London’s Wigmore Hall. This past January, Mr. Kuusisto became artistic director of ACO Collective, a string ensemble which connects the musicians of the Australian Chamber Orchestra with Australia’s most talented young professional musicians to deliver innovative projects across the country. Following a longstanding creative collaboration with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, he takes on the role of artistic partner with the ensemble beginning in the 2016–17 season. In addition to his many international commitments, Mr. Kuusisto frequently performs and curates projects in his native Finland. This season he returns to the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra to perform Sibelius’s Violin Concerto to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, conducted by Susanna Mälkki. In 2013 Mr. Kuusisto was the recipient of the Nordic Council Music Prize. He plays a Giovanni Baptista Guadagnini violin of 1752 kindly loaned by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

Pianist Conor Hanick has performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. In performances ranging from the early Baroque to the newly written, Mr. Hanick has collaborated with some of the world’s leading ensembles and conductors, including Pierre Boulez, David Robertson, and James Levine. He has premiered dozens of new scores and been showcased at virtually every major performance venue in New York City. In addition to working with established composers as diverse as John Adams and Matthias Pintscher, Mr. Hanick maintains close relationships with composers of his own generation, collaborating with David Fulmer, Sam Adams, Vivian Fung, and David Hertzberg. His 2015–16 season features a concerto appearance with Jeffery Milarsky and The Juilliard Orchestra in Milton Babbitt’s Second Piano Concerto at Alice Tully Hall. In addition, he joins with The Metropolitan Opera Chamber Players and James Levine at Carnegie Hall in music by Pierre Boulez; the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) in music of Louis Andriessen at Park Avenue Armory; cellist Joshua Roman at

Town Hall in Seattle; and pianist Pedja Muzijevic at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City. A recent finalist for the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, he is a graduate of Northwestern University and The Juilliard School, where he received his masters and doctorate degrees.

The Mivos Quartet is devoted to performing the works of contemporary composers and presenting new music to diverse audiences. Since the quartet's beginnings in 2008 they have performed works by emerging and established international composers who represent varied aesthetics of contemporary composition. Mivos is invested in commissioning and premiering new music for string quartet, particularly in a context of close collaboration with composers over extended time-periods. Recent collaborations include works with Mark Barden (Wien Modern Commission, Dan Blake (Jerome Commission), Richard Carrick (Fromm Commission), Patrick Higgins (ZS), Sam Pluta (Lucerne Festival Commission), Kate Soper, Saul Williams, Scott Wollschleger, and Eric Wubbels (CMA commission). Mivos is committed to working with guest artists, exploring multi-media projects involving live video and electronics, creating original compositions and arrangements for the quartet, and performing improvised music. The quartet has appeared on concert series including Wien Modern (Austria), Transart (Italy), Music at the Phillips (Washington, DC), Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), HellHOT! New Music Festival (Hong Kong), Festival International Chihuahua (México), Edgefest (Ann Arbor, MI), Asphalt Festival (Germany), and Aldeburgh Music (UK).

* * * Ligeti Forward is supported by Swiss Re — Partner LUCERNE FESTIVAL ALUMNI.

* * * Additional generous funding for Ligeti Forward is provided by Julia Lanigan.

* * * Major support for the NY PHIL BIENNIAL is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, and The Francis Goelet Fund.

* * * Additional funding is provided by the Howard Gilman Foundation and Honey M. Kurtz.

Tickets Tickets for these performances are $50. Tickets may be purchased online at metmuseum.org/ligeti.

For press tickets, contact Meryl Cates at (212) 650-2684 or [email protected].

For more information about all NY PHIL BIENNIAL events, visit nyphil.org/biennial.

LIGETI FORWARD Co-Presented by the New York Philharmonic, LUCERNE FESTIVAL, and MetLiveArts

The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1000 Fifth Avenue

Friday, June 3, 2016, 7:00 p.m., Program I Saturday, June 4, 2016, 7:00 p.m., Program II Sunday, June 5, 2016, 2:00 p.m., Program III Concerts will be video webcast live on metmuseum.org/ligeti, and later available on-demand

Play Date with LUCERNE FESTIVAL and MetLiveArts following the concert on June 5 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Alan Gilbert, conductor David Fulmer, conductor (Lunsqui, Chin, Fujikura, and Grisey) Conor Hanick, piano Jay Campbell, cello Pekka Kuusisto, violin Ensemble of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ALUMNI

Ligeti Forward, Program I Alexandre LUNSQUI Three Short Pieces Alexandre LUNSQUI Kinetic Study 2 Unsuk CHIN Fantaisie mécanique LIGETI Piano Concerto

Ligeti Forward, Program II Marc-André DALBAVIE Axiom LIGETI Cello Concerto Dai FUJIKURA ice

Ligeti Forward, Program III GRISEY Talea John ZORN Remedy of Fortune Mivos Quartet LIGETI Violin Concerto

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ALL PROGRAMS SUBJECT TO CHANGE

Photography is available for the NY PHIL BIENNIAL at nyphil.org/newsroom/1516/biennial or by contacting the Communications Department at (212) 875-5700; [email protected].