FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE UPDATE February 4, 2013 Contact: Katherine E. Johnson (212) 875-5718; [email protected]

NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC TO CELEBRATE THE CHINESE NEW YEAR — THE YEAR OF THE SNAKE — WITH GALA CONCERT February 12, 2013

LONG YU TO CONDUCT Jazz Pianist HERBIE HANCOCK, Soprano YING HUANG, Mezzo-Soprano JENNIFER JOHNSON CANO, and Speaker HSIN-MEI AGNES HSU To Perform SNOW LOTUS TRIO and Soprano YAN WANG To Sing in Traditional Costume

Program To Spotlight Contrasts and Connections Between Chinese and Western Music

Broadcast on THIRTEEN/WNET and Nationally in China on Beijing Television (BTV) Medici.tv To Offer Free Webcast Beginning February 16

Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company To Perform Traditional Dragon Dance with Lady White from the Legend of the White Serpent Free Performance Open To Public on Lincoln Center’s Josie Robertson Plaza, 5:00 p.m. on February 12 Performance To Continue at Avery Fisher Hall Throughout Evening

The New York Philharmonic in collaboration with CAMI Music will celebrate the Chinese New Year for the second consecutive year with a Gala concert exploring the contrasts and connections between Chinese and Western music, Tuesday, February 12, 2013, at 7:30 p.m. A new tradition for the Philharmonic, the event celebrates the cultural heritage of China and America and honors the Chinese-American community. Long Yu — artistic director and chief conductor of the China Philharmonic, music director of the Shanghai and Guanzhou Symphony Orchestras, artistic director of the Beijing Music Festival, and a key figure in the creation of the Philharmonic’s Orchestral Academy and performance residencies in Shanghai — will return to the Philharmonic to conduct the concert. The New York Philharmonic’s Chinese New Year festivities will be broadcast in the New York area on THIRTEEN/WNET and nationwide in China on Beijing Television (BTV), as well as Webcast for free by medici.tv (www.medici.TV) beginning February 16, 2013, at 1:00 p.m. EST for 90 days.

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Grammy Award–winning jazz pianist Herbie Hancock will make his Philharmonic debut performing contemporary Chinese composer Qigang Chen’s Er Huang, for Piano and Orchestra. Soprano and Peking Opera star Yan Wang (also in her Philharmonic debut) will sing the Peking Opera classic The Drunken Concubine in makeup and costume. The Snow Lotus Trio, a folk ensemble from the mountains of China (also making its debut), will appear in national costume, joining forces with the New York Philharmonic to showcase Chinese folk-music traditions. The program will also juxtapose two settings of the same Tang Dynasty poems by Li Bai and Wang Wei: “Der Einsame im Herbst,” from Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, and the U.S. Premiere of contemporary Chinese composer Ye Xiaogang’s The Song of the Earth, inspired by Mahler’s song cycle. Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano will perform “Der Einsame im Herbst,” soprano Ying Huang (debut) will sing The Song of the Earth, and Hsin-Mei Agnes Hsu (debut) will recite selected readings of the poems that inspired both works, including the English translation of “Long Autumn Night.” The Spring Festival Overture, a traditional work celebrating the Chinese New Year, will once again open the concert, ringing in the Lunar New Year.

Also for the second consecutive year, a special Dragon Dance will take place in and around Avery Fisher Hall beginning at approximately 5:00 p.m. (weather permitting), this time including a performer dressed in full costume as Lady White from the Legend of the White Serpent. Arranged for the occasion by Nai-Ni Chen, it will be performed by the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company and be accompanied by live percussion music.

Gala events will include a pre-concert champagne reception from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m., the concert, and a seated dinner immediately following the concert. The dress will be traditional Chinese attire or black-tie. Honorary Gala Chairmen are Mr. and Mrs. Maurice R. Greenberg and H.E. Ambassador SUN Guoxiang, Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in New York, and Madam WANG Min. The Gala Co-Chairmen are Angela Chen, Guoqing Chen and Ming Liu, Gary W. Parr, Oscar L. Tang, and Shirley Young. A portion of the proceeds will support a music-education program for public school students in New York City’s Chinese community.

Artists Conductor Long Yu is co-founder, artistic director, and chief conductor of the China Philharmonic Orchestra, music director of the Shanghai and Guanzhou Symphony Orchestras, founding artistic director of the Beijing Music Festival, and a key figure in the creation of the Philharmonic’s Orchestral Academy and performance residencies in Shanghai. Long Yu has appeared with Orchestre de Paris, Hamburg Staatsoper, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Teatro la Fenice, and Philadelphia Orchestra; the Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and Tokyo philharmonic orchestras; and the Chicago, Sydney, and Singapore symphony orchestras. In the summer of 2010 Long Yu led the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in a historic joint performance with the New York Philharmonic on Central Park’s Great Lawn in celebration of the World Expo, featuring Lang Lang as one of the soloists. Later that year he brought Yo-Yo Ma, Midori, Sarah Chang, and others to Guangzhou for the Canton Asian Music Festival in connection with the XVI Asian Games. In 1992 Long Yu was appointed principal conductor of the Central Opera (more) Chinese New Year / 3

Theatre in Beijing. He also produced operas for the Urban Council of Hong Kong for five successive years. His work with the Beijing Music Festival, which he helped create in 1998, has included overseeing commissions of new works from Krzysztof Penderecki, Philip Glass, Guo Wenjing, and Ye Xiaogang. Deutsche Grammophon has released Long Yu’s recordings of Wagner’s Tannhäuser Overture, Brahms’s Piano Quartet in G minor, and a wide range of Chinese orchestral music, including Xian Xinghai’s Yellow River Concerto with Lang Lang as soloist. Long Yu was born into a family of musicians in Shanghai. He received early education from his grandfather Ding Shande, a renowned composer, later studying at the Shanghai Conservatory and the Hochschule der Kunst in Berlin. Long Yu last conducted the New York Philharmonic in January 2012, his debut, conducting the inaugural Chinese New Year Gala concert.

Herbie Hancock is a true icon of modern music. Throughout his explorations he has transcended limitations and genres while maintaining his unmistakable voice. In addition to being recognized as a legendary pianist and composer, Mr. Hancock has been an integral part of every jazz movement since the 1960s. As a member of the Miles Davis Quintet, he became one of the pioneers of the avant-garde sound. His recordings during the 1970s combined electric jazz with funk and rock sounds in an innovative style that continues to influence contemporary music. Rockit and Future Shock marked Mr. Hancock’s foray into electronic dance music and included several chart-topping hits; during the same period he continued to work in an acoustic setting with V.S.O.P., which included ex-Miles Davis band-mates Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams. Herbie Hancock received an Academy Award for his Round Midnight film score as well as 14 Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year for River: The Joni Letters and two 2011 Grammy Awards for his recently released globally collaborative CD, The Imagine Project. Many of his compositions — including Cantaloupe Island, Maiden Voyage, Watermelon Man, and Chameleon — are modern standards that have had a profound effect on all styles of modern music. This performance marks Herbie Hancock’s New York Philharmonic debut.

Ying Huang has appeared in operas at The , Brussels’s Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Royal Danish Opera, Cologne Opera House, and China National Center of Performing Arts. She has performed major roles in Mozart’s , The Magic Flute, and Don Giovanni; Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore; Verdi’s Rigoletto and ; Massenet’s ; and Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. She became the first Chinese vocalist to star in an opera movie when she played Cio-Cio San in Frédéric Mitterrand’s 1995 film of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. In December 2006 she starred in The Magic Flute at The Metropolitan Opera, the first in the globally broadcast Met HD Live series. In 2009 she was selected for the “Wall of Fame” in the Met’s 125th anniversary celebration. Equally devoted to Chinese contemporary opera, Ms. Huang worked with to prepare the opera The First Emperor and starred in his Peony Pavilion, Guo Wenjing’s The Poet Li Po, and others. In 2011 she played the title role in the premiere production of ’s Madame White Snake, which won the Pulitzer Prize. On the concert stage, Ying Huang has appeared regularly with the Chicago Symphony, London Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, and SWR Radio orchestras. She has sung at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Goldener Saal in Vienna’s Musikverein. Her festival engagements have (more) Chinese New Year / 4 included the Mostly Mozart Festival, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Vienna’s Festwochen, Cincinnati Music Festival, Beijing International Music Festival, and Shanghai’s Music in the Summer Air. A recording artist for Sony Classical, Ying Huang has recorded ’s Ça Ira with and Paul Groves, arias with and the London Symphony Orchestra, Richard Danielpour’s Sonnets to Orpheus, and Bitter Love, a concise version of Peony Pavilion composed and conducted by Tan Dun. This performance marks Ying Huang’s New York Philharmonic debut.

A 2012 Richard Tucker Career Grant and Opera Index Winner and a 2011 Sara Tucker Study Grant Recipient, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano joined The Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at The Metropolitan Opera in 2008 and made her Met debut in 2009–10. As First Prize winner of the 2009 Young Concert Artist International Auditions, she was awarded the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival and Princeton University Prizes, and has given acclaimed recital debuts at New York’s Merkin Concert Hall and Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, and in Boston, Philadelphia, Houston, and Chicago. Ms. Cano has appeared with ensembles including the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras, The Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s. She toured with Musicians from Marlboro singing Respighi’s Il Tramonto and Cuckson’s Der gayst funem shture, recorded live and released by the Marlboro Recording Society. A live recording of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with tenor Paul Groves was released by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in September 2012, as was a DVD set devoted to Robert LePage’s Ring cycle for The Metropolitan Opera in which Ms. Cano portrays the Rhinemaiden Wellgunde. Ms. Cano has been part of the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Institute, and received a 2009 Sullivan Foundation Award. She was invited to sing the Anderson/Weill standard “September Song” at the private funeral for American icon and astronaut Neil Armstrong at the request of Mrs. Carol Armstrong. Jennifer Johnson Cano is a native of St. Louis, Missouri, and earned her bachelor’s degree in music from Webster University and her master’s degree from Rice University. She appears with the New York Philharmonic for this concert courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera. Jennifer Johnson Cano made her New York Philharmonic debut in November 2010 performing Mendelssohn’s Elijah, conducted by Alan Gilbert. She most recently appeared with the Philharmonic in July 2012 at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival performing Mozart’s Mass in C minor, Great, conducted by Alan Gilbert.

Tianjin Peking Opera Theater National Class-A Actress Yan Wang has become one of the leading figures among young Peking Opera performers. She graduated from the Tianjin Academy of Art and the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts (NACTA) Third Peking Opera Young Performers Graduate School Class, where she studied Qing Yi and Hua Shan and appeared in plays such as Qian Kun Fu Shou Mirror and Farewell My Concubine with performing artist Mr. Yang Ronghuan. She studied with famed Peking Opera artist and teacher Liu Xiurong and was coached by Peking Opera masters Yang Qiuling, Jiang Fengshan, Li Weikang, and Mei Baojiu. Ms. Wang began at the Tianjin Peking Opera Theater in 1999. She studied Yang Female Warriors with famed Peking Opera performance artist Yang Qiuling, and subsequently performed it in Tianjin and Beijing, broadcast by China Central Television (more) Chinese New Year / 5

(CCTV). Ms. Wang earned the Outstanding Individual Performance Award for her performance as the lead role in the Peking Opera Mazu at the fourth China Peking Opera Art Festival. In 2007 Yan Wang performed in Princess Wencheng at the National Peking Opera Company. She also played the leading role in the adapted drama Xie Yaohuan. This performance marks Yan Wang’s New York Philharmonic debut.

The Snow Lotus Trio is an ethnic music ensemble consisting of three sisters — Rhywosi-man, Hasi-man, and Kersi-man — from Aba Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in China. The trio was created in 2002 and came to instant prominence following its debut with the China Film Philharmonic. Since then it has performed on the nation’s most prestigious stages and appeared in several China Central Television documentaries exploring China’s musical traditions. In 2007 the Snow Lotus Trio’s performance was the highlight of the closing ceremony of the Shanghai Special Olympics. The sisters bring their minority cultural heritage to the global stage with their compelling performances featuring traditional costumes, dancing, and singing as they blend the timelessness of the beautiful Tibetan countryside with a contemporary aesthetic. The Snow Lotus Trio’s unique style has attracted millions of fans across China and is generating growing recognition abroad. This appearance marks the Snow Lotus Trio’s New York Philharmonic debut.

Dr. Hsin-Mei Agnes Hsu is an archaeologist and host of History Channel Asia’s new series Mysteries of China. As an International Expert to UNESCO World Heritage Centre since 2006, she has served on the scientific committees for the nominations of the Qhapag Ñan (the Incan Road) and the Continental Silk Road; she was also an academic leader to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan on behalf of UNESCO and the American Museum of Natural History. Previously Dr. Hsu served as the special assistant to Ambassador James R. Lilley, a former U.S. envoy to China and South Korea. She studied Classical Archaeology, English Literature, and East Asian Studies at Bryn Mawr College and received her master’s in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Ph.D. in Chinese Art and Archaeology from the University of Pennsylvania. In 2002 Dr. Hsu was the first American graduate student to receive a Mellon Foundation pre-doctoral fellowship especially for the study of ancient Chinese science at the Needham Research Institute at Cambridge University. From 2004 to 2007, she was on the faculty at Brown University and was subsequently recruited by Stanford University for a Presidential Fund for Innovation to conduct research on Rome and Han China. Later, she was the resident scholar at the China Institute in America. Her research and publications have focused on cross-cultural studies of early empires and cartographic science, including a white paper on “The Exceptional Universal Value of the Road Systems in Ancient Empires: A Comparative Study of the Chinese Oasis Route of the Early Silk Road and the Qhapag Ñan”; a chapter in Geography, Ethnography, and Perceptions of the World from Antiquity to the Renaissance; and “An Emic Perspective of the Ancient Mapmaker’s Art,” which was published by Cambridge University Press and considered for the Barwis-Holliday Award for Far Eastern Studies by the Royal Asiatic Society. Since 2009 Dr. Hsu has consulted and appeared on Discovery Channel’s The Giant Buddha at Leshan and Xi’an: China’s Forgotten City and PBS’s China’s Terracotta Army. Most recently, she was the on-camera expert on Chinese history for the History Channel’s documentary series Mankind: The History of All of Us. This appearance marks her New York Philharmonic debut. (more) Chinese New Year / 6

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

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

* * * Golden Prairie is the sponsor of the Chinese New Year broadcasts.

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Tickets Tickets for this concert start at $35. All tickets may be purchased online at nyphil.org or by calling (212) 875-5656, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, and 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. 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 Marketing and Communications Department at (212) 875-5714, or e-mail her at [email protected].

For information about purchasing tables or tickets(more) to the Gala events (including reception, concert, and dinner), please contact Jennifer Levine at [email protected], or 212 New-875 -Year5760. / 6\

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New York Philharmonic

Avery Fisher Hall

Chinese New Year Gala Concert

Tuesday, February 12, 2013, 7:30 p.m.

Long Yu, conductor Herbie Hancock, piano* Ying Huang, soprano* Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano Yan Wang, soprano* Snow Lotus Trio* Hsin-Mei Agnes Hsu, speaker*

LI Huanzhi Spring Festival Overture MAHLER “Der Einsame im Herbst,” from Das Lied von der Erde YE Xiaogang “Imitation of an Old Poem: Long Autumn Night,” from The Song of the Earth (U.S. Premiere) CHEN Qigang Er Huang, for Piano and Orchestra TRADITIONAL/Zou Ye The Drunken Concubine TRADITIONAL Selections with the Snow Lotus Trio

*denotes New York Philharmonic debut

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