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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 7, 2013 Contact: Katherine E. Johnson (212) 875-5718; [email protected] ALAN GILBERT AND THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC MUSIC DIRECTOR TO CONDUCT THREE PROGRAMS IN APRIL HIGHLIGHTING ARTISTIC COLLABORATIONS THREE AMERICANS: IVES’s Symphony No. 4, WORLD PREMIERE of COMPOSER-IN-RESIDENCE Christopher ROUSE’s Prospero’s Rooms BERNSTEIN’s Serenade with JOSHUA BELL April 17–20, 2013 ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE EMANUEL AX To Perform MOZART’s Piano Concerto No. 25 Alan Gilbert To Conclude Program with BRUCKNER’s Symphony No. 3 April 24–25 and 27, 2013 One-Night-Only Performance with WORLD PREMIERE of Anders HILLBORG’s The Strand Settings, A New York Philharmonic–Carnegie Hall Co-Commission Featuring RENÉE FLEMING April 26, 2013 Music Director Alan Gilbert will conduct the New York Philharmonic in three programs in April, each reflecting the Music Director’s belief in the value of long-term artistic collaboration, which he has emphasized throughout his tenure. The first program, featuring music by three iconic American composers, includes the World Premiere of Prospero’s Rooms, a New York Philharmonic Commission by Christopher Rouse, who is in the first of two seasons as the Philharmonic’s Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence; Serenade (after Plato’s “Symposium”) by Bernstein, the Orchestra’s Laureate Conductor, with violinist Joshua Bell as soloist; and Ives’s Symphony No. 4 on Wednesday, April 17, 2013, at 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, April 19 at 8:00 p.m.; and Saturday, April 20 at 8:00 p.m. In Alan Gilbert’s second program, the Orchestra reunites with current Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Emanuel Ax for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25, followed by Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3 on Wednesday, April 24, 2013, at 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, April 25 at 7:30 p.m.; and Saturday, April 27 at 8:00 p.m. (more) Alan Gilbert / Joshua Bell / Emanuel Ax / Renée Fleming / 2 Finally, on Friday, April 26, 2013, at 8:00 p.m., Alan Gilbert takes the Philharmonic to Carnegie Hall, where the Orchestra has performed annually during Mr. Gilbert’s tenure, for a program featuring the World Premiere of Anders Hillborg’s The Strand Settings, a New York Philharmonic Co-Commission with Carnegie Hall, with soprano Renée Fleming; Respighi’s Fountains of Rome; and Ravel’s orchestration of Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. The concert is part of Carnegie Hall’s Perspectives series with Ms. Fleming. Mr. Gilbert previously led Ives’s Symphony No. 4 with the Orchestra in May 2004 before he became Music Director, as part of the Philharmonic festival Charles Ives: An American Original. “I’ll never forget that experience,” Alan Gilbert said. “I spent a lot of time studying the score and trying to figure out what Ives meant, and the symphony became very important to me very quickly. What the New York Philharmonic was able to do with it — both to conquer it technically and also to transmit its very spiritual, profound message — was definitive. Ives influenced the generations of American composers that followed him, and this program can make us all proud of what has happened in composition in America over the last 100 years.” Four years later New York magazine, anticipating the beginning of Alan Gilbert’s tenure as Music Director, recalled the performance: “I can still savor a night in 2004, when Gilbert steered the New York Philharmonic through Ives’s lunatic Fourth Symphony, making the madness seem inevitable and wringing an awesome clarity out of the maelstrom of sound.” Christopher Rouse based Prospero’s Rooms on Edgar Allan Poe’s symbolist story “The Masque of the Red Death,” in which Prince Prospero locks his friends in his house of seven rooms, each painted a different color, to escape the Red Death. Mr. Rouse said that a crucial step in creating the piece was deciding how to depict the sound of a clock striking, and he worked with Principal Percussion Christopher S. Lamb until they created a combined sound from a large tuned gong, bell plate, and tam-tam. “Of course, there are 12 strokes of the clock,” Mr. Rouse said. “Does anyone know a piece in which you have a clock that only rings three times?” The April 17–20 program marks Alan Gilbert’s first all-American subscription program during his tenure as Music Director, although he says that the repertoire is united by a shared philosophical, rather than national, connection. “[Creating all-American programs] can lead to a kind of tokenism in programming, the assumption that we can take care of our American-music responsibility in one fell swoop,” Alan Gilbert said. “Supporting American music is really about building relationships with American composers and creating an atmosphere that encourages them to be optimistic about where their music can end up.” Of the second program’s soloist, Alan Gilbert said: “Playing Mozart with Manny Ax is a real joy and privilege. He has a lightness and elegance of touch supported by an incredible warmth. The word that comes to mind so often when I think about Manny and his musicianship is ‘natural.’ The performance unfolds in an absolutely compelling, inevitable way, and he inspires the musicians he works with to join his natural breathing of the music.” After appearing on the Philharmonic’s EUROPE / SPRING 2013 tour, Emanuel Ax’s residency continues June 20–22, 2013, when he performs Seeing for Piano and Orchestra by Composer-in-Residence Christopher Rouse as part of June Journey: Gilbert’s Playlist. (more) Alan Gilbert / Joshua Bell / Emanuel Ax / Renée Fleming / 3 “Anders Hillborg is a composer whose work I have enjoyed performing and championing over the last few years, and we have a close musical relationship,” Alan Gilbert said of the composer whose work he is premiering at Carnegie Hall. “One of the areas in which I feel that he has a lot of potential but really hasn’t explored very much is vocal music, so I’ve been pushing him for a long time now to write songs and vocal music. Renée Fleming has become very excited about his music, for understandable reasons — Hillborg himself had been a rocker, so there’s a kind of rhythmic excitement that anyone can identify with.” Alan Gilbert will again lead Christopher Rouse’s Prospero’s Rooms, Bernstein’s Serenade with Joshua Bell as soloist, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 with Emanuel Ax as soloist, and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3 on the Orchestra’s EUROPE / SPRING 2013 tour in May. Related Events Pre-Concert Talks Paul Moravec, Pulitzer Prize–winning composer and Distinguished Professor of Music at Adelphi University, will introduce the program April 17–20, and author Fred Plotkin will introduce the program April 24–25 and 27. Pre-Concert Talks are $7; discounts available for multiple concerts, students, and groups. They take place one hour before each performance in the Helen Hull Room, unless otherwise noted. Attendance is limited to 90 people. Information: nyphil.org or (212) 875-5656. Insights Series Event — “An Evening with Christopher Rouse” Christopher Rouse, The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence, speaker Edward Yim, moderator Musicians of the Philharmonic Tuesday, April 16, 2013, 6:30 p.m. New York Institute of Technology Auditorium on Broadway, 1871 Broadway at 61st Street Christopher Rouse — one of America’s most prominent composers of orchestral music — discusses his role as the Philharmonic’s Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence; the World Premiere of Prospero’s Rooms; and the stories behind some of his works, among the most emotionally charged music being composed today. The event will include a performance of the composer’s String Quartet No. 2 by Philharmonic musicians. Tickets for Insights Series events are $20. National and International Radio Broadcast The April 17–20 program will be broadcast the week of April 28, 2013,* on The New York Philharmonic This Week, a radio concert series syndicated weekly to more than 300 stations nationally, and to 122 outlets internationally, by the WFMT Radio Network. The April 24–25 and 27 program will be broadcast the week of May 5, 2013.* The 52-week series, hosted by actor Alec Baldwin, is generously underwritten by The Kaplen Foundation, the Audrey Love Charitable Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Philharmonic’s corporate partner, MetLife Foundation. The broadcast will (more) Alan Gilbert / Joshua Bell / Emanuel Ax / Renée Fleming / 4 be available on the Philharmonic’s Website, nyphil.org. The program is broadcast locally in the New York metropolitan area on 105.9 FM WQXR on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. *Check local listings for broadcast and program information. Artists Music Director Alan Gilbert began his tenure at the New York Philharmonic in September 2009, launching what New York magazine called “a fresh future for the Philharmonic.” The first native New Yorker in the post, he has introduced the positions of The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence and The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence, an annual multi-week festival, and CONTACT!, the new-music series, and he has sought to make the Orchestra a point of civic pride for the city and country. In 2012–13, Alan Gilbert conducts world premieres; presides over a cycle of Brahms’s complete symphonies and concertos; leads the EUROPE / SPRING 2013 tour; and continues The Nielsen Project, the multiyear initiative to perform and record the Danish composer’s symphonies and concertos, the first release of which was named by The New York Times as among the Best Classical Music Recordings of 2012.