FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 15, 2016 Contact: Katherine E. Johnson (212) 875-5718; [email protected]
BERNARD HAITINK TO CONDUCT NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC IN MAHLER’S SYMPHONY NO. 9
April 14–16 and 19, 2016
Bernard Haitink will return to the New York Philharmonic to conduct Mahler’s Symphony No. 9, Thursday, April 14, 2016, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, April 15 at 8:00 p.m.; Saturday, April 16 at 8:00 p.m.; and Tuesday, April 19 at 7:30 p.m.
Gramophone called Mr. Haitink’s 2012 recording of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony “unquestionably one of the great Ninths of recent years.” The New York Times wrote that the New York Philharmonic was “never more” a Mahler orchestra than it was in Mr. Haitink’s most recent appearance, in May 2014, when he led Mahler’s Third Symphony: “The players responded wholeheartedly to Mr. Haitink’s quiet, confident command, whether with a bold swagger in the huge thumping, brassy outbursts or with the utmost delicacy, as in the thread of sound sustained by the violas late in the surging finale.”
This program is among several in the 2015–16 season to feature works by Gustav Mahler, Philharmonic Music Director from 1909 to 1911. Later this season, John Storgårds will make his Philharmonic debut conducting selections from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, featuring The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Eric Owens as soloist, May 12–14, 2016.
Related Events Philharmonic Free Fridays The New York Philharmonic is offering 100 free tickets for young people ages 13–26 to the concert Friday, April 15 as part of Philharmonic Free Fridays. Information is available at nyphil.org/freefridays. Philharmonic Free Fridays offers 100 free tickets to 13–26-year-olds to each of the 2015–16 season’s 15 Friday evening subscription concerts.
Pre-Concert Insights The Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence Matthew Mugmon will introduce the program. Pre-Concert Insights are $7, and discounts are available for three (3) or more talks and for students. They take place one hour before these performances in the Helen Hull Room, unless otherwise noted. Attendance is limited to 90 people. Information: nyphil.org/preconcert or (212) 875-5656.
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Artists Bernard Haitink’s conducting career began 61 years ago with the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in his native Holland. He went on to become chief conductor of Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra for 27 years, as well as music director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera and The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, as well as principal conductor of the London Philharmonic, Dresden Staatskapelle, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He is patron of the Radio Philharmonic and conductor emeritus of the Boston Symphony, as well as an honorary member of both the Berlin Philharmonic and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. During the 2015 summer festival season, Bernard Haitink performed at the Salzburg Festival with the Vienna Philharmonic, opened the Lucerne Festival with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, and gave further performances at the Lucerne Festival and the BBC Proms with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Mr. Haitink’s 2015–16 season began with the London Symphony Orchestra, whom he conducted in three programs at the Barbican Centre followed by a tour to Japan. In the fall of 2015 he led the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in the Schumann symphonies and concertos in Amsterdam, Lugano, and Vienna. Among the orchestras he revisits this season are the Berlin Philharmonic and the Bavarian Radio, Chicago, and Boston symphony orchestras. He also makes his debut with the orchestra and chorus of Milan’s Teatro alla Scala. He is committed to the development of young musical talent, and gives an annual conducting master class at the Lucerne Easter Festival. Also this season, he gives conducting classes to students of Zurich’s Hochschule der Kunst and The Juilliard School. Bernard Haitink has an extensive discography for Phillips, Decca, and EMI, as well as many orchestras’ live recording labels, such as those of the London, Chicago, and Bavarian Radio symphony orchestras. He has received many awards and honors in recognition of his services to music, including several honorary doctorates, an honorary Knighthood and Companion of Honour in the United Kingdom, and the House Order of Orange-Nassau in the Netherlands. He made his New York Philharmonic debut in January 1975 leading J.S. Bach’s Symphony in D major and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7; he most recently led the May 2014 performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3.
Repertoire Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) began work on his last complete symphony, Symphony No. 9 (1909–10), in his first season as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic. In 1911, Mahler’s time with the Orchestra came to an end; the 50-year-old composer died later that year, never having heard a public performance of his final completed symphony. The work reflects his acute awareness of his own mortality — doctors had diagnosed a life-threatening heart condition two years earlier — and the music probes life and death, themes Mahler also explored in Das Lied von der Erde and the unfinished Symphony No. 10. The Ninth Symphony has often been interpreted as a farewell, both to life and to the 19th-century Romanticism that Mahler’s music embodied. In June 1912 Mahler’s friend and disciple Bruno Walter conducted the symphony’s premiere in Vienna; Walter also conducted the Philharmonic’s first performance of the work in December 1945, not long before he began his own tenure as the Orchestra’s Music Director (1947–49). Music Director Alan Gilbert led the most recent performance, in January 2012 in New York and on the EUROPE / WINTER 2012 tour.
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* * * These concerts are made possible with generous support from the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation.
* * * Bernard Haitink’s appearance is made possible through the Daisy and Paul Soros Endowment Fund.
* * * Major support for Philharmonic Free Fridays is provided by The Pratt Foundation.
* * * Philharmonic Free Fridays was created, in part, by a donation from an anonymous donor through the New York Philharmonic’s 2014 Share the Music! campaign.
* * * Programs are supported, in part, by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Tickets Single tickets for this performance start at $29. Pre-Concert Insights are $7 (visit nyphil.org/preconcert for more information). 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. Saturday; and noon to 5:00 p.m. Sunday. Tickets may also be purchased at the David Geffen 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. A limited number of $16 tickets for select concerts may be available through the Internet for students within 10 days of the performance, or in person the day of. Valid identification is required. 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 at the New York Philharmonic at (212) 875-5714, or e-mail her at [email protected].
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New York Philharmonic
David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center
Thursday, April 14, 2016, 7:30 p.m. Open Rehearsal — 9:45 a.m. Friday, April 15, 2016, 8:00 p.m. Saturday, April 16, 2016, 8:00 p.m. Tuesday, April 19, 2016, 7:30 p.m.
Pre-Concert Insights (one hour before each concert) with The Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in- Residence Matthew Mugmon
Bernard Haitink, conductor
MAHLER Symphony No. 9
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ALL PROGRAMS SUBJECT TO CHANGE
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