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Home , China Gates, Dai Fujikura, Grawemeyer Award, JACK Quartet, Jeffrey Milarsky, Kaija Saariaho

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 29, 2014 Contact: Katherine E. Johnson (212) 875-5718; [email protected]

ALAN GILBERT AND THE

CONTACT!, THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC’S NEW-MUSIC SERIES 2014–15 SEASON

FIVE PROGRAMS FEATURING WORLD, U.S., AND NEW YORK PREMIERES Concerts Focusing on Music from ISRAEL, ITALY, , and JAPAN PROGRAM CURATED AND HOSTED BY

The Mary and James G. Wallach ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE LISA BATIASHVILI To Be Featured

Three Concerts at SUBCULTURE, Co-Presented with 92nd Street Y Two Concerts at THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

CONTACT! on the EUROPE / SPRING 2015 Tour

Entering its sixth season in 2014–15, CONTACT!, the Philharmonic’s new-music series, will include five programs featuring World, U.S., and New York Premieres, four of which explore the new-music scene from four different countries, and a fifth curated and hosted by composer John Adams. CONTACT! will return for three programs at SubCulture, co-presented with 92nd Street Y: a program featuring works by five composers selected by John Adams, who also hosts; a concert of works by Israeli composers, featuring The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in- Residence Lisa Batiashvili alongside Philharmonic musicians; and a performance of works by Italian composers. Two CONTACT! programs will take place at The Metropolitan Museum of Art with Met Museum Presents: a concert of works by Nordic composers conducted in part by Music Director Alan Gilbert; and a program featuring works from Japan, conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky.

The Philharmonic will also perform highlights from the 2014–15 season of CONTACT! during its second International Associate Residency at ’s Barbican Centre as part of the EUROPE / SPRING 2015 tour. Further details to be announced at a later date.

CONTACT!, established by Music Director Alan Gilbert in the 2009–10 season, highlights the works of both emerging and established contemporary composers, performed by smaller ensembles of Philharmonic musicians in intimate venues outside the campus.

Since its inception, CONTACT! has presented 20 World Premieres (as of the end of the 2013–14 season), including Matthias Pintscher’s songs from Solomon’s garden (2010), Sean Shepherd’s These Particular Circumstances (2010), and Carter’s Three Controversies and a Conversation (2012). (more)

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Alan Gilbert said: “The work that composers do is the most important contribution to music at any given time. I have enormous admiration for composers, and I feel incredible gratitude that they are willing to struggle through the difficult process that is musical creation. One of the ways the Philharmonic can be a resource and an important catalyst for musical composition is to continue our very active commissioning program. I think it’s one of the greatest things we can do for music.”

Christopher Rouse, who in 2014–15 will be completing his three-year term as The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence, advises the Philharmonic on the CONTACT! series. One of America’s most prominent composers of orchestral music, Mr. Rouse won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his Trombone Concerto, commissioned and premiered by the New York Philharmonic.

Christopher Rouse said: “I’m very pleased that CONTACT! will be taking a geographical bent next season with overviews of contemporary music in Scandinavia, Italy, Japan, and Israel. There are wonderful composers at work from all of these countries, and I hope that our CONTACT! programming will prove exciting to our listeners. In addition to this, John Adams will curate a CONTACT! program of music about which he is especially enthusiastic. All in all there will be a wealth of splendid new music for our audiences to encounter and enjoy.”

CONTACT! HOSTED BY JOHN ADAMS Works by Daníel BJARNASON, Ingram MARHSALL, Missy MAZZOLI, and Timo ANDRES November 17, 2014, at SUBCULTURE, Co-Presented with 92nd Street Y

The 2014–15 CONTACT! season opens with CONTACT! Hosted by John Adams, featuring five chamber works he has selected: Daníel Bjarnason’s Bow to String (2009; rev. 2012) and Five Possibilities for clarinet, , and piano (2014); Ingram Marshall’s Muddy Waters (2004); Missy Mazzoli’s Dissolve, O My Heart (2010); and the New York Premiere of Timo Andres’s Early to Rise (2013). This program, November 17, 2014, at SubCulture, is a co-presentation by the New York Philharmonic and 92nd Street Y.

The first movement of Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason’s Bow to String refers to an art installation by the Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson in which a small orchestra accompanies a performer repeatedly singing the lyrics “Sorrow conquers happiness.” Originally composed in 2009 for multi-layered cello, specifically for cellist Saeunn Thorsteinsdottir, this version of Bow to String is composed for solo cello, clarinet, horn, two pianos, , and double bass. Mr. Bjarnason writes that Five Possibilities, written for and premiered by Trio Ariadne in April 2014, is “in five short movements that each follows its own logic, creating fleeting images or glimpses of larger worlds.” He has composed works commissioned, premiered, or performed by ensembles including the , the Ulster Orchestra, and So Percussion, and they have been conducted (more) 2014–15 Season of CONTACT! / 3 by Gustavo Dudamel, James Conlon, and John Adams, among others. Daníel Bjarnason’s string arrangements can be heard on the 2013 Sigur Rós album Kveikur, and he contributed the score to the 2012 feature film The Deep.

American composer Ingram Marshall based Muddy Waters (for an amplified chamber ensemble comprising marimba, piano, electric guitar, bass clarinet, cello, and contrabass), commissioned by Bang on a Can All-Stars, on a tune from the Bay Psalmbook of 1692, the first printed music in North America, titled Lichfield, itself based on Psalm 69: “The waters in unto my soul are come, oh God me save, I am in muddy deep sunk down where I no standing have.” Mr. Marshall writes: “In the course of the piece the psalm tune goes through various transformations.… The affect shifts, chiaroscuro like, from darkness and gloom to exuberance and sanguinity.” He notes that the conclusion shifts “away from the psalm tune to a reference to Muddy Waters (the blues singer), who has the last word.” Ingram Marshall’s influences have included Indonesian and . Since 1985 his primary focus has been on works for ensembles, both with and without electronics. He has been commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra, Magnum Opus, and Orpheus.

American composer Missy Mazzoli composed Dissolve, O My Heart, commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, for violinist ’s Bach & Beyond project, which combines Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas with newly commissioned works. Ms. Koh requested a piece based on Bach’s Partita in D minor. Ms. Mazzoli explains: “Dissolve, O My Heart begins with the first chord of Bach’s Chaconne, a now-iconic D minor chord, and spins out from there into an off- kilter series of chords that doubles back on itself, collapses, and ultimately dissolves in a torrent of fast passages.” Melding indie-rock sensibilities with formal training from , Martijn Padding, Richard Ayers, and others, Missy Mazzoli’s music has been performed by, among others, the , eighth blackbird, American Composers Orchestra, Opera, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony, NOW Ensemble, and cellist .

American composer Timo Andres writes that the ten-minute, four-movement string quartet Early to Rise is “the most recent in a series of Schumann-inspired pieces I’ve written; this time, the seed is a five-note accompanimental figure from his late piano cycle Gesänge der Frühe (Morning Songs). At first, Early to Rise uses this figure in a canon, gently cycling through harmonies while its rhythms rub against each other in expanding and contracting patterns.… In the final section, momentum builds in the opposite direction with a simple downward-drifting chorale, picking up speed until it reaches a frenetic conclusion.” Timo Andres’s recent commissions have come from the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; a consortium including Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw, and San Francisco Performances; and the Library of Congress, among others. Alex Ross wrote in The New Yorker that Mr. Andres’s 2010 album Shy and Mighty “achieves an unhurried grandeur that has rarely been felt in American music since John Adams came on the scene.”

The Philharmonic has enjoyed an ongoing relationship with John Adams since 1983, when it performed the New York Premiere of his . The Orchestra has since given the World Premieres of Easter Eve 1945 (2004, conducted by Mr. Adams) and On the (more) 2014–15 Season of CONTACT! / 4

Transmigration of Souls (2002), co-commissioned by the Philharmonic and Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series in memory of the victims of 9/11. The latter won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in Music, and its recording on Nonesuch — featuring the Philharmonic led by Lorin Maazel with the New York Choral Artists and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus — received the 2005 Grammy Awards for Best Classical Album, Best Orchestral Performance, and Best Classical Contemporary Composition. Mr. Adams’s China Gates will be performed by pianist Marino Formenti, June 4, 2014, during the Philharmonic’s inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL. During the 2014–15 season (March 26–28, 2015), Alan Gilbert will conduct the Philharmonic and violinist Leila Josefowicz in the World Premiere of John Adams’s Scheherazade.2 — Symphony for violin and orchestra, a New York Philharmonic Co-Commission with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam; the Royal Concertgebouw; and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, David Robertson, chief conductor and artistic director.

NEW MUSIC FROM ISRAEL Featuring Violinist LISA BATIASHVILI, The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Works by Josef BARDANASHVILI, Avner DORMAN, Yotam HABER, and Shulamit RAN February 9, 2015, at SUBCULTURE, Co-Presented with 92nd Street Y

The second CONTACT! program of the season focuses on chamber music by contemporary Israeli composers, and will feature a performance by the Philharmonic’s 2014–15 Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Lisa Batiashvili alongside Philharmonic musicians. The concert will include Quasi danza macabra from Josef Bardanashvili’s String Quartet No. 1 (1985), in which Ms. Batiashvili will perform; the New York Premiere of Avner Dorman’s Jerusalem Mix (2007); Yotam Haber’s Estro poetico–armonico II (2014); and Shulamit Ran’s Mirage for five players (1990). This program, February 9, 2015, at SubCulture, is a co- presentation by the New York Philharmonic and 92nd Street Y, which will present Israeli- themed programming throughout the season.

Josef Bardanashvili’s String Quartet No.1, commissioned by the Georgian State Quartet, adheres to classical style while also utilizing tango rhythm, quasi-jazz rhythmic patterns, vertical harmonic constructions, and a reference to the Dies irae. Mr. Bardanashvili’s influences include Jewish and Georgian folk-music, liturgical traditions, jazz, rock, and western art music. He is currently composer-in-residence of the Israel Camerata Jerusalem. The work is being included in this CONTACT! program at the request of the 2014–15 season New York Philharmonic Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Lisa Batiashvili, who, like Mr. Bardanshvili, is Georgian-born.

Avner Dorman’s woodwind and piano quintet Jerusalem Mix is named for a popular Israeli dish of various fried meats: “The dish, much like the city of its origin, is a melting pot of flavors and characters — each preserving some of its unique characteristics while contributing to the whole,” the composer writes. The work is in six parts — Jerusalem Mix, The Wailing Wall, Wedding March, Blast, Adhan, and Jerusalem Mix — each reflecting different aspects of the city.

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“The movements are based on two simple melodic cells — one chromatic and the other made of a whole step,” Mr. Dorman continues. “For me, the fact that these simple motives can lend themselves to the music traditions of Christianity (Armenian dance), Islam, and Judaism, express that on a deep cultural, musical, and humane level, our cultures are closer than we realize.” Avner Dorman’s compositions have been performed by the Israel and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras, San Francisco Symphony, Leipzig’s Gewandaus Orchestra, and at Carnegie Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, and Lucerne Festival, among others. The New York Philharmonic gave the U.S. Premiere of Mr. Dorman’s Spices, Perfumes, Toxins! in March 2009, led by former Music Director Zubin Mehta.

Yotam Haber’s Estro poetico–armonico II, commissioned by the Fromm Foundation, is based on 50 psalm settings by Benedetto Marcello, a contemporary of J.S. Bach, who was inspired by the liturgical music of the Venetian Jewish community. Mr. Haber was introduced to Marcello’s music while living in Rome, where he also studied archival recordings of Roman cantors from the 1940s. Mr. Haber states: “I was inspired by the Jewish communities of Rome and Venice that were segregated for so many generations since their initial arrival in Italy after the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem. I imagined that one generation passed on to another these ancient musical traditions, and through a kind of telephone-game-evolution, the music lost or gained its essence on each transference. When I came across the first edition of Marcello’s psalms, I read his introduction with great astonishment and pleasure: he, too, spoke of an imagined musical filament connecting the music sung in the Venetian synagogue of his day with an ‘ancient music sung passed down from Mount Sinai.’ The theory, of course, can never be proved, nor should it be, in order to appreciate the beauty and brilliant inventiveness of his music.” Yotam Haber’s recent commissions include works for Pritzker Prize–winning architect Peter Zumthor, new works for the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, CalArts’s REDCAT, Contemporaneous, Gabriel Kahane, Either/Or, Alarm Will Sound, the 2012 and 2014 Venice Biennale, 2012 Bang on a Can Summer Festival, the Neuvocalsolisten Stuttgart and ensemble l’arsenale, FLUX Quartet, JACK Quartet, Cantori New York, the –based Meitar Ensemble, and the Berlin-based Quartet New Generation. Born in Holland and raised in Israel, Nigeria, and Milwaukee, Mr. Haber is the recipient of a 2013 NYFA award, the 2007 Rome Prize, and a 2005 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship.

Shulamit Ran’s Mirage for five players, commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts Consortium in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Da Capo Chamber Players, features harmonic and melodic nods to Middle-Eastern music. “Throughout, I aimed for a free-flowing, yet intense, at times incantational style of delivery,” she writes. Mirage had its World Premiere at 92nd Street Y in 1991. Shulamit Ran is the second female composer to have been awarded the (for her 1990 Symphony). Her music has been performed by the Israel and Amsterdam Philharmonic orchestras; Chicago, Baltimore, and National symphony orchestras; Philadelphia, Cleveland, American Composers, and Jerusalem Orchestras; and l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Ms. Ran served as composer-in- residence of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for seven seasons, beginning in 1990.

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NEW MUSIC FROM ITALY Works by BERIO, Vitturio MONTALTI, Salvatore SCIARRINO, and Luca FRANCESCONI May 11, 2015, at SUBCULTURE, Co-Presented with 92nd Street Y

The season’s final concert at SubCulture will feature chamber music by modern and contemporary Italian composers. The program will include Berio’s Différences for five instruments and tape (1959); the U.S. Premiere of Vitturio Montalti’s Passacaglia for marimba and cello (2008); the U.S. Premiere of Salvatore Sciarrino’s tre duetti con l’eco (2006); and the New York Premiere of Luca Francesconi’s Encore Da capo (2011). This program, May 11, 2015, at SubCulture, is a co-presentation by the New York Philharmonic and 92nd Street Y.

Luciano Berio composed Différences for flute, clarinet, harp, viola, cello, and magnetic tape. The 17-minute work is one of the first to combine acoustic instruments with electronic music. Berio wrote that “in Différences the original model of the five instruments coexists alongside an image of itself that is continually modified, until the different phases of transformation deliver up a completely altered image that no longer has anything to do with the original.” Différences was premiered in 1959 at Paris’s Salle Gaveau, directed by former Philharmonic Music Director . From the early 1950s Berio was an exponent of the new generation of the European avant garde, bringing it to a wider audience. From 1974 to 1980 he directed the department of electroacoustics at Paris’s IRCAM, and in 1987 he founded the Centro Tempo Reale in Florence. The New York Philharmonic commissioned and premiered Berio’s Sinfonia in 1968, celebrating the Philharmonic’s 125th anniversary, conducted by the composer, as well as his Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, led by then Music Director Pierre Boulez.

Vittorio Montalti’s Passacaglia for marimba and cello is, in the composer’s words, a “virtual homage” to Anton Webern. “It is an étude about repetition,” Mr. Montalti writes. “A musical figure is reiterated continually, lending itself to unexpected deviations. Besides the mere repetition, the figure can freeze, block, or open a door on an unexpected pathway.” Particularly interested in the fields of electronic music and musical theater, Vittorio Montalti, as composer- in-residence at the American Academy in Rome, is currently working on a musical theater project for two voices and live electronics. He has received commissions from the Venice Biennale, Teatro La Fenice, Divertimento Ensemble, and Bergamo Musica Festival, among others, and was awarded the Silver Lion at the 54th International Festival of Contemporary Music during the 2010 Venice Biennale. Mr. Montalti counts Luca Francesconi, also featured on this program, as a major influence.

Salvatore Sciarrino’s tre duetti con l’eco for flute, bassoon, and viola plays with the dual nature of echo through three duets: loneliness and splitting, fragmentation and distance (“Great is the risk of loving the void under the illusion of being loved in return,” the composer writes), and delays and iridescence. “More and more voices respond within a form of intertwining as multidimensional as time in the theory of Einstein,” he writes. Mr. Sciarrino was awarded the 2012 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Contemporary Music; the jury cited his “new and unique syntax … at the heart of his creations is his way of combining extreme reduction with a richness of detail. He stands out for his use of microtonality and his conscious reworking of ideas and materials from past periods and cultures.” Salvatore Sciarrino has said: (more) 2014–15 Season of CONTACT! / 7

“In my work there is a dual connection between music and literature, since for me they are the same language. Literature is the air we artists breathe. I myself write plays and other kinds of text that serve me as inspiration in my compositional practice.”

Luca Francesconi’s Encore Da capo, the composer writes, “starts from energy in a pure state, almost primogenial indeed: pulse, rhythm. This energy unfolds and evolves gradually from the undefined to the defined.” Mr. Francesconi works in a wide variety of media, and his music synthesizes the styles and resources of traditions including electro-acoustic music, jazz, African percussion, and Italian folksong. In 1990 he founded AGON Acustica Informatica Musica in , a center of musical production and research using new technologies.

NEW MUSIC FROM NORDIC COUNTRIES Conducted by Music Director ALAN GILBERT Works by , Per NØRGÅRD, Đuro ŽIVKOVIĆ, and Kalevi AHO March 7, 2015, at THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

The season’s first of two CONTACT! programs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art with Met Museum Presents will feature music by contemporary Nordic composers and will be conducted by Alan Gilbert as well as a second conductor to be announced at a later date. Alan Gilbert will conduct works by Per Nørgård and Kalevi Aho, to be announced at a later date; the second conductor will lead the U.S. Premiere of the string-orchestra version of Kaija Saariaho’s Terra Memoria (2006) and a work by Đuro Živković, to be announced at a later date. This concert takes place March 7, 2015, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho wrote of Terra Memoria, her second string quartet: “I love the richness and sensitivity of the string sound.… I feel when writing for a string quartet that I’m entering into the intimate core of musical communication. The piece is dedicated ‘for those departed.’ We continue remembering the people who are no longer with us; the material — their life — is ‘complete,’ nothing will be added to it. Those of us who are left behind are constantly reminded of our experiences together.… The title Terra Memoria refers to two words which are full of rich associations: to earth and memory.” Ms. Saariaho is a prominent member of a group of Finnish composers and performers who are now, in mid-career, making a worldwide impact. Study and research at IRCAM have had a major influence on her music, and her characteristically luxuriant and mysterious textures are often created by combining live music and electronics. The New York Philharmonic has previously performed four of Ms. Saariaho works, including the 1999 World Premiere of Oltra Mar, Seven Preludes for the New Millennium, one of the Orchestra’s Messages for the Millennium commissions, conducted by then Music Director Kurt Masur.

Per Nørgård is considered by many to be the most prominent Danish composer after Carl Nielsen. He has composed in a variety of genres, from symphonies, operas, and chamber music to film and theater music. Mr. Nørgård’s encounters with the work of Swiss artist and schizophrenic Adolf Wölfli reintroduced irrationality, conflict, and instability in Mr. Nørgård’s music. Per Nørgård’s recent works are more intimate, open, and vulnerable, and his string-

(more) 2014–15 Season of CONTACT! / 8 concertos from the 1980s explore the musical element of time. Members of the New York Philharmonic performed Mr. Norgard’s Tango Chikane on a Special Evening with Viktor Borge and a Company of Friends on October 28, 1968.

Finnish composer Kalevi Aho has composed 13 symphonies to date, as well as operas, concertos, vocal music, and works for chamber groups and solo instruments. His works have developed from neo-classicism through modernist idioms to post-modernism. His music tends to contrast wide-ranging moods, styles, and genres, and his symphonic works often reflect an “abstract drama” similar to his operatic scores. Mr. Aho has received Denmark’s Leonie Sonning Prize (1974), Germany’s Henrik Steffens Prize (1990), and Poland’s Flisaka Prize (1996). A writer as well as composer, Mr. Aho’s output has totaled 500 essays, presentations, columns, and other writings.

An early interest in folklore and Byzantine music led Serbian-Swedish composer and violinist Đuro Živković to develop a variety of compositional techniques, such as , improvisation, special harmony-based scales, microtones, layer-polyphony (multiphony), and heterophony, and a recent interest in the harmonic organization has resulted in a new approach to his composition process. Mr. Živković’s music has been commissioned, performed, recorded, and broadcast by leading soloists and ensembles across Europe, Japan, and North America. His On the Guarding of the Heart received the in 2014.

NEW MUSIC FROM JAPAN Conducted by JEFFREY MILARSKY Works by TAKEMITSU, Misato MOCHIZUKI, Dai FUJIKURA, and MESSIAEN June 5, 2015, at THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

In the season’s fifth and final installment of CONTACT!, Jeffrey Milarsky makes his New York Philharmonic subscription debut conducting a program of modern and contemporary works by Japanese composers and a work influenced by Japan: Takemitsu’s Archipelago S for 21 players (1993); the U.S. Premiere of Misato Mochizuki’s Si bleu, si calme (1997); the World Premiere– New York Philharmonic Commission of a work by Dai Fujikura; and Messiaen’s Japan-inspired Sept Haikai (1962). This concert takes place June 5, 2015, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In Toru Takemitsu’s Archipelago S for 21 players, the orchestra is placed around the hall in five disparate groups like an archipelago. Further explaining the title, the composer wrote: “‘S’ means also the initial of Seto Inland Sea of Japan, Stockholm, and Seattle, which has beautiful islands. This work was inspired by these seascapes.” Toru Takemitsu encountered Western music — from Jazz through classical works ranging from Debussy to Schoenberg — during the post-war years through radio broadcasts by the American occupying forces, and was influenced by the European avant-garde of Messiaen, Nono, and Stockhausen, as well as Fumio Hayasaka, who introduced him to film music and to the film director Akira Kurosawa, for whom Takemitsu produced cinematic several scores. Takemitsu also took a great interest in other art forms including modern painting, theater, film, and literature. Alan Gilbert conducted the Philharmonic in Takemitsu’s Requiem for String Orchestra in March 2011 in sympathy and admiration for the

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Japanese people following the earthquake and tsunami. Takemitsu was one of the composers commissioned by the Philharmonic to write a work in honor of its 150th anniversary; the Orchestra premiered his commission, Family Tree, in April 1995, led by Leonard Slatkin.

Misato Mochizuki’s Si bleu, si calme is based on the natural cycles of water and air (condensation and evaporation, winds, and currents). “Bleu” (blue) represents air and water and focuses on development and complexity; “Calme” (calm) represents space and silence and explores the simplification of intervals and rhythmic figures. Ms. Mochizuki entered the Composition and program at IRCAM (1996–97). Combining Western tradition and the Asian sense of breath, her works have been performed at international festivals such as the , the Venice Biennale, and the Folle Journée in Tokyo. Other highlights include Portrait Concerts at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall (2007) and Paris’s Festival d’Automne in Paris (2010) and a cinema concert at the Louvre with the music to the silent film Le fil blanc de la cascade by Kenji Mizoguchi (2007). Ms Mochizuki was composer-in-residence at the Festival international de musique de Besançon (2011–13), and she writes a column about music and culture for the Yomiuri Shimbun.

Dai Fujikura says: “I am extremely happy to write a new piece for CONTACT!. I remember when I was very small, around five, there were quite a few New York Philharmonic LPs at my home. I have been spying on their CONTACT! concerts from afar, and I was always impressed by the level of experimentations in their programs. It is a very brave thing to do, and I am honored to take part in this adventure.” Dai Fujikura’s music has been led by conductors including Pierre Boulez, Gustavo Dudamel, Peter Eötvös, and Jonathan Nott, and he has collaborated in the experimental pop/jazz/improvisation world. In April 2014 he was appointed composer-in-residence with the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra; has received commissions from the BBC Proms, among others; and is working on his first opera, to be co-produced by the Théâtre du Champs Elysées, Lausanne, and Lille. Dai Fujikura’s music will also be performed during the 2013–14 season of CONTACT! — his work silence seeking solace on Stephan Balkenhol’s Sphaera / Frau im Fels will receive its U.S. Premiere in Beyond Recall (May 29 and 31, 2014, at The Museum of Modern Art), a CONTACT! program as part of the NY PHIL BIENNIAL.

Olivier Messiaen’s Sept Haikai, seven small works for solo piano and small orchestra, combines Japanese sensibility, Messiaen’s own richly chromatic musical language, and gagaku — seventh-century Japanese court music. An ornithologist as well as a composer, Messiaen said that Sept Haikai was enriched by the song of 25 Japanese birds, and he identifies each in the score. The first and final movements, which he explains resemble “the two guardian gods flanking the entrance of Buddhist temples,” frame the piece; the second and fifth movements evoke Japanese locations — Nara Park, with its four Buddhist temples, and Miyajima, “perhaps the most beautiful landscape in Japan.” One of the most influential composers of the 20th century, is noted for his music’s rhythmic complexity, his unique approach to melody and harmony, and the profound spirituality that informed his compositions — interests that were informed by his visits to Japan, where he notated Japanese bird song and experienced the gagaku ensemble. The Philharmonic has performed Messiaen’s music numerous times since 1947, when the Orchestra premiered his Hymne pour grand orchestra, led by Leopold (more) 2014–15 Season of CONTACT! / 10

Stokowski. The Philharmonic’s performance history of Messiaen also includes the World Premiere of Éclairs sur l’au-delà... (Illuminations of the Beyond...), a Philharmonic commission, in November 1992, led by then Music Director Zubin Mehta.

Artists Music Director Alan Gilbert began his New York Philharmonic tenure in September 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 and The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in- Residence; CONTACT!, the new-music series; and, beginning in the spring of 2014, the NY PHIL BIENNIAL. “He is building a legacy that matters and is helping to change the template for what an American orchestra can be,” acclaimed.

In addition to inaugurating the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, in the 2013–14 season Alan Gilbert conducts Mozart’s three final symphonies; the U.S. Premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Frieze coupled with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; world premieres; an all-Britten program celebrating the composer’s centennial; the score from 2001: A Space Odyssey as the film was screened; and a staged production of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd starring Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson. He continues The Nielsen Project — the multi-year 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 — and presides over the ASIA / WINTER 2014 tour. Last season’s highlights included Bach’s B-minor Mass; Ives’s Fourth Symphony; the EUROPE / SPRING 2013 tour; and the season-concluding A Dancer’s Dream, a multidisciplinary reimagining of Stravinsky’s The Fairy’s Kiss and Petrushka, created by Giants Are Small and starring New York City Ballet principal dancer Sara Mearns.

Mr. Gilbert is Director of Conducting and Orchestral Studies and holds the William Schuman Chair in Musical Studies at The . Conductor laureate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and principal guest conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Symphony Orchestra, he regularly conducts leading orchestras around the world. He made his acclaimed debut conducting John Adams’s 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. In May 2010 Mr. Gilbert received an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from The Curtis Institute of Music and in December 2011, ’s Ditson Conductor’s Award for his “exceptional commitment to the performance of works by American composers and to contemporary music.”

American conductor Jeffrey Milarsky has been hailed for his interpretation of a wide range of repertoire, which spans from J.S. Bach to Xenakis. He has worked with groups such as the San Francisco, Milwaukee, and New World symphony orchestras; Los Angeles and Bergen Philharmonic orchestras; and The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, American Composers Orchestra, MET Chamber Ensemble, and Tanglewood Festival Orchestra. In the U.S. and abroad he has appeared in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall, Davies Symphony Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall, and IRCAM in Paris. Mr. Milarsky’s history of premiering, recording, and performing works by American (more) 2014–15 Season of CONTACT! / 11 composers was recognized in 2013 by the Ditson Conductor’s Award, the oldest award honoring conductors for their commitment to performing American music. Past honorees have included , Leopold Stokowski, , and Alan Gilbert. His interest and dedication has led to collaborations with composers including Adams, Babbitt, Cage, Carter, Corigliano, Crumb, Davidovsky, Druckman, Gordon, Lang, Mackey, Rouse, Shapey, Subotnick, and Wuorinen, as well as a generation of young composers. A dedicated pedagogue, Mr. Milarsky is senior lecturer in music at Columbia University, where he is music director and conductor of the Columbia University Orchestra. In addition to conducting the Juilliard Orchestra, he is music director of AXIOM, The Juilliard School’s critically acclaimed contemporary music ensemble, and serves on Juilliard’s conducting faculty. He received his bachelor and master of music degrees from The Juilliard School, where he was awarded the Peter Mennin Prize for outstanding leadership and achievement in the arts. Also a timpanist and percussionist, Mr. Milarsky is principal timpanist for . He has also performed and recorded with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, and the New York Philharmonic, with which he appeared in two 1998 Ensembles concerts at Merkin Concert Hall, one as a percussionist, the other as conductor.

As the 2014–15 Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic, violinist Lisa Batiashvili plays concertos by Brahms, Barber, and Bach as well as a U.S. Premiere–New York Philharmonic Co-Commission written for her by Thierry Escaich; performs chamber music on CONTACT!, the new-music series, alongside Philharmonic musicians; and presents a recital with pianist Paul Lewis presented in collaboration with Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series. Lisa Batiashvili’s 2013–14 season includes concerts in New York, Tokyo, and Taipei with the New York Philharmonic, led by Music Director Alan Gilbert, and a European tour with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. She performs with The Philadelphia Orchestra, also with Mr. Nézet-Séguin; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, led by David Zinman; Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, with ; London’s , conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen; and Berlin’s German Symphony Orchestra, with Tugan Sokhiev. She continues her collaboration with pianist Paul Lewis in a series of recitals in Paris, Brussels, and Hamburg, and presents a new Bach ensemble project with oboist François Leleux. During the 2012–13 season she held the position of capell-virtuosin with the Dresden Staatskapelle, performing a wide range of concerts (including on a North American tour) led by its principal conductor, Christian Thielemann. She was also artist-in-residence with Cologne’s WDR Symphony Orchestra, and appeared with the Berlin Staatskapelle, conducted by , at its annual outdoor concert before an audience of 38,000. Ms. Batiashvili records exclusively for Deutsche Grammophon. Her latest album — featuring Brahms’s with the Dresden Staatskapelle led by Christian Thielemann — was released in January 2013. In 2011 she received an ECHO Klassik award for her debut album on the label, Echoes of Time, which includes Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, led by Esa-Pekka Salonen. A student of Ana Chumachenko and Mark Lubotski, Lisa Batiashvili gained international recognition at age 16 as the youngest-ever competitor in the Sibelius Competition. She has also been awarded the Beethoven Ring Prize, MIDEM Classical Award, Choc de l’année, and Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival’s Leonard Bernstein Award. Ms. Batiashvili made her Philharmonic debut in

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2005 performing Chausson and Saint-Saens under the baton of Lorin Maazel; most recently she traveled with the Orchestra for the ASIA / WINTER 2014 tour, performing Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1, conducted by Alan Gilbert.

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

* * * Lisa Batiashvili is The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence for the 2014–15 season.

* * * Christopher Rouse is The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence.

* * * CONTACT! at SubCulture is made possible with generous support from Linda and Stuart Nelson.

* * * Classical 105.9 FM WQXR is the Radio Home of the New York Philharmonic.

* * * Programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the 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 Tickets for CONTACT! at The Metropolitan Museum of Art start at $25; tickets for CONTACT! at SubCulture start at $35. Tickets may be purchased online at 92y.org or metmuseum.org, and will be available at nyphil.org August 17, 2014. To determine ticket availability, call the Philharmonic’s Customer Relations Department at (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. [Ticket prices subject to change.]

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CHRONOLOGICAL LISTING OF CONTACT! 2014–15

CONTACT! HOSTED BY JOHN ADAMS A Co-Presentation of the New York Philharmonic and 92nd Street Y

SubCulture 45 Bleecker Street

Monday, November 17, 2014, 7:30 p.m.

John Adams, host Musicians from the New York Philharmonic

Daníel BJARNASON Bow to String Ingram MARSHALL Muddy Waters Missy MAZZOLI Dissolve, O My Heart Daníel BJARNASON Five Possibilities for clarinet, cello, and piano Timo ANDRES Early to Rise (New York Premiere)

NEW MUSIC FROM ISRAEL A Co-Presentation of the New York Philharmonic and 92nd Street Y

SubCulture 45 Bleecker Street

Monday, February 9, 2015, 7:30 p.m.

Lisa Batiashvili, violin Musicians from the New York Philharmonic

Josef BARDANASHVILI Quasi danza macabra from String Quartet No. 1 Avner DORMAN Jerusalem Mix (New York Premiere) Yotam HABER Estro poetico–armonico II Shulamit RAN Mirage for five players

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NEW MUSIC FROM NORDIC COUNTRIES

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

Saturday, March 7, 2015, 7:00 p.m.

Alan Gilbert, conductor (Nørgård and Aho) Conductor tba (Saariaho and Živković) Musicians from the New York Philharmonic

Program to include: Kaija SAARIAHO Terra Memoria for string orchestra (U.S. Premiere of string orchestra version) Works by Per NØRGÅRD, Đuro ŽIVKOVIĆ, and Kalevi AHO

NEW MUSIC FROM ITALY A Co-Presentation of the New York Philharmonic and 92nd Street Y

SubCulture 45 Bleecker Street

Monday, May 11, 2015, 7:30 p.m.

Musicians from the New York Philharmonic

BERIO Differences for five instruments and tape Vittorio MONTALTI Passacaglia for marimba and cello (U.S. Premiere) Salvatore SCIARRINO tre duetti con l’eco (U.S. Premiere) Luca FRANCESCONI Encore Da capo (New York Premiere)

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NEW MUSIC FROM JAPAN

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

Friday, June 5, 2015, 7:00 p.m.

Jeffrey Milarsky†, conductor Musicians from the New York Philharmonic

TAKEMITSU Archipelago S for 21 players Misato MOCHIZUKI Si bleu, si calme (U.S. Premiere) Dai FUJIKURA New work (World Premiere– New York Philharmonic Commission) MESSIAEN Sept Haikai

†denotes New York Philharmonic debut # # #

ALL PROGRAMS SUBJECT TO CHANGE

What’s New — Look Behind the Scenes

Photography is available in the New York Philharmonic’s online newsroom, nyphil.org/newsroom/1415, or by contacting the Communications Department at (212) 875-5700; [email protected].