27 Season 2016-2017 Friday, September 30, at 7:00 The Philadelphia Orchestra Opening Night Gala Yannick Nézet-Séguin Conductor Bernstein Three Dance Episodes from On the Town I. The Great Lover II. Lonely Town: Pas de deux III. Times Square 1944 Gershwin An American in Paris Ravel Rapsodie espagnole I. Prelude to the Night— II. Malagueña III. Habanera IV. Feria Respighi The Pines of Rome I. The Pine Trees of the Villa Borghese— II. Pine Trees near a Catacomb— III. The Pine Trees of the Janiculum— IV. The Pine Trees of the Appian Way This program runs approximately 1 hour, 25 minutes, and will be performed without an intermission. We thank the musicians of The Philadelphia Orchestra and Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin who are graciously donating their services in support of this event and The Philadelphia Orchestra. Philadelphia Orchestra concerts are broadcast on WRTI 90.1 FM on Sunday afternoons at 1 PM. Visit www.wrti.org to listen live or for more details. 29 The Philadelphia Orchestra Jessica Griffin The Philadelphia Orchestra Philadelphia is home and impact through Research. is one of the preeminent the Orchestra continues The Orchestra’s award- orchestras in the world, to discover new and winning Collaborative renowned for its distinctive inventive ways to nurture Learning programs engage sound, desired for its its relationship with its over 50,000 students, keen ability to capture the loyal patrons at its home families, and community hearts and imaginations of in the Kimmel Center, members through programs audiences, and admired for and also with those who such as PlayINs, side-by- a legacy of imagination and enjoy the Orchestra’s area sides, PopUP concerts, innovation on and off the performances at the Mann free Neighborhood concert stage. The Orchestra Center, Penn’s Landing, Concerts, School Concerts, is inspiring the future and and other cultural, civic, and residency work in transforming its rich tradition and learning venues. The Philadelphia and abroad. of achievement, sustaining Orchestra maintains a strong Through concerts, tours, the highest level of artistic commitment to collaborations residencies, presentations, quality, but also challenging— with cultural and community and recordings, The and exceeding—that level, organizations on a regional Philadelphia Orchestra is by creating powerful musical and national level, all of which a global ambassador for experiences for audiences at create greater access and Philadelphia and for the home and around the world. engagement with classical US. Having been the first Music Director Yannick music as an art form. American orchestra to Nézet-Séguin’s connection The Philadelphia Orchestra perform in China, in 1973 to the Orchestra’s musicians serves as a catalyst for at the request of President has been praised by cultural activity across Nixon, the ensemble today both concertgoers and Philadelphia’s many boasts a new partnership with critics since his inaugural communities, building an Beijing’s National Centre for season in 2012. Under his offstage presence as strong the Performing Arts and the leadership the Orchestra as its onstage one. With Shanghai Oriental Art Centre, returned to recording, with Nézet-Séguin, a dedicated and in 2017 will be the first- two celebrated CDs on body of musicians, and one ever Western orchestra to the prestigious Deutsche of the nation’s richest arts appear in Mongolia. The Grammophon label, ecosystems, the Orchestra Orchestra annually performs continuing its history of has launched its HEAR at Carnegie Hall while also recording success. The initiative, a portfolio of enjoying summer residencies Orchestra also reaches integrated initiatives that in Saratoga Springs, NY, and thousands of listeners on the promotes Health, champions Vail, CO. For more information radio with weekly Sunday music Education, eliminates on The Philadelphia afternoon broadcasts on barriers to Accessing the Orchestra, please visit WRTI-FM. orchestra, and maximizes www.philorch.org. 4 Music Director Chris Lee Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin is now confirmed to lead The Philadelphia Orchestra through the 2025-26 season, an extraordinary and significant long-term commitment. Additionally, he becomes music director of the Metropolitan Opera beginning with the 2021-22 season. Yannick, who holds the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Chair, is an inspired leader of the Orchestra. His intensely collaborative style, deeply rooted musical curiosity, and boundless enthusiasm have been heralded by critics and audiences alike. The New York Times has called him “phenomenal,” adding that under his baton, “the ensemble, famous for its glowing strings and homogenous richness, has never sounded better.” Highlights of his fifth season include an exploration of American Sounds, with works by Leonard Bernstein, Christopher Rouse, Mason Bates, and Christopher Theofanidis; a Music of Paris Festival; and the continuation of a focus on opera and sacred vocal works, with Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Mozart’s C-minor Mass. Yannick has established himself as a musical leader of the highest caliber and one of the most thrilling talents of his generation. He has been music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic since 2008 and artistic director and principal conductor of Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain since 2000. He was also principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic from 2008 to 2014. He has made wildly successful appearances with the world’s most revered ensembles and has conducted critically acclaimed performances at many of the leading opera houses. Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Deutsche Grammophon (DG) enjoy a long-term collaboration. Under his leadership The Philadelphia Orchestra returned to recording with two CDs on that label. He continues fruitful recording relationships with the Rotterdam Philharmonic on DG, EMI Classics, and BIS Records; the London Philharmonic for the LPO label; and the Orchestre Métropolitain for ATMA Classique. In Yannick’s inaugural season The Philadelphia Orchestra returned to the radio airwaves, with weekly Sunday afternoon broadcasts on WRTI-FM. A native of Montreal, Yannick studied piano, conducting, composition, and chamber music at Montreal’s Conservatory of Music and continued his studies with renowned conductor Carlo Maria Giulini; he also studied choral conducting with Joseph Flummerfelt at Westminster Choir College. Among Yannick’s honors are an appointment as Companion of the Order of Canada, Musical America’s 2016 Artist of the Year, Canada’s National Arts Centre Award, the Prix Denise-Pelletier, and honorary doctorates from the University of Quebec in Montreal, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, NJ. To read Yannick’s full bio, please visit www.philorch.org/conductor. 30 Framing the Program The Opening Night Gala of The Philadelphia Orchestra’s Parallel Events 117th season offers a magical musical tour moving from 1907 Music America to Italy by way of France and Spain. The program Ravel Bartók begins with three dances from Leonard Bernstein’s Rapsodie Violin Concerto Broadway hit On the Town, about sailors during the espagnole No. 1 Second World War on shore leave in vibrant New York Literature City. We move then to Paris for George Gershwin’s Gorki evocative An American in Paris, based on his own Mother autobiographical experience of homesickness while in the Art City of Light. Picasso Les Demoiselles Maurice Ravel’s attraction to Spain derived in part from d’Avignon being born just north of the border to a Basque mother. History His brilliantly orchestrated Rapsodie espagnole offers four Second glimpses of Spain: a nocturnal prelude, a lively dance, a Hague Peace sultry Habanera, and a sparkling festival. The concert ends Conference with Ottorino Respighi’s The Pines of Rome, one of several pieces he wrote to honor his beloved eternal city. 1928 Music Gershwin Walton An American Viola Concerto in Paris Literature Huxley Point Counterpoint Art Munch Girl on Sofa History Fleming discovers penicillin 1944 Music Bernstein Prokofiev On the Town Symphony No. 5 Literature Camus Caligula Art Rivera The Rug Weaver History D-Day Landings 31 The Music Three Dance Episodes from On the Town A decade before West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein had cut his teeth on a musical comedy that would also carve out a unique place in the Broadway repertory. The topic of On the Town was, again, the search for love in the midst of urban chaos. But this time the tone was light, and the songs were lighter. On the Town was filled with dashing dance tunes and ensemble numbers like “New York, New York” that helped the nation get its mind off the war overseas. The year was 1944, and notions of love and romance Leonard Bernstein were dominated by war and soldiering. On the Town, a Born in Lawrence, collaboration with the choreographer Jerome Robbins and Massachusetts, August 25, Bernstein’s favorite lyricists, Betty Comden and Adolph 1918 Green, tells the story of three lonely sailors who find love Died in New York City, during a brief three-day leave in New York. If the show had October 14, 1990 a ring of truth, it was because it was based on the realities that these collaborators had been observing all around them. “We wanted these sailors to possess the qualities and attitudes of the servicemen we had seen coming into the Bernstein composed On the city for the first time,” Comden wrote in theNew York Times Town in 1944. when the show opened on Broadway on December 28, The Philadelphia Orchestra first 1944, “and touch upon the frantic search for gaiety and love, performed the Three Dance and the terrific pressure of time that war brings.” Indeed Episodes from On the Town part of what makes On the Town unique is this juxtaposition on a 1971 Student Concert, of the comic and the manic. It is a frothy love-comedy with conducted by William Smith. an unmistakable undercurrent of war-jitters—a search for The first, and only, subscription love before shipping off to some strange and terrible place performances were in January/ where one might very well meet a violent death.