Alan Gilbert: 2010-11 season
Alan Gilbert – the first native New Yorker to be appointed as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic – opens his second season in the post with a concert and gala on Wednesday, September 22, 2010. Headlining the concert is the U.S. premiere of Wynton Marsalis’s Swing Symphony (Symphony No. 3), featuring the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with its music director, Marsalis himself, on trumpet. The performance, to be broadcast on Live From Lincoln Center on PBS and on Classical 105.9 WQXR, launches a remarkable new season in which Gilbert conducts an extraordinarily wide range of repertoire.
In his inaugural season as New York Philharmonic Music Director, Gilbert introduced several new initiatives, including two new positions – the Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence, held by Magnus Lindberg, and the Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence, to be held in 2010-11 by violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter; an annual three-week festival, this season entitled “Hungarian Echoes”, led by Esa-Pekka Salonen; and CONTACT!, the New York Philharmonic’s new-music series. In the 2010-11 season, Gilbert will conduct the New York Philharmonic in a staged presentation of Janácek’s opera, The Cunning Little Vixen, directed by Doug Fitch; Mahler’s Symphonies Nos. 5 and 6 and Kindertotenlieder; the New York premieres of Magnus Lindberg’s groundbreaking Kraft and Thomas Adès’s In Seven Days; Mendelssohn’s Elijah; the world premiere of Aaron Jay Kernis’s a Voice, a Messenger (a New York Philharmonic co-commission; and both programs in the orchestra’s CONTACT! series. Gilbert will also lead the Philharmonic in two tours of European music capitals; two performances at Carnegie Hall, including the venue’s 120th anniversary concert; and his second Free Annual Memorial Day Concert at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, with a program that includes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, “Eroica”. Gilbert will also play viola with members of the orchestra in a late-season performance of Mozart’s String Quintet in D, K.59.
In addition to a busy schedule of concerts with the New York Philharmonic this season, Gilbert will conduct several other leading orchestras at home and abroad, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Hamburg’s NDR Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and, for the first time, Rome’s Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
Critical and audience reaction to Alan Gilbert’s inaugural season as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic was consistently enthusiastic, ushering in what the New York Times called “an adventurous new era” at the orchestra. Critics praised the “quietly revolutionary new music director” (New York), whose “canny and courageous direction” impressed the New Yorker’s critic to write: “The orchestra is playing better than it has in the 17 years that I’ve been a critic in New York.” Gramophone’s editor-in-chief noted, “The NYP has made a magnificent choice: [Gilbert] is energizing, contemporary, inclusive.”
The conductor’s inaugural season with the New York Philharmonic culminated in May 2010 with the presentation of three sold-out, fully staged performances at Avery Fisher Hall of György Ligeti’s opera, Le Grand Macabre. The New York Times hailed the production, designed and directed by Doug Fitch, as “an instant Philharmonic milestone.” As the New Yorker reported, “By the final night, Le Grand Macabre had become an improbable sensation, with scalpers in evidence outside. When Gilbert took his bow, the crowd made a thunderous, hero-welcoming noise.” A veteran critic for Musical America summed it up this way: “Surely the presiding force that made the evening so seamless and exciting was Gilbert on the podium. Pacing, instrumental gesture, textural richness, hair-trigger coordination of every complex element – it was all there, along with a thrilling take-no-prisoners musical exuberance that other performances of Le Grand Macabre I’ve heard never quite duplicated.” Soon after, Gilbert led the orchestra in an all-Varèse program at the Lincoln Center Festival that received a thunderous ovation and a New York Times review comparing the orchestra’s success to that of the Ligeti performances.
Other high points of the season were “Asian Horizons”, a major tour of Asia in October 2009, marked by the orchestra’s debut in Vietnam at the historic Hanoi Opera House; a nine-city European tour in February 2010; Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, coupled with the world premiere of Magnus Lindberg’s EXPO (a New York Philharmonic commission) on the season’s opening-night concert; Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, performed at the first subscription concerts of the season; an all-American New Year’s Eve concert; a performance at Carnegie Hall; two concerts in the CONTACT! series; an all-Mozart concert spotlighting principal players in the orchestra; and the season-end performances of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis. Gilbert also appeared with members of the orchestra as a violinist and violist, respectively, on two Saturday matinee performances of works by Schumann and Brahms.
In 2009 Gilbert became the first person to hold the William Schuman Chair in Musical Studies at the Juilliard School, a position that includes coaching, conducting, and hosting performance master classes; in this capacity he will conduct the Juilliard Orchestra in Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 in April 2011. In June 2008, Gilbert was named Conductor Laureate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra following his final concert as Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor. He has been principal guest conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Symphony Orchestra since 2004, and has conducted a host of other world-class orchestras, including the Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras; the Los Angeles Philharmonic; the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras; and the Orchestre National de Lyon, Berlin Philharmonic, Munich’s Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. In 2003 he was named the first music director of the Santa Fe Opera, a post he held until July 2006.
Gilbert studied at Harvard University, the Curtis Institute of Music, and the Juilliard School. From 1995 to1997 he was the assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra. In November 2008 he made his acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut conducting John Adams’s Doctor Atomic. His recording of Prokofiev’s Scythian Suite with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award, and his recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 received top honors from the Chicago Tribune and Gramophone magazine. On May 15, 2010, the Curtis Institute of Music awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Music degree.
Alan Gilbert: 2010-11 season
All concerts are with the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, except where noted.
Sep 22
Opening Night Concert and Gala
Wynton Marsalis: Swing Symphony (Symphony No. 3)
(with NYP; Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra / Wynton Marsalis, music director and trumpet)
(U.S. premiere, New York Philharmonic co-commission)
R. Strauss: Don Juan
Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
(Concert will be broadcast on Live From Lincoln Center on PBS stations and 105.9 WQXR.)
Sep 23-25, 28
R. Strauss: Don Juan
Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto (with Itzhak Perlman, violin)
Dutilleux: Métaboles
Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
Sep 29 – Oct 1
Mahler: Symphony No. 6
Oct 6
Debussy: Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun”
Sibelius: Violin Concerto (with Joshua Bell, violin)
R. Strauss: Don Juan
Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
Oct 7, 8, 12
Debussy: Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun”
Sibelius: Violin Concerto (with Joshua Bell, violin)
Magnus Lindberg: Kraft (New York premiere)
Oct 9
Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, Long Island University, Brookville, NY
Sibelius: Violin Concerto (with Joshua Bell, violin)
R. Strauss: Don Juan
Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
Oct 14-16
Webern: Passacaglia, Op. 1
Brahms: Violin Concerto (with Pinchas Zukerman, violin)
Brahms: Symphony No. 4
Oct 21 – Nov 4
“Europe / Autumn 2010”: European tour with the New York Philharmonic
Nov 10, 11, 13
Mendelssohn: Elijah
(with Carolyn Sampson, soprano; Alice Coote, mezzo-soprano; Allan Clayton, tenor; Gerald
Finley, bass-baritone; New York Choral Artists / Joseph Flummerfelt, director
Nov 12
New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall
Beethoven: Violin Concerto (with Midori, violin)
John Adams: Harmonielehre
Nov 19
CONTACT! (the New York Phil’s new-music series at Symphony Space, NYC)
Magnus Lindberg: New work (world premiere)
Gérard Grisey: Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil (with Barbara Hannigan, soprano)
Nov 20
CONTACT! (the New York Phil’s new-music series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art , NYC)
Magnus Lindberg: New work (world premiere)
Gérard Grisey: Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil (with Barbara Hannigan, soprano)
Nov 26-27
Paris, France; Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
School concert, Nov 26
Schoenberg: Pelleas und Melisande
Family Concert, Nov 27, matinee
Schoenberg: Pelleas und Melisande
Concert, Nov 27, evening
Zemlinsky: Sechs Gesänge After Poems by Maurice Maeterlinck, Op. 13
(with Yvonne Naef, contralto)
Schoenberg: Pelleas und Melisande
Dec 9-10, 12
NDR Symphony Orchestra, Hamburg
Hamburg, Germany (Dec 9)
Lübeck, Germany (Dec 10)
Hamburg, Germany (Dec 12)
Mahler: Symphony No. 6
Dec 17
CONTACT!, the New York Phil’s new-music series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC)
Julian Anderson: The Comedy of Change (U.S. premiere)
James Matheson: New work (world premiere)
Jay Alan Yim: New work (world premiere)
Dec 18
CONTACT!, the New York Phil’s new-music series at Symphony Space (NYC)
Julian Anderson: The Comedy of Change (U.S. premiere)
James Matheson: New work (world premiere)
Jay Alan Yim: New work (world premiere)
Dec 28-30
Vivaldi: Concerto for Four Violins, Op. 3, No. 10
Aaron Jay Kernis: a Voice, a Messenger (world premiere, New York Philharmonic commission)
Hindemith: Horn Concerto
Christopher Rouse: Oboe Concerto (New York premiere)
Ravel: Boléro
Dec 31
Tchaikovsky: “Polonaise” from Eugene Onegin
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 (with Lang Lang, piano)
Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker, Act II
(Broadcast on Live From Lincoln Center on PBS stations)
Jan 6-8, 2011
Mozart: Symphony No. 40
Mahler: Kindertotenlieder (with Thomas Hampson, baritone)
Thomas Adès: In Seven Days (Concerto for piano with moving image) (New York premiere)
Jan 20-22
Philadelphia, PA; Philadelphia Orchestra
Magnus Lindberg: EXPO
Christopher Rouse: Oboe Concerto
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral”
Jan 27-29, Feb 1
Beethoven: Symphony No. 8
Beethoven: Ah, perfido! (with Karita Mattila, soprano)
Sibelius: Selected Songs for soprano and orchestra (with Karita Mattila, soprano)
Nielsen: Symphony No. 2, “The Four Temperaments”
Jan 29, matinee
Mozart: Divertimento for two horns and strings
Nielsen: Symphony No. 2, “The Four Temperaments”
Feb 2-4
School day concerts
Program tba
Feb 19, 21, 22
Rome, Italy; Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (debut)
Debussy: Images
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 (with Nelson Freire, piano)
March 4, 5
NDR Symphony Orchestra, Hamburg
Hamburg, Germany (March 4)
Bremen, Germany (March 5)
Schubert: Rosamunde (Overture)
Mahler, arr. Berio: Early Songs (with Thomas Hampson, baritone)
Mahler: Adagio from Symphony No. 10
Berg: Three Pieces for Orchestra
March 24-25, 27
NDR Symphony Orchestra, Hamburg
Hamburg, Germany (March 24, 27)
Lübeck, Germany (March 25)
Magnus Lindberg: Violin Concerto (with Lisa Batiashvili, violin)
Dvorák: Symphony No. 6
March 26
Hamburg, Germany; NDR Hamburg Quartet
Gilbert plays second violin on program of Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven
April 15
New York, NY; Juilliard Orchestra
Mahler: Symphony No. 9
April 27
Mahler: Symphony No. 5 (“Rush Hour” concert)
April 28-30
Messiaen: Couleurs de la cité céleste
Mahler: Symphony No. 5
May 4, 6-7
Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 2 (with Lisa Batiashvili, violin)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3, “Eroica”
May 5
New York Philharmonic: Carnegie Hall’s 120th Anniversary Concert
Dvorák: Carnival Overture
Beethoven: Triple Concerto (with Emanuel Ax, piano; Gil Shaham, violin; Yo-Yo Ma, cello)
Gershwin: An American in Paris
Ellington: Songs (with Audra McDonald, soprano)
May 12-24
“EUROPE / SPRING 2011”: European tour with the New York Philharmonic
May 30
Free Annual Memorial Day Concert at Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine
Program to include Beethoven: Symphony No. 3, “Eroica”
June 2-4
Beethoven: Romance No. 2 for violin and orchestra
Sebastian Currier: Time Machines (world premiere) (with Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin)
Bruckner: Symphony No. 2
June 18
Saturday matinee concert
Mozart: String Quintet in D, K.593 (Gilbert on viola)
Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte
Mussorgsky, orch. Ravel: Pictures at an Exhibition
June 22-25
Janácek: The Cunning Little Vixen
Fully staged production directed and designed by Doug Fitch
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© 21C Media Group, September 2010