Alan Gilbert leads NY Phil in Lindberg’s “Kraft” at Dresden’s VW factory on May 14

On Tuesday, May 14, Music Director Alan Gilbert will lead the New York Philharmonic at Volkswagen’s Transparent Factory (Die Gläserne Manufaktur) in Dresden. The sold-out concert, given as part of the orchestra’s EUROPE/SPRING 2013 tour and presented by the Dresden Music Festival, will showcase Magnus Lindberg’s groundbreaking, site-specific work Kraft (with the composer himself at the piano and a host of Philharmonic musicians as soloists), alongside Prospero’s Rooms by Christopher Rouse, and Bernstein’s Serenade with Joshua Bell as violin soloist. Audiences worldwide will be able to watch the concert at medici.tv, in a free, live webcast thatwill be available for streaming for the following 90 days.
 
It was Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic who gave Kraft its New York premiere in 2010, during Lindberg’s tenure as the orchestra’s Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-residence. The conductor explains:
 
“Kraft is one of Magnus Lindberg’s most important and influential works. We played it to great acclaim in New York and I couldn’t be more excited by the opportunity to play it not only in Europe, but also for a world-wide audience via streaming on medici.tv.”
 
With video production by the New York Philharmonic, the upcoming event marks the first of the orchestra’s European concerts to air on medici.tv, following other successful webcasts, including the 2012 spatial music program Philharmonic 360 – a co-production with Park Avenue Armory that has subsequently been seen by more than 65,000 unique viewers to date. Gilbert reflects: “It has been fun to travel since then and be told by many, many people who saw the concert online how much they enjoyed it, and how spectacular and innovative they thought it was.” He continues,
 
“This Kraft performance from Dresden will be in that vein. Kraft is a work that fills and embodies the concept of spatial music. The word ‘Kraft’ refers to power, but also craft, that is to say, making things, and, in Lindberg’s work, it is a musical structure in which the building blocks are literally bits of melody and notes that are passed around in a physical way that actually clarifies how music is built.”
 
The conductor describes the genesis of his idea for the concert, recalling:
 
“When I first went to Volkswagen’s flagship factory in Dresden, Germany, I immediately thought of performing Kraft. The assembly line is an L-shaped space in which all the walls are glass – there is literally complete transparency in the process. The part of the rectangle that is left open by this ‘L’ is a large open area, which is where we will build a stage and perform.”
 
The Transparent Factory makes an especially fitting venue for Lindberg’s work, since the composer specifies that the orchestra perform on repurposed, locally sourced metal, which Volkswagen is providing in the form of luxury Phaeton car parts.
 
Further details of the upcoming event are provided below, and additional information may be found at Gilbert’s website: www.alangilbert.com, and the New York Philharmonic’s website, www.nyphil.org.
 
 
Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic at Volkswagen’s Transparent Factory
Tuesday, May 14
Dresden, Germany
 
Magnus Lindberg: Kraft (with Lindberg, piano; Christopher S. Lamb and Daniel Druckman, percussion; Markus Rhoten, timpani; Carter Brey, cello; Chen Halevi, clarinet; and Juhani Liimatainen, electronics)
 
Christopher Rouse: Prospero’s Rooms 
 
Bernstein: Serenade (with Joshua Bell, violin)
 
medici.tv will present a free live webcast of the concert on Tuesday, May 14 at 2pm EDT.
This webcast will be available for streaming for 90 days beginning at 9pm EDT on Tuesday, May 14.

 
www.alangilbert.com
 
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