Music Director Alan Gilbert will lead the New York Philharmonic in Mahler's Symphony No. 6, launching a season-long focus that honors the 150th anniversary of the composer/conductor's birth and the 100th anniversary of his death and last season as music director of the New York Philharmonic, Wednesday, September 29, 2010, at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, September 30, at 7:30 p.m., and Friday, October 1, at 8:00 p.m.
In the course of the season Mr. Gilbert will conduct Mahler's Symphony No. 5, and his Kindertotenlieder, featuring baritone Thomas Hampson. Sir Colin Davis will lead Des Knaben Wunderhorn with soprano Dorothea Röschmann and tenor Ian Bostridge; and Daniel Harding, in his Philharmonic debut, will conduct the Symphony No. 4. Archival exhibitions will also display scores and other memorabilia about Mahler's time with the Orchestra.
"There's something very special about the Sixth Symphony," says Mr. Gilbert. "It is a deeply despairing, pessimistic work; something about the ending is just utterly devastating. But the journey along the way covers the entire life experience. Some of the music in this symphony is the most ecstatic, unbelievably happy, beautiful music that Mahler ever wrote. It is really a picture of life in a very real sense."
"Gustav Mahler was a music director of this Orchestra and also one of the greatest composers of the 20th century," Mr. Gilbert continues. "We're playing quite a few of his works this season - and I think it's an appropriate way to honor this most important musician, not only for the New York Philharmonic, but for everybody who loves music.
Related Events
• New York Philharmonic Podcast Elliott Forrest, Peabody Award-winning broadcaster, producer, and weekend host on Classical 105.9 FM WQXR, is the producer of this podcast. These award-winning previews of upcoming programs - through musical selections as well as interviews with guest artists, conductors, and Orchestra musicians - are available at nyphil.org/podcast or from iTunes.
• National Radio Broadcast
This concert will be broadcast the week of October 18, 2010,* on The New York Philharmonic This Week, a radio concert series syndicated nationally to more than 300 stations by the WFMT Radio Network. The 52-week series, hosted by actor Alec Baldwin, is generously underwritten by The Kaplen Foundation, the Audrey Love Charitable Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Philharmonic's corporate partner, MetLife Foundation. The broadcast will be available on the Philharmonic's Website, nyphil.org. The program is broadcast locally in the New York metropolitan area on Classical 105.9 FM WQXR on Thursdays at 9:00 p.m.
*Check local listings for broadcast and program information.
• Archival Exhibit
Dimitri Mitropoulos: Conducting the Unfamiliar, 1940-1960. The Greek-born conductor (1896-1960), who served as the New York Philharmonic's Music Director at the height of his orchestral career, was a champion of the new and unusual, expanding the Orchestra's repertoire, commissioning new works, and promoting the symphonies of Gustav Mahler. The exhibition, marking the 50th anniversary of Mitropoulos's death, will focus on the music that he brought to the Philharmonic's audiences. Bruno Walter Gallery, Avery Fisher Hall, September 27-November 30,
2010. [Editors note: Mahler: His Last Months in New York will be mounted in the Bruno Walter Gallery from April 1 to May 30, 2011.]
Artist
Alan Gilbert became Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in September 2009, the first native New Yorker to hold the post, ushering in what New York Magazine called "a moment of metamorphosis and continuity." In his inaugural season he introduced a number of new initiatives: the positions of The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in- Residence, held by Magnus Lindberg, and The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence, held in 2010-11 by violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter; an annual three-week festival; and CONTACT!, the New York Philharmonic's new-music series. In the 2010-11 season he will lead the Orchestra on two tours of European music capitals; two performances at Carnegie Hall, including the venue's 120th Anniversary Concert; and a staged presentation of Janá?ek's The Cunning Little Vixen. Highlights of Mr. Gilbert's inaugural season included major tours of Asia and Europe and an acclaimed staged presentation of Ligeti's opera, Le Grand Macabre.
