The New York Philharmonic and Chicago’s WFMT Radio Network will launch the sixth season of the concert broadcast series, The New York Philharmonic This Week, beginning the week of September 28, 2009. Emmy Award-winning actor Alec Baldwin is the new host of the two-hour radio program, which is broadcast and syndicated nationally 52 weeks a year by the WFMT Radio Network. The first 39 weeks of broadcasts will represent virtually the Orchestra’s entire 2009–10 season, the first under Music Director Alan Gilbert, and will include interviews with Philharmonic musicians, guest artists, and conductors. The additional 13 weeks of broadcasts, which will air during the summer months, will draw on the Philharmonic’s extensive library of commercial recordings.
“I’m very, very excited to be working with the New York Philharmonic. I’m a huge fan of classical music; I am a collector of classical music recordings, and I have a newfound relationship with the Orchestra,” said Alec Baldwin. “I am very glad to be here at the inception of Alan Gilbert’s first season.”
“Alec Baldwin is a great music lover, and loves the Philharmonic,” said President and Executive Director Zarin Mehta. “We are delighted he will join us as the announcer of our radio broadcasts at this exciting time in our history, as Alan Gilbert becomes the 25th Music Director of the New York Philharmonic. Alec is a great fan of ours, and we are great fans of his.”
The New York Philharmonic This Week airs locally on WQXR in New York Thursdays at 9 PM. The first program (the week of September 28) will air on 96.3 FM; subsequent programs will air on WQXR’s new location on at 105.9 FM. [Check local listings]. In addition to Sirius XM Radio, concerts are available on the Philharmonic’s Website, nyphil.org, for two weeks following the broadcast. The broadcasts are produced and syndicated to 290 outlets nationwide by the WFMT Radio Network. WFMT’s Mark Travis is the broadcast producer, and New York Philharmonic Audio Director Lawrence Rock is the engineer and music producer. Attached is a program schedule for the entire 2009–10 season.
The New York Philharmonic’s first Live National radio broadcast took place on October 5, 1930, over the CBS radio network. On that Sunday, Erich Kleiber was on the podium leading the Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Since that historic broadcast, the Philharmonic has enjoyed an almost continuous presence on national radio. Advancing its role as a media pioneer, the Philharmonic, since 2002, has shared its radio broadcast with a worldwide audience through its Website, nyphil.org.
The New York Philharmonic This Week 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. Credit Suisse is the Global Sponsor of the New York Philharmonic.
The WFMT Radio Network, the international syndication division of award-winning Chicago classical music station 98.7 FM WFMT (streaming live at wfmt.com/streaming), produces and distributes these broadcasts nationwide. In addition to the New York Philharmonic broadcasts, WFMT syndicates concerts by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, as well as ongoing series and documentary specials such as Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin and Leonard Bernstein: An American Life. The WFMT Radio Network also offers exclusive programming from Germany’s Deutsche Welle Radio, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and dozens of classical, folk, jazz, news series, and specials to radio outlets around the world.
Screen and stage actor Alec Baldwin will host The New York Philharmonic This Week beginning with the 2009–10 season. He received the 2009 and 2008 Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his starring role in the television series 30 Rock. The multi-award winning actor made his Philharmonic debut narrating the New York Philharmonic’s Inside the Music program on October 10, 2008, and narrated an additional Inside the Music program on January 23, 2009.
Mark Travis is a producer for 98.7 FM WFMT, Chicago, and the WFMT Radio Network. He produced the inaugural season of the The New York Philharmonic This Week in 2004–05, and during the 2003–04 season was the producer for the monthly New York Philharmonic Live! radio broadcasts, syndicated by the WFMT Radio Network. Since joining WFMT in 1999, he has written and produced specialty programs for local and national broadcasts, including the highly successful Berlin Philharmonic broadcasts, and has produced a number of commercial recordings for labels such as RCA/BMG, Naxos, Sony, and BIS. Mr. Travis, an accomplished singer and classical guitarist, has also written and produced a syndicated radio series of broadcasts by L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, among numerous other projects. He is also a producer/host of the award-winning New York Philharmonic Podcast, which previews upcoming programs
through musical selections as well as interviews with guest artists, Orchestra musicians, and experts.
Lawrence Rock has been Audio Director of the New York Philharmonic since 1997, overseeing all audio activities, including recording, broadcasting, and live sound. He received a 2005 Grammy Award in The category of Best Classical Album as co-producer, with composer John Adams, for Mr. Adams’s On the Transmigration of Souls, which also won two other Grammy Awards. The work, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center’s Great Performers, was recorded live during its World Premiere in September 2002 and released on CD on August 31, 2004, on Nonesuch Records. For the New York Philharmonic Special Editions™, Mr. Rock produced the Grammy-nominated Sweeney Todd: Live at the New York Philharmonic, and the 10-CD set, Kurt Masur at the New York Philharmonic. He has produced live broadcasts and commercial recordings for some of the most prestigious performance organizations in the United States, and received a Grammy Award in 1997 for his work on a recording with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
