Alan Gilbert Conducts John Adams World Premiere This Week

Music Director Alan Gilbert will lead the New York Philharmonic in the World Premiere of John Adams's Scheherazade.2 - Dramatic symphony for violin and orchestra - a Philharmonic Co-Commission with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam; the Royal Concertgebouw; and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, David Robertson, Chief Conductor and Artistic Director - performed by Leila Josefowicz, for whom it is written and dedicated. The concerts - which also include two early 20th-century Russian works, Stravinsky's Petrushka (original 1911 version) and Lyadov's The Enchanted Lake - take place tonight, March 26, 2015, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, March 27 at 8:00 p.m.; and Saturday, March 28 at 8:00 p.m.

The title of Mr. Adams's new work is a reference to the fable of Scheherazade, the Sultan's wife who narrated One Thousand and One Nights to spare her life, and to Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, which features concertmaster solos portraying the titular heroine.

"Scheherazade.2 imagines an empowered modern Scheherazade, a storyteller/hostage whose strength of character and powers of endurance are tested over and over by male hegemony," John Adams said. "The 'scenario' was suggested by images in the media of imperiled women under the pressure of religious and political conservatism, including, but not limited to, women in Egypt, Afghanistan, Central Africa, and the U.S."

"John Adams is today's Dean of American Composers - many of his works are rightfully acknowledged as landmarks in the last half-century of music," Music Director Alan Gilbert said. "John's style has evolved, but he has always been rooted in an incredibly idiomatic use of the orchestra. This piece reflects John's characteristic combination of highly developed craft with a uniquely gripping narrative style of composition. The very title of this work implies storytelling, a quality that I know that Leila will vividly bring to life."

"Leila Josefowicz is a uniquely inspired and inspiring musician who for years has performed all of my violin music with great insight, virtuosity, passion, and fiery commitment," John Adams said. "Her devotion to the composers of her own time is a model for all superstar performers. Scheherazade.2 is the result of a close collaboration with Leila, whose own strength of character and powers of endurance were much in my mind while composing it. She has the kind of feminine power that I wanted to evoke."

"In the first movement, Tale of the Wise Young Woman - Pursuit of the True Believers, it becomes clear that the young woman is going to have to fight for herself, her soul," Leila Josefowicz says. "In A Long Desire Love Scene this woman doesn't want people to tell her how to love or whom to love; it's a statement of empowerment for women. Scheherazade and the Men with Beards starts off almost as if John's taken the strings, winds, and horns and turned them into different characterizations of these men with beards discussing, arguing, debating about how they are going to condemn Scheherazade; she is staying cool while they are losing it around her, but she has her moments of lashing out at them. By the end of the last movement, Escape, Flight, Sanctuary, there is a sanctuary, but is she safe? Is she in heaven? I don't know. I think this last movement is one of the most amazing things John has ever written."

The Philharmonic has enjoyed an ongoing relationship with Mr. Adams since 1983, when it performed the New York Premiere of his Grand Pianola Music. The Orchestra has since given the World Premieres of Easter Eve 1945 (2004, conducted by Mr. Adams) and On the Transmigration of Souls (2002), co-commissioned by the Philharmonic and Lincoln Center's Great Performers series in memory of the victims of 9/11. The latter won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in Music, and its recording on Nonesuch - featuring the Philharmonic led by Lorin Maazel with the New York Choral Artists and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus - received the 2005 Grammy Awards for Best Classical Album, Best Orchestral Performance, and Best Classical Contemporary Composition.

The New York Philharmonic's free Insights at the Atrium series will present "Artist and Muse: John Adams and Leila Josefowicz," Monday, March 23, 2015, at 7:30 p.m., at which the composer and violinist speak about their collaboration on Scheherazade.2 - Dramatic symphony for violin and orchestra. Ms. Josefowicz will also perform Mr. Adams's Road Movies with pianist John Novacek. The event takes place at the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center (Columbus Avenue at 62nd Street) and is co-presented with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.