Alec Baldwin Hosts NY Philharmonic Weekly Radio Broadcasts in February

In February 2012 The New York Philharmonic This Week - the weekly radio series of concerts by the New York Philharmonic, hosted by Alec Baldwin - begins with an encore performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah from November 2010 led by Music Director Alan Gilbert, The Yoko Nagae Ceschina Chair, with soprano Carolyn Sampson, mezzo-soprano Alice Coote, tenor Allan Clayton, bass-baritone Gerald Finley, and the New York Choral Artists, Joseph Flummerfelt, director. The second program - from the Orchestra's EUROPE / WINTER 2010 tour - is also led by Mr. Gilbert and includes EXPO by The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence Magnus Lindberg; Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2, with Yefim Bronfman as soloist; and Sibelius's Symphony No. 2 and Valse triste as performed in Cologne, Germany.

In the third broadcast, Mr. Gilbert leads the Orchestra in Mr. Lindberg's Feria; Bartók's Piano Concerto No. 2, with Lang Lang as soloist; and Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5 from the concerts January 18–21, 2012. The final February broadcast will comprise commercial recordings by the New York Philharmonic: Rossini's Stabat Mater led by Thomas Schippers, with soprano Martina Arroyo, mezzo-soprano Beverly Wolff, tenor Tito Del Bianco, bass Justino Días, and The Camerata Singers, Abraham Kaplan, director (January 14, 1965); and Mahler's Symphony No. 4 led by Leonard Bernstein, with soprano Reri Grist as soloist (January 28, 1960).

The New York Philharmonic This Week airs locally in the New York metropolitan area on WQXR 105.9 FM, Thursdays at 9:00 p.m. [Check local listings.] Concerts are available on the Philharmonic's Website, nyphil.org, for two weeks following the broadcast. The broadcasts are syndicated to more than 300 outlets nationally and 122 outlets internationally by the WFMT Radio Network. Alec Baldwin is the host of the program, New York Philharmonic Audio Producer Mark Travis is the broadcast producer, and Audio Director Lawrence Rock is the music producer.

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. In 2004 the New York Philharmonic was the first major American orchestra to offer downloadable concerts, recorded live. Following on this innovation, in 2009 the Orchestra announced the first-ever subscription download series: Alan Gilbert: The Inaugural Season, available exclusively on iTunes, produced and distributed by the New York Philharmonic, and comprising more than 50 works performed during the 2009–10 season. Last season the Orchestra released another iTunes pass: Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic: 2010–11 Season. Since 1917 the Philharmonic has made nearly 2,000 recordings, with more than 500 currently available.

Credit Suisse is the Global Sponsor of the New York Philharmonic.

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.

Programs of the New York Philharmonic are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. 

The WFMT Radio Network, the international syndication division of award-winning Chicago classical music station 98.7 WFMT (streaming live at wfmt.com/streaming), distributes these broadcasts worldwide. In addition to the New York Philharmonic broadcasts, the WFMT Radio Network syndicates concerts by the Chicago, San Francisco, and Milwaukee symphony orchestras, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, as well as ongoing series such as Jazz at Lincoln Center Radio and Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin. The WFMT Radio Network also offers a full season of performances by American opera companies such as Lyric Opera of Chicago, Los Angeles Opera On Air, San Francisco Opera, and Houston Grand Opera. In addition, exclusive programming from Germany's Deutsche Welle Radio, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and dozens of classical, folk, jazz, news series, and specials are offered to radio outlets around the world.

Alec Baldwin has hosted The New York Philharmonic This Week since the 2009–10 season. He received the 2008 and 2009 Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his starring role in the television series 30 Rock. For the same role he also won the 2010 Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Television Comedy and the 2010 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series. Mr. Baldwin 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. As part of The Russian Stravinsky: A Philharmonic Festival, Mr. Baldwin narrated L'Histoire du Soldat on May 2, 2010. Mr. Baldwin has hosted the Opening Night Concert and New Year's Eve Live From Lincoln Center telecasts on PBS stations since 2009.

Lawrence Rock has been Audio Director of the New York Philharmonic since 1997, overseeing all audio activities including recording, broadcasting, and live sound. He is the recording and mastering engineer as well as a producer for the recent iTunes Passes, Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic: 2010–11 Season, and Alan Gilbert: The Inaugural Season, both produced and distributed by the New York Philharmonic. His other recent projects have included producing New York Philharmonic and Lorin Maazel: The Complete Mahler Symphonies, Live; Deutsche Grammophon's New York Philharmonic DG Concerts downloads; and a Deutsche Grammophon recording of music by Richard Strauss, performed by the Philharmonic. In 2005 Mr. Rock received three Grammy Awards for John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls, for which he served as co-producer with the composer, and in 1997 he won a Grammy for engineering an album of works by Aaron Copland, performed by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. For the Philharmonic's own recording label, New York Philharmonic Special Editions, Mr. Rock co-produced the Grammy-nominated CD Sweeney Todd: Live at the New York Philharmonic and the 10-CD set Kurt Masur at the New York Philharmonic. He has also made recordings with the Chicago, Houston, and Milwaukee symphony orchestras. 

Mark Travis, an award-winning 16-year music industry veteran, joined the New York Philharmonic as its full-time in-house producer in August 2011. For the previous 12 years he worked for Chicago's WFMT Radio Network. He has written and produced The New York Philharmonic This Week since its inaugural season in 2004–05. Other broadcast credits include the Bucksbaum Family Lyric Opera of Chicago Broadcasts as well as broadcasts by the Berlin Philharmonic, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Bavarian State Opera, and The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Travis has an extensive discography as a music producer that ranges from recordings by the New York Philharmonic to those by William Warfield, Jenny Lin, Jeffrey Siegel, the Lyrebird Ensemble, and the Chicago Chorale. An accomplished singer and classical guitarist, he also hosts and produces several podcasts for a variety of organizations, and is an editor and producer for the free, award-winning On the Music: The New York Philharmonic Podcast, available at nyphil.org/podcast or from iTunes. He is active on the Classical Committee of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc. (NARAS), and serves on both the grand jury and advisory board of the New York Festivals International Broadcasting Competition. This summer, Mr. Travis proudly served as a panelist for the United States Artists Music Awards.

For more information visit nyphil.org.

Photo Credit: Chris Lee