All-American Program and More Set for NY Philharmonic's Worldwide Radio Broadcasts, July 2014

The July broadcasts of The New York Philharmonic This Week -- the weekly radio series of concerts and recordings by the New York Philharmonic, hosted by Alec Baldwin -- begin with Bramwell Tovey leading the Orchestra in an all-American program. The United States Coast Guard Band (in its Philharmonic debut), conducted by Captain Kenneth W. Megan, performs works by Sousa, Copland, and Bernstein. The concert also features the World Premiere of the orchestra version of Bramwell Tovey's The Lincoln Tunnel Cabaret for Trombone and Orchestra, with Principal Trombone Joseph Alessi as soloist.

The following week, the New York Philharmonic performs the opening program of The Beethoven Piano Concertos: A Philharmonic Festival featuring The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Yefim Bronfman. Over the course of the three-week festival Mr. Bronfman performs the complete Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle and the Triple Concerto with Principal Cello Carter Brey and Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow. The festival will also feature the World Premieres of Lyra by Anthony Cheung and Songs by Sean Shepherd, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic as part of The Marie-Jose?e Kravis Prize for New Music, pairing the master composer's concertos with new commissions now entering the repertoire.

In the opening program of The Beethoven Piano Concertos, Alan Gilbert conducts Beethoven's Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 4, with Mr. Bronfman as soloist, and the World Premiere-New York Philharmonic Commission of Anthony Cheung's Lyra. The Beethoven Piano Concertos continues in the third week of broadcasts with Alan Gilbert leading Beethoven's Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 3, with Yefim Bronfman as soloist, and the World Premiere-New York Philharmonic Commission of Sean Shepherd's Songs. The fourth week of broadcasts concludes the festival, when Alan Gilbert leads Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5, Emperor, with Yefim Bronfman as soloist, and Beethoven's Triple Concerto, with Mr. Bronfman alongside Principal Cello Carter Brey and Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow in the final performances of his Philharmonic tenure.

In the final broadcast in July, Bramwell Tovey conducts the New York Philharmonic in Shostakovich's Festive Overture; Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 1, with Joyce Yang as soloist; Musorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain; Rachmaninoff's arrangement of his own Vocalise; and Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker and Marche slave.

The New York Philharmonic This Week airs locally in the New York metropolitan area on WQXR 105.9 FM, Thursdays at 8:00 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 465 outlets nationally and 122 outlets internationally by the WFMT Radio Network. Alec Baldwin is the host, 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 broadcasts 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. This season, the Orchestra released another digital recording series: Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic: 2013-14 Season. The first two albums are now available for download and streaming. Since 1917 the Philharmonic has made nearly 2,000 recordings, with more than 500 currently available.

Alec Baldwin is the Radio Host of the New York Philharmonic. The actor most recently appeared on Broadway in the 2013 production of Lyle Kessler's Orphans, following appearances including Equus (Guild Hall, 2010 production); Entertaining Mr. Sloane (the Roundabout Theatre Company, 2006 production); Loot (Broadway, 1986); Serious Money (Broadway, 1988); Prelude to a Kiss (Circle Repertory Company, in 1990 (Obie Award); A Streetcar Named Desire (Broadway, 1992); Macbeth (New York Shakespeare Festival, 1998); and The Twentieth Century (Roundabout Theatre Company, 2004), earning him Theatre World and Obie Awards as well as a Tony nomination.

Mr. Baldwin has appeared in more than 40 films, including Beetlejuice, Working Girl, Miami Blues, The Hunt for Red October, Glengarry Glen Ross, Malice, The Juror, The Edge, Ghosts of Mississippi, State and Main, The Cat in the Hat, The Cooler (National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor and an Oscar nomination), The Aviator, The Departed, and It's Complicated. For seven years he starred as Jack Donaghy opposite Tina Fey on NBC's 30 Rock; for his portrayal he received seven Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Golden Globes, the Television Critics Award, two Emmy Awards as Best Actor in a Comedy Series, and the 2009 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series. In 2011 Mr. Baldwin received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His company, El Dorado Pictures, has produced projects including Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial for TNT (Emmy Award nomination); The Confession for Showtime (Writers Guild Award for Best Adapted Screenplay); and David Mamet's film State and Main. A dedicated supporter of public policy and arts causes, Alec Baldwin serves on the boards of the New York Philharmonic, People For The American Way, The Hamptons International Film Festival, and Guild Hall. He has partnered with Capital One to create an advertising campaign that, through the Alec Baldwin Foundation, provides funding for arts groups across the country, particularly in the New York area, and raises awareness for support of the arts. His book, A Promise to Ourselves, was published by St. Martin's Press in paperback in 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: 2012-13 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 18-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 Lyric Opera of Chicago Broadcasts as well as broadcasts by the Berlin Philharmonic, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Bavarian Staatsoper, 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 and educational pieces for a variety of organizations. He is a member of 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. From 2010-2012, Mr. Travis proudly served as a music committee chair for the United States Artists Music Awards in Los Angeles. In 2013 he and his production team earned a Gold World Medal for Best Sound, A Bronze World Medal for Best Regularly Scheduled Music Program, and a Finalist Certificate for Best Classical Format from the New York Festivals International Radio Awards for their work on The New York Philharmonic This Week.

The WFMT Radio Network, the international syndication division of award-winning Chicago classical music station 98.7 WFMT, distributes these broadcasts worldwide. In addition to the New York Philharmonic broadcasts, the WFMT Radio Network syndicates many programs, including 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, San Francisco Opera, and more. In addition, exclusive programming from Germany's Deutsche Welle Radio, and dozens of classical, folk, jazz, news series, and specials are offered to radio outlets around the world. For more information, contact Tony Macaluso at tmacaluso@wfmt.com or Estlin Usher at eusher@wfmt.com.