Manfred Honeck Returns To New York Philharmonic Featuring Inon Barnatan as Soloist, 2/15-18

Manfred Honeck will return to the New York Philharmonic to conduct Mahler's Symphony No. 1 and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1, with Artist-in-Association Inon Barnatan as soloist in his final Philharmonic appearance in that role, Wednesday, February 15, 2017, at 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, February 16 at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, February 17 at 2:00 p.m.; and Saturday, February 18 at 8:00 p.m.

Manfred Honeck's recording of Mahler's First Symphony with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra was released in 2010 on the Exton label. BBC Music Magazine wrote in its review: "Mahler's First Symphony is now so frequently performed, broadcast and recorded that it is difficult to imagine how strange, even discomforting, it must have sounded to its early listeners....Yet in this new recording something of that freshness is recaptured through observing, for once, Mahler's enormously detailed markings, to the letter.... In short, a reading to surprise even the most jadEd Mahlerian."

This season marks Inon Barnatan's third and final season as the New York Philharmonic's inaugural Artist-in-Association. The position, which Music Director Alan Gilbert created and launched in the 2014-15 season, complements the Orchestra's Composer-in-Residence and Artist-in-Residence positions by spotlighting an emerging artist over the course of three seasons through both concerto and chamber music performances and by cultivating a relationship among the artist, the Orchestra, and the audience.

"The Orchestra and organization have embraced me in such an unbelievably warm, personal way," Inon Barnatan said. "I feel a tremendous amount of support, love, and affection, which is wonderful coming from an organization as incredible as the New York Philharmonic. It translates to the music-making - whenever we play together I feel as if it were a conversation between friends."

Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 is among the season's performances of the complete Beethoven piano concerto cycle. Mr. Barnatan performed the work with the Philharmonic in Ann Arbor in October 2015 as part of its residency partnership with the University Musical Society at the University of Michigan. He and Alan Gilbert are collaborating on a recording of Beethoven's complete piano concertos with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

"Beethoven's First Piano Concerto has almost every single aspect of Beethoven that we can think of already - this unbelievable world of emotion and wit and drama and beauty and poetry. It's one of my all-time favorites," Inon Barnatan said.

Artists
Manfred Honeck, renowned for his distinctive interpretations, has served as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra since the 2008-09 season. He and the orchestra are consistently recognized for their performances and are celebrated both in Pittsburgh and abroad. To great acclaim, they regularly perform in major music capitals and festivals, among them the BBC Proms, Musikfest Berlin, Lucerne Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, Grafenegg Festival, Carnegie Hall, and Vienna's Musikverein. This successful collaboration has also been extensively documented on recordings. The SACDs released by Reference Records - most recently suites from the Richard Strauss operas Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier - have received numerous rave reviews, as well as two Grammy Award nominations. Born in Austria, Manfred Honeck received his musical training at the Academy of Music in Vienna. Many years of experience as a member of the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna Staatsoper Orchestra have given his conducting a distinctive stamp. He began his career as assistant to Claudio Abbado and was subsequently engaged by the Zurich Opera House, which awarded him the prestigious European Conductor's Award. Following early posts as one of three main conductors of the MDR Symphony Orchestra in Leipzig and as principal guest conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Mr. Honeck was appointed music director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm. For several years he also served as principal guest conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. From 2007 to 2011 he was music director of the Staatsoper Stuttgart. His operatic guest appearances have included Dresden Semperoper, Royal Opera of Copenhagen, and the Salzburg Festival. Mr. Honeck has worked as a guest conductor with the world's leading orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Dresden Staatskapelle, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Accademia di Santa Cecilia Rome, and the Vienna Philharmonic. In the United States he has conducted the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and Boston Symphony Orchestra. Moreover, he has been artistic director of the International Concerts Wolfegg in Germany for more than 20 years. Manfred Honeck has received honorary doctorates from several North American universities. Most recently, he was awarded the title of honorary professor by the Austrian Federal President. He made his New York Philharmonic debut conducting works by Braunfels and Beethoven as well as Grieg's Piano Concerto, with Jean-Yves Thibaudet as soloist, in January 2013; he most recently appeared with the Orchestra in November 2016, leading works by Ravi Shankar, Haydn, and Schubert.

Israeli pianist Inon Barnatan is a recipient of both the Avery Fisher Career Grant and Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal Award. He has performed extensively with many of the world's foremost orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, San Francisco Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Royal Stockholm Symphony Orchestra, and Lisbon's Gulbenkian Orchestra. He has worked with such conductors as Gustavo Dudamel, James Gaffigan, Susanna Mälkki, Matthias Pintscher, David Robertson, Thomas Søndergård, Michael Tilson Thomas, Edo de Waart, Pinchas Zukerman, and Jaap van Zweden. Passionate about contemporary music, the pianist has premiered new works composed for him by Matthias Pintscher, Sebastian Currier, and Avner Dorman. In 2016-17 Inon Barnatan enters his third and final season as the New York Philharmonic's inaugural Artist-in-Association, a position created to spotlight an emerging artist over the course of three seasons through both concerto and chamber music performances and by cultivating a relationship among the artist, the Orchestra, and the audience. He also makes debuts with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, led by New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert; Chicago Symphony Orchestra, led by Jesús López-Cobos; Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, led by Vasily Petrenko; and the Seattle Symphony, led by Ludovic Morlot. In addition to returning to the New York Philharmonic under Manfred Honeck, he embarks on three tours: of the U.S., with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields; of Europe, with cellist Alisa Weilerstein, his frequent recital partner; and of the U.S. again, performing a trio program with Ms. Weilerstein and Philharmonic Principal Clarinet Anthony McGill. Inon Barnatan's critically acclaimed discography includes Avie and Bridge recordings of Schubert's solo piano works, as well as Darknesse Visible, which made The New York Times's "Best of 2012" list. Last season he released Rachmaninov & Chopin: Cello Sonatas on Decca Classics with Ms. Weilerstein. Inon Barnatan made his New York Philharmonic subscription debut in March 2015 performing Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major, led by Alan Gilbert. He most recently appeared with the Orchestra in the December 2015 New Year's Eve concert, and in March 2016 he performed in Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Temple of Dendur as part of the Philharmonic's Messiaen Week.

Repertoire
It is likely that Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) composed his Piano Concerto No. 1 in 1795, as recent research suggests it was premiered in December of that year, with the composer himself as soloist, at a concert in Vienna organized by Haydn, with whom Beethoven had studied. Although now identified as Beethoven's No. 1, this was actually the third piano concerto he composed, but the first to be published; both the First and Second Piano Concertos were published in 1801. Composed while Beethoven was living as a houseguest of one of his patrons, Prince Carl Lichnowsky, the work follows the classical models set forth by Haydn and Mozart, yet shows signs of the signature musical hallmarks Beethoven would develop as his career progressed. It is in three movements (Allegro con brio, Largo, and a lighthearted Rondo), and at the time was the longest concerto of its kind. The festive work calls for impressive technique from the soloist, and is richly orchestrated. The New York Philharmonic first performed the concerto in December 1918, with Walter Damrosch leading the New York Symphony (which merged with the New York Philharmonic in 1928 to form today's New York Philharmonic) and Alfred Cortot as soloist; Artist-in-Association Inon Barnatan joined Alan Gilbert and the Orchestra to perform the concerto as part of the October 2015 residency with the University Musical Society of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) began working on the ideas that grew into his Symphony No. 1 in 1876, when he was still a teenager. The years between the work's completion and its premiere in 1889 (with the Budapest Philharmonic, conducted by Mahler himself) were ones of artistic growth and experimentation, often marked by a preoccupation with the meaning of life. At first Mahler called the work a Symphonic Poem in Two Parts; he later gave its sections programmatic titles, such as From the Days of Youth and Human Comedy, partially in an effort to help audiences comprehend the symphony's vast scope. Mahler eventually jettisoned descriptive titles and simply called it Symphony in D, with the added subtitle Titan, possibly a reference to a novel by Jean Paul. After further revisions, including the removal of the Blumine movement, however, the composer removed the subtitle. The Symphony No. 1 marked a radical expansion of symphonic ambition and content; it is highly dramatic, full of turmoil and struggle, moving from pastoral interludes and scenes of nature to a sardonic funeral march, and on to a stirring finale. Mahler led the New York Philharmonic in the work's U.S. Premiere on December 16, 1909. Alan Gilbert conducted the Orchestra's most recent performance of the work, in September 2014.

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Tickets
Single tickets for this performance start at $31. Tickets for Open Rehearsals are $20. Tickets may be purchased online at nyphil.org or by calling (212) 875-5656, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday; 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Saturday; and noon to 5:00 p.m. Sunday. Tickets may also be purchased at the David Geffen Hall Box Office. The Box Office opens at 10:00 a.m. Monday through Saturday, and at noon on Sunday. On performance evenings, the Box Office closes one-half hour after performance time; other evenings it closes at 6:00 p.m. A limited number of $18 tickets for select concerts may be available through the Internet for students within 10 days of the performance, or in person the day of. Valid identification is required. To determine ticket availability, call the Philharmonic's Customer Relations Department at (212) 875-5656. (Ticket prices subject to change.)

For press tickets, call Lanore Carr in the New York Philharmonic Communications Department at (212) 875-5714, or email her at carrl@nyphil.org.

New York Philharmonic

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center

Wednesday, February 15, 2017, 7:30 p.m.
Open Rehearsal - 9:45 a.m.
Thursday, February 16, 2017, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, February 17, 2017, 2:00 p.m.
Saturday, February 18, 2017, 8:00 p.m.

Manfred Honeck, conductor
Inon Barnatan, piano

BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 1
MAHLER Symphony No. 1