Marin Alsop To Lead Philharmonic in Four Concerts
By: Faetra Petillo Aug. 27, 2008
Marin Alsop will lead the New York Philharmonic in four concerts, each featuring Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World, October 7, 10, and 11, 2008. The programs on October 7 at 7:30 p.m. and October 11 at 8:00 p.m. will comprise Bartók’s The Wooden Prince Suite; Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with Rafał Blechacz making his New York Philharmonic debut; and the Dvořák symphony. The Saturday Matinee on October 11 at 2:00 p.m. will begin with Brahms’s Piano Quintet, featuring Philharmonic musicians and guest pianist Shai Wosner, followed by Dvořák’s New World Symphony. On Inside the Music, Friday, October 10, at 8:00 p.m., the story of the Dvořák symphony will be told in a multimedia presentation, followed by a complete performance, conducted by Ms. Alsop. Bass Kevin Deas will participate in this program, which was written and produced by Joseph Horowitz. Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World, received its world premiere by the New York Philharmonic on December 16, 1893.
The schedule will be as follows:
• Insights Series“Dvořák in Search of America” traces the composer’s influence in a program exploring his music, his African-American student Harry Burleigh, and jazz stylist Art Tatum. Joseph Horowitz, curator and host; Steven Mayer, piano. Saturday, October 4, 2008, 2:00 p.m., Gilder Lehrman Hall, The Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street.
• Pre-Concert Talk
Joseph Horowitz will introduce the evening programs on October 7 and 11 and the Saturday Matinee on October 11 one hour before each performance. Tickets are $5 in addition to the concert ticket. Attendance is limited to 90 people. Information: nyphil.org or (212) 875-5656.
Elliott Forrest, Peabody Award-winning broadcaster, producer, and afternoon host of 96.3 FM WQXR, will host this podcast. These previews of upcoming programs — through musical selections as well as interviews with guest artists, conductors, and Orchestra musicians — are available at nyphil.org/podcast or from iTunes.
• National Radio Broadcast
The evening programs of October 7 and 11 will be broadcast the week of October 20, 2008,* on The New York Philharmonic This Week, a radio concert series syndicated nationally to more than 250 stations by the WFMT Radio Network. The 52-week series, hosted by WFMT’s Kerry Frumkin, 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. The broadcast will be available on the Philharmonic’s Website, nyphil.org. The program is broadcast locally in the New York metropolitan area on 96.3 FM WQXR on Thursdays at 9:00 p.m.
Marin Alsop was appointed the 12th music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, beginning with the 2007–08 season. She is the first woman to head a major American orchestra, mirroring her ongoing success in the United Kingdom as principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra since 2002. The first artist to win both Gramophone’s “Artist of the Year” award and the Royal Philharmonic Society’s conductor’s award in the same season, Ms. Alsop was named a MacArthur Fellow and won the Classical Brit Award for Best Female Artist that year — the first conductor to receive this prestigious American honor. She has also received the Royal Philharmonic Society’s BBC Radio 3 Listeners Award and European Women of Achievement Award.
Ms. Alsop is a regular guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Los Angeles Philharmonic. She is also one of the few conductors to appear every season with both the London Symphony and the London Philharmonic orchestras, and has appeared as a guest conductor with many other distinguished orchestras worldwide, including Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Zurich Tonhalle, Orchestre de Paris, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Tokyo Philharmonic.
Highlights of Marin Alsop’s recording collaboration with Naxos include a Brahms symphony cycle with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and an ongoing series of Bournemouth Symphony CDs of music by Bartók, Bernstein, Orff, and several living American composers. One of her first projects as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will be a Dvořák symphonic cycle. Ms. Alsop can also be heard regularly as a commentator on NPR’s Weekend Edition segment “Marin on Music,” and on BBC’s Radio 3.
In 2006, Marin Alsop was the only classical musician invited to attend the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, alongside presidents, prime ministers, and CEOs of the world’s most powerful companies. She is a native of New York City, attended Yale University, and received her master’s degree from The Juilliard School. She last appeared with the New York Philharmonic in July 2006 at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival.
Pianist Rafał Blechacz was born on June 30, 1985, in Nakło nad Notecią, Poland. He began studying the piano at the age of five and completed his formal education in 2007 at the Feliks Nowowiejski Music Academy in Bydgoszcz, studying with Professor Katarzyna Popowa-Zydron. He won second prize at the Arthur Rubinstein Young Pianist Competition in Bydgoszcz in 2002 and at the Fifth International Young Pianist Competition in Hamamatsu, Japan, in 2003. In 2004 he garnered first prize at the Fourth International Piano Competition in Morocco. In 2005 Mr. Blechacz won first prize at the 15th International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw; in special recognition of his achievement, the jury decided, for the first time in the competition’s history, not to award a second prize. He also won four special prizes, including the Polish Radio Award for best performance of the mazurkas, the Polish Chopin Society Award for best performance of the Polonaise, the Warsaw Philharmonic Award for best performance of a concerto, and the award founded by Krystian Zimerman for best sonata performance.
In 2006 Mr. Blechacz was invited to perform at Warsaw Philharmonic Hall; the Moscow Conservatory with the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev; the Tonhalle in Zurich, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. He has given a series of recitals in Japan, and appeared at the Ruhr, Verbier, and La Roque d’Antheron summer music festivals. In 2007 he appeared in Herkules Saal in Munich, Wigmore Hall in London, Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, and Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels. In May 2006 he signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon for three recordings. The first — the complete Chopin Preludes coupled with Two Nocturnes Op. 62 — was released in September 2007. It achieved gold status after one day, and subsequently went platinum.
Kevin Deas has gained international acclaim as one of America’s leading basses. He is perhaps most acclaimed for his signature portrayal of the title role in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, having sung it with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the orchestras of San Francisco, Atlanta, San Diego, Utah, Houston, Baltimore, and Montreal, and at the Ravinia and Saratoga Festivals. During the 2008–09 season, Mr. Deas returns to the Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Atlanta symphony orchestras, Pacific Symphony, National Philharmonic, Boston Baroque, and Winter Park Bach Festival. Over the past two seasons, Mr. Deas performed with the Pittsburgh, Houston, and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, Rochester Philharmonic, National Philharmonic, and Boston Baroque; he made his debut with the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec. He also sang Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony under the baton of Daniel Barenboim with the FilarMonica Della Scala in Accra, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of Ghana in April 2007.
Kevin Deas recorded Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Decca/London) with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the late Sir Georg Solti, and Varèse’s Ecuatorial with Holland’s Asko Ensemble under the baton of Ricardo Chailly. Other releases include Bach’s Mass in B minor and Handel’s Acis and Galatea (both on Vox Classics), and Dave Brubeck’s To Hope! with the Cathedral Choral Society (Telarc). Mr. Deas last appeared with the New York Philharmonic in Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges, conducted by Lorin Maazel, in October 2006.
Joseph Horowitz is the author of eight books. Both his Classical Music in America: A History and Artists in Exile: How Refugees from Twentieth Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts deal extensively with Dvořák in America. As the director of a national education project for the National Endowment for the Humanities, he also created a work of historical fiction for middle and high school readers, Dvorák in America, and commissioned an interactive DVD, From the New World: A Celebrated Composer’s American Odyssey. As an artistic consultant, Mr. Horowitz has created six Dvorák festivals — the first of which was presented by the Brooklyn Philharmonic during his tenure as executive director. Mr. Horowitz is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and a certificate of appreciation from the Czech Parliament for his “exceptional explorations of Dvořák’s historic sojourn in the United States.” He is also co-founder and artistic director of Post-Classical Ensemble of Washington, D.C., and of Post-Classical Productions, which this season and next begins producing thematic, inter-disciplinary concerts in New York City and Chicago.
Repertoire
Béla Bartók’s ballet The Wooden Prince, one of his earliest major successes, was first produced in Budapest in 1917. Its scenario, by Béla Balázs, depicts a fairy tale in which a prince and princess are at first kept apart, and then united, by the enchantments of a fairy. This simple storyline, which suggests numerous possible symbolic meanings, is enriched through a musical score in Bartók’s forceful and individual voice, incorporating influences as diverse as Wagner, Debussy, and Hungarian folk music. The ballet was received with great enthusiasm and produced repeatedly in the composer’s lifetime; he was moved to make at least two concert suites from the score, including the present arrangement. The New York Philharmonic’s only previous performances of the complete Wooden Prince Suite were in February 1975, led by Pierre Boulez.
Frédéric Chopin began his Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1829 at a relatively early stage in his career. The composer’s intensely coloristic and free-spinning miniature piano works, impregnated with melodic traits of Polish popular music, are his most often-performed works, but the concertos nevertheless display the fundamental traits of his style on much larger canvases. Like all his compositions, they constituted an important source for future developments in harmony through their genius for chromaticism, modulation, and lyrical pianistic writing. The first Philharmonic performance of the Piano Concerto No. 2 was in November 1846, led by George Loder, with pianist Henry Christian Timm. The most recent Philharmonic performance was in November 2004, led by David Robertson, with Emanuel Ax as soloist.
Symphony No. 9, From the New World, by Antonín Dvorák was given its world premiere by Anton Seidl and the New York Philharmonic on December 16, 1893. At the time, the Czech composer had been in the United States just a little over a year, having been lured by promises of a large teaching salary at New York’s National Conservatory of Music. His sponsor, Mrs. Jeanette Thurber, had implored him to compose an American opera, but Dvořák instead composed a symphony, which he completed in May 1893. During both a public rehearsal and the subsequent premiere, audience reaction to the new symphony was overwhelmingly positive. The Philharmonic most recently performed the symphony as part of its historic, internationally televised concert in Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, on February 26, 2008, led by Music Director Lorin Maazel.
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For more information please visit www.nyphil.org
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