NY Philharmonic's 176th Season to Open with 106 ALL-STARS Gala Concert

Music Director Designate Jaap van Zweden will open the New York Philharmonic's 176th season, leading two programs that feature the virtuosity of the musicians of the Philharmonic in repertoire both central to the Orchestra's history and new to Philharmonic audiences.

The Philharmonic opens its 2017-18 season with 106 All-Stars: Opening Gala Concert of New York's Orchestra, Tuesday, September 19, 2017, at 7:30 p.m., a celebration of the musicians of the Orchestra, featuring Mahler's Symphony No. 5, a work closely tied with the Philharmonic's lineage that showcases the individual musicians of the New York Philharmonic.

The opening week continues with Maestro van Zweden conducting The New York Premiere of Philip Glass's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, with Katia and Marielle Labèque as soloists, as well as Mahler's Symphony No. 5,Friday, September 22, 2017, at 8:00 p.m. and Saturday, September 23 at 8:00 p.m.

The Opening Gala Concert will be broadcast free on Facebook Live, the Philharmonic's fourth live concert broadcast on Facebook (facebook.com/nyphilharmonic), and will be available for on-demand viewing on the Philharmonic's website, YouTube, and Facebook. The concert on Friday, September 22 will launch the fourth season of Philharmonic Free Fridays, which will make 100 free tickets available to young people ages 13-26 to a number of the 2017-18 season's Friday evening subscription concerts.

Mahler served as Music Director of the Philharmonic from 1909 until his death in 1911. He conducted several of his own works with the Philharmonic, including his Symphony No. 4 and the U.S. Premieres of his Symphony No. 1; Symphony No. 2, Resurrection; and Kindertotenlieder.

The music of Mahler has figured prominently in Jaap van Zweden's conducting career, including a 2008 recording of the Fifth Symphony with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Mahler's First Symphony is the first work Maestro van Zweden ever conducted, when Leonard Bernstein asked Mr. van Zweden, then concertmaster of Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, to conduct part of a rehearsal. Mahler's First Symphony was also on the program that marked his New York Philharmonic debut in April 2012, which The New York Times called "a dynamic, all-out performance. ... He drew blazing playing from the orchestra." In May 2020 Jaap van Zweden will lead the Philharmonic in Mahler's Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2 at the opening concert of the Mahler Festival in Amsterdam, presented by The Royal Concertgebouw; that performance will be part of the Orchestra's first Europe tour with Maestro van Zweden, and the Orchestra's first performance in the 100-year history of the Concertgebouw's Mahler Festival.

"The DNA of Mahler is so deep in the New York Philharmonic that performing his music with this Orchestra is - not only for me, but for every conductor - an incredible responsibility," Jaap van Zweden said. "There are many things I remember from Bernstein, who really understood Mahler as a composer and man, that are still in the back of my heart and head, and continue to influence how I look at this music."

Philip Glass - who will be celebrating his 80th birthday season - wrote his Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra for the Labèque sisters, and the duo gave the World Premiere with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in May 2015. Jaap van Zweden led the Labèques and the Orchestre de Paris in the work's French Premiere in March 2016 at the Philharmonie de Paris. Katia and Marielle Labèque made their Philharmonic debuts in October 1986 performing Berio's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra - a work the Philharmonic had commissioned and premiered in March 1973 - conducted by the composer.

"I felt this was a wonderful moment to put Philip Glass in the spotlight at the New York Philharmonic and to celebrate his 80th birthday," Jaap van Zweden said. "Glass's musical world is a totally transparent one, and he is a composer whose signature is immediately recognizable."

Related Events:

Opening Gala

The black-tie Opening Gala, September 19, will include a pre-concert champagne reception from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m., the concert, and a dinner immediately following the performance. The Opening Gala Co-Chairmen are Elizabeth and Frank Newman, Klara and Larry A. Silverstein, Maggie Ueng Tsai and Richard Tsai, and Jariya Wanapun and Arthur Chu. Generous underwriting support is provided by BNY Mellon, Elizabeth and Frank Newman, Didi and Oscar Schafer, Klara and Larry A. Silverstein, Maggie Ueng Tsai and Richard Tsai, and Jariya Wanapun and Arthur Chu.

Philharmonic Free Fridays

The New York Philharmonic is offering 100 free tickets to young people ages 13-26 for the concert Friday, September 22 as part of Philharmonic Free Fridays. Philharmonic Free Fridays offers 100 free tickets to 13-26-year-olds to a number of the 2017-18 season's Friday evening subscription concerts. Information on the 2017-18 season of Free Fridays will be available at nyphil.org/freefridays in the fall.

Facebook Live Broadcast

The September 19 performance will be broadcast free on Facebook Live, available at facebook.com/nyphilharmonic, beginning at 7:20 p.m., directed by Habib Azar. The concert will be available for on-demand viewing on the Philharmonic's website, YouTube, and Facebook.

Empire State Building Salute

On September 19 the Empire State Building will be lit in Philharmonic red in celebration of the Philharmonic's Opening Gala and the start of the 2017-18 season.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Jaap van Zweden has become an international presence on three continents over the last decade. The 2017-18 season marks a major milestone as he completes his ten-year tenure as music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and becomes Music Director Designate of the New York Philharmonic, anticipating his inaugural season, in 2018-19, when he becomes the Orchestra's Music Director. He continues as Music Director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, a post he has held since 2012. In addition to performances with the New York Philharmonic in New York and on tour, his 2017-18 season highlights include returns to the Chicago Symphony, Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw, Rotterdam Philharmonic, and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic orchestras and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

Maestro van Zweden has also guest conducted The Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras; Boston, London, and Shanghai symphony orchestras; Los Angeles, Vienna, Berlin, and Munich philharmonic orchestras; Orchestre National de France; and Orchestre de Paris. In 2015 he launched the annual SOLUNA International Music & Arts Festival with the Dallas Symphony, and embarked on a four-year project with the Hong Kong Philharmonic to conduct the first-ever Hong Kong performances of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, to be released on Naxos Records. In the summers of 2017-19 he serves as principal conductor of the Gstaad Festival Orchestra and Gstaad Conducting Academy.

Jaap van Zweden's acclaimed recordings include Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and Petrushka, Britten's War Requiem, and complete cycles of the Beethoven, Brahms, and Bruckner symphonies. He recordEd Mahler's Symphony No. 5 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and released Mozart piano concertos with the Philharmonia Orchestra and David Fray. His celebrated performances of Wagner's Lohengrin, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal (the last of which earned him the prestigious Edison award for Best Opera Recording in 2012) are available on CD and DVD. On the Dallas Symphony's record label, he has released symphonies by Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Mahler, and Dvo?ák, as well as the World Premiere recording of Stucky's August 4, 1964. A new recording agreement with Universal Music Group's U.S. Classical Division and the New York Philharmonic under Jaap van Zweden is being launched in the 2017-18 season.

Born in Amsterdam, Jaap van Zweden was appointed the youngest-ever concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at 19. He began his conducting career 20 years later in 1995. He is honorary chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, where he served as chief conductor, 2005-13, and conductor emeritus of the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra. He also held the post of chief conductor of the Royal Flanders Orchestra, 2008-11. Maestro van Zweden was named Musical America's 2012 Conductor of the Year.

In 1997 Jaap van Zweden and his wife, Aaltje, established the Papageno Foundation to support families of children with autism, including by training music therapists and musicians. In August 2015 the opening of Papageno House, a home for autistic young adults and children, in Laren, The Netherlands, was attended by Her Majesty Queen Maxima.

Katia and Marielle Labèque are sibling pianists renowned for their ensemble of synchronicity and energy. Their musical ambitions started at an early age, and they rose to international fame with their contemporary rendition of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (one of the first gold records in classical music) and have since developed a worldwide performance career. They are regular guests with prestigious European and American orchestras, collaborating with conductors including Lionel Bringuier, Semyon Bychkov, Colin Davis, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, John Eliot Gardiner, Kristjan Järvi, Paavo Järvi, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Antonio Pappano, Georges Prêtre, Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Jaap van Zweden. The 2017-18 season includes performances with the New York Philharmonic with Jaap van Zweden, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Konzerthaus with Camerata Salzburg, Hamburg's NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra with Bryce Dessner, a European tour with Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Semyon Bychkov, and Easter Festival Salzburg with Dresden Staatskapelle. The duo will also perform Bryce Dessner's new concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and San Francisco Symphony, among others. Katia and Marielle Labèque have worked with numerous composers including Thomas Adès, Louis Andriessen, Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Philip Glass, Osvaldo Golijov, György Ligeti, and Olivier Messiaen. In May 2015 they presented the World Premiere of Philip Glass's Concerto for Two Pianos - which was written for them - with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, led by Gustavo Dudamel. In addition to the new concerto written for them by Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly is also preparing a new work for them, to be ready in 2019. For their own label, KML recordings, they released Sisters (2014), with a selection of musical pieces from their personal and professional lives. The DVD of the documentary The Labèque Way, produced by "El Deseo" (Pedro Almodóvar) and filmed by Félix Cábez, was released in fall 2015. Previous releases include an album of works by Gershwin and Bernstein, and their project Minimalist Dream House, which looks at 50 years of minimalist music. The Labeques' KML Recordings recently joined Deutsche Grammophon; their most recent record is Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and Debussy's Epigraphes Antiques. Their next album, Moondog Minimalist Dream House, is set for spring 2018. Katia and Marielle Labèque made their New York Philharmonic debuts in October 1986 performing Berio's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra - a work the Philharmonic had commissioned and premiered in March 1973 - conducted by the composer.

ABOUT THE REPERTOIRE:

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) composed his Symphony No. 5 during his vacation spent on Austria's Lake Wörth in the summers of 1901 and 1902. It signaled a change of pace from his previous three symphonies: it was not programmatic, and it did not include the voice. The symphony in C-sharp minor is made up of five movements, beginning with a funeral march and ending with a finale. The fourth movement, Adagietto: sehr langsam, dedicated to his wife, Alma, is the most recognizable and is often performed on its own. Mahler conducted the symphony's first performance, in Cologne in 1904, and he continued to revise the work over the next several years. Willem Mengelberg led the New York Philharmonic's first complete performance of the work in December 1926 (Josef Stransky had led the first movement alone in November 1911). The Orchestra's most recent performance of the Fifth Symphony was in July 2015 during its annual Bravo! Vail summer residency, led by Alan Gilbert.

Philip Glass (b. 1937) composed his Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in 2014-15 for the Labèque sisters. "Like many people involved in today's music," writes the composer, "I have long been an admirer of Katia and Marielle Labèque's performance of traditional and new concert music for duo pianos. I was very happy to hear their brilliant playing and interpretative skills with my own music - first with the 2007 work Four Movements for Two Pianos and then, more recently, the Two Movements for Four Pianos." The 25-minute work is in the traditional three-movement concerto form, but rather than the traditional fast-slow-fast arrangement, the first two are fast and the third is slow. Glass adds: "Also it seemed that there were enough 'fireworks' in the first two movements as to make an additional cadenza for the soloists unnecessary." In the piece Glass plays with the traditional relationship of the duo to the orchestra: "Instead the music of the soloists is shared between the two and the orchestra serves to extend the range and color of the soloists." The Labèque sisters joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the work's World Premiere in May 2015, led by Gustavo Dudamel. These performances mark its New York Premiere. Jaap van Zweden led the Labèques and the Orchestre de Paris in the work's French Premiere in March 2016 at the Philharmonie de Paris. The Orchestra performed Philip Glass's Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance, conducted by Michael Riesman in November 2011.

Single tickets for the Opening Gala Concert start at $75. Single tickets for the September 22-23 program start at $34; tickets for September 22-23 are available now to 2017-18 New York Philharmonic subscribers and will go on sale to the general public on August 8. Tickets are available 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. 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. To determine ticket availability, call the Philharmonic's Customer Relations Department at (212) 875-5656. (Ticket prices subject to change.)

For more information about the Opening Gala, which includes a pre-concert champagne reception, concert, and post-concert dinner, call the Office of Special Events at (212) 875-5755, or e-mail specialevents@nyphil.org.

Photo Credit: Chris Lee