NY Phil's CONTACT! Series to Continue with Yefim Bronfman, Jan 13

The fifth season of CONTACT!, the New York Philharmonic's new-music series, continues with Yefim Bronfman and Friends, Monday, January 13, 2014, at 7:30 p.m. at SubCulture. Yefim Bronfman, the Philharmonic's 2013-14 Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence, will perform the World Premiere of Passions, Reflected for solo piano by Marc Neikrug, and Marc- Andre? Dalbavie's Trio No. 1 for violin, cello, and piano with musicians from the New York Philharmonic. The program will also include the U.S. Public Premiere of Poul Ruders's String Quartet No. 4, performed by Philharmonic musicians (who also performed the work in October 2013 as part of a private event at the Morgan Library & Museum). Mr. Neikrug will host the concert, introducing each piece. The program is a co-presentation by the New York Philharmonic and 92nd Street Y.

Q2 Music, WQXR's online contemporary music station, will record the concert for an exclusive stream on Tuesday, January 21 at 8:00 p.m. and will make it available for on-demand listening for 30 days following the stream. To hear the stream, select the Q2 Music tab on the Player at wqxr.org and click "Play." To listen on-demand, go to wqxr.org/q2music.

The Philharmonic has performed Marc Neikrug's works since 1980; most recently, in April 2012, Alan Gilbert conducted the World Premiere of Mr. Neikrug's Concerto for Orchestra, commissioned by the Philharmonic. "The first word that comes to mind when describing Marc's music is 'human,'" said Music Director Alan Gilbert. "To me it is very emotional and true to what people feel and experience."

Alan Gilbert conducted the U.S. Premiere of Poul Ruders's Oboe Concerto, featuring Principal Oboe Liang Wang, during a CONTACT! program in April 2013. Previously, the Philharmonic performed Mr. Ruders's Corpus Cum Figuris in 1986, Concerto in Pieces in 1996, Listening Earth in 2003, and Final Nightshade in 2004. Poul Ruders said that his String Quartet No. 4 "is about nothing but itself." He described the work's penultimate movement as "the pie?ce de resistance of the entire quartet: 'Presto alla breve,' a ferociously fast tour de force for the four players, who, with that one under their belts, can lean back a little (but only a little) and put the whole thing gently to bed in the fifth and final movement: a simple 'Adagio.'"

Marc-Andre? Dalbavie's Melodia, a Philharmonic commission, received its World Premiere on CONTACT!'s inaugural program in December 2009, conducted by then Philharmonic Composer- in-Residence Magnus Lindberg. Mr. Dalbavie studied conducting with former Philharmonic Music Director Pierre Boulez, who described the younger composer's music as "always very French, with a seductive sense of harmony. He knows how to distribute sounds among the instruments of the orchestra so that the interior of the chords is easy to hear.... The complexity is in the combinations."

Yefim Bronfman's CONTACT! concerts follow his reprise of Magnus Lindberg's Piano Concerto No. 2, commissioned by the Philharmonic, with Alan Gilbert and the Orchestra on January 2-3 and 7, 2014. Mr. Bronfman and the Orchestra, led by Alan Gilbert, gave the concerto's World Premiere in May 2012, and the performance is featured on a recent release on Dacapo Records. Mr. Bronfman will again join Alan Gilbert and the Orchestra to perform the work on the ASIA / WINTER 2014 tour in February 2014.

CONTACT! was introduced in the 2009-10 season - Alan Gilbert's first as the Philharmonic's Music Director - and is a showcase for emerging and established contemporary composers. In the 2013-14 season CONTACT! is extending its reach by presenting more concerts in new venues, including three programs at SubCulture presented in partnership with 92nd Street Y. The season's final two CONTACT! performances are part of the NY PHIL BIENNIAL (May 28-June 7, 2014), an exploration of today's music by a wide range of contemporary and modern composers. Matthias Pintscher will conduct Philharmonic musicians in Beyond Recall, featuring 11 U.S. Premieres of music inspired by art works selected for the Salzburg Art Project, May 29 and 31 at The Museum of Modern Art. Philharmonic musicians will perform An Evening of American Composers, a collection of four World Premiere-New York Philharmonic Commissions and two New York Premieres of solo works by young American composers, June 3 at SubCulture, presented in partnership with 92nd Street Y.

As The Marie-Jose?e Kravis Composer-in-Residence, Christopher Rouse advises the Philharmonic on the CONTACT! series.

Related Events:

National and International Radio Broadcast
Selections from this concert will be broadcast at a future date* on The New York Philharmonic This Week, a radio concert series syndicated weekly to more than 300 stations nationally, and to 122 outlets internationally, by the WFMT Radio Network.

The 52-week series, hosted by actor Alec Baldwin, is generously underwritten by The Kaplen Brothers Fund, 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 105.9 FM WQXR on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m.
*Check local listings for broadcast and program information.

Q2 Music Streaming
Q2 Music, WQXR's online music station dedicated to contemporary classical composers, innovative ensembles, and vibrant, live performances from New York City's leading new- music venues, will record the concert for an exclusive stream to debut on Tuesday, January 21 at 8:00 p.m., and then remain available for on-demand listening for 30 days. To hear the stream, select the Q2 Music tab on the Player at wqxr.org and click "Play." To listen on- demand, go to wqxr.org/q2music.

Artists:

As the 2013-14 Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic, Yefim Bronfman plays concertos by composers ranging from Tchaikovsky to Magnus Lindberg; appears in chamber concerts featuring works by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Marc-Andre? Dalbavie, Marc Neikrug, Schubert, Barto?k, and others; travels on the ASIA / WINTER 2014, performing Magnus Lindberg's Piano Concerto No. 2; and concludes the season with The Beethoven Piano Concertos: A Philharmonic Festival. Other season highlights include a tour with Pinchas Zukerman to Ottawa, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, Berkeley, and Vancouver; performing Beethoven with conductor Zubin Mehta at the Berlin Philharmonic's new spring residency in Baden-Baden; and returns to the orchestras of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Boston, as well as Paris, Munich, Berlin, and Amsterdam. He tours Australia with Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra as part of its worldwide centenary celebrations.

Mr. Bronfman was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2009 for his recording of Esa-Pekka Salonen's Piano Concerto, with Mr. Salonen conducting (released on Deutsche Grammophon), having received a Grammy in 1997 for his recording of the three Barto?k piano concertos with Mr. Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His performance of Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto with Andris Nelsons and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from the 2011 Lucerne Festival is now available on DVD. His most recent CD release is Lindberg's Piano Concerto No. 2, commissioned for him and performed by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Alan Gilbert, on the Dacapo label.

Born in Tashkent, in the Soviet Union, in 1958, Yefim Bronfman immigrated to Israel with his family in 1973. There he studied with pianist Arie Vardi, head of the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University. He later studied in the United States, at The Juilliard School, Marlboro, and The Curtis Institute of Music, and with Rudolf Firkusny, Leon Fleisher, and Rudolf Serkin. He became an American citizen in July 1989. Yefim Bronfman last appeared with the Philharmonic in September 2013 performing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, led by Alan Gilbert.

About Q2 Music: Q2 Music is WQXR's online music station dedicated to contemporary classical composers, innovative ensembles, and vibrant, live webcasts from New York City's leading new-music venues. Q2 Music, a live 24/7 music stream available at www.wqxr.org/q2music, includes immersive festivals, insightful commentary from hosts and composers, full-length album streams, in-depth interviews with trend-setting artists, and special live events at The Greene Space at WQXR. Q2 Music is also available via the free WQXR app.

Tickets start at $25. Tickets may be purchased online at nyphil.org or 92Y.org/Concerts. To determine ticket availability, call the Philharmonic's Customer Relations Department at (212) 875-5656, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, and noon to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday. [Ticket prices subject to change.]