NY Phil's 'Insights Series' Explores Beethoven's Piano Concertos with Yefim Bronfman Tonight

The 2013-14 season of the New York Philharmonic's Insights Series will continue tonight, May 20, 2014, at 7:30 p.m. with "The Pinnacle of Cycles: Pianist Yefim Bronfman Speaks on Beethoven's Piano Concertos," when The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Yefim Bronfman discusses Beethoven's piano concertos, which he will perform during The Beethoven Piano Concertos: A Philharmonic Festival, June 11-28, 2014. Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence Carol J. Oja will moderate.

All events in this free series take place at the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center (Columbus Avenue at 62nd Street) at 7:30 p.m. and are co-presented with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

The season's Insights Series will continue with discussions relating to the NY PHIL BIENNIAL; details will be announced at a later date. For more information, visit nyphil.org/insights.

Insights Series Participants

As the 2013-14 Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic, Yefim Bronfman is the featured soloist in the season-concluding The Beethoven Piano Concertos: A Philharmonic Festival; plays concertos by composers ranging from Tchaikovsky to Magnus Lindberg; appears in chamber concerts featuring works by Marc-Andre? Dalbavie, Marc Neikrug, Schubert, Barto?k, and others; and travels on the ASIA / WINTER 2014, performing Magnus Lindberg's Piano Concerto No. 2. 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.

As The Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic for the 2013-14 season, Carol J. Oja presents Insights Series events - "Leonard Bernstein Emerges: Defying Boundaries and Challenging Racial Politics During World War II" and "The Pinnacle of Cycles: Pianist Yefim Bronfman Speaks on Beethoven's Piano Concertos" - and conducts research in the Philharmonic Archives. Dr. Oja is William Powell Mason Professor of Music atHarvard University, where she is also on the faculty of the graduate program in American Studies. Her newest book, Bernstein Meets Broadway: Collaborative Art in a Time of War, is in production with Oxford University Press. Dr. Oja's Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s won the Lowens Book Award from the Society for American Music and an ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award. Her other books include Aaron Copland and His World (co-edited with Judith Tick); Colin McPHee: Composer in Two Worlds; A Celebration of American Music: Words and Music in Honor of H. Wiley Hitchcock; and American Music Recordings: A Discography of 20th-Century U.S. Composers. Carol J. Oja has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Newhouse Center for the Humanities at Wellesley College, the National Humanities Center, NEH, and the Mellon Faculty Fellows Program at Harvard. She is past-president of the Society for American Music.

The Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic program honors and recognizes the enduring contribution of Leonard Bernstein, the Orchestra's Music Director from 1958 to 1969 and subsequent Laureate Conductor. The position was created in the 2005-06 season to coincide with the 15th anniversary of Bernstein's death, on October 14, 1990. Charles Zachary Bornstein served as the first Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence, from 2005 to 2008. New York Philharmonic Program Annotator James M. Keller served in this post in the 2008-09 season; baritone Thomas Hampson combined the role with that of The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence in the 2009-10 season; Jack Gottlieb held the post in 2010-11 until his untimely passing in February 2011; and Harvey Sachs held the post in the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons.

Insights Series events are free and open to the public. Seating is available on a first-come, first- served basis. Subscribers, Friends at the Affiliate level and above, and Patrons may secure guaranteed admission by emailing AdultEd@nyphil.org. Space is limited.

Pictured: Yefim Bronfman. Photo by Chris Lee.