New York Philharmonic Announces Nat'l Weekly Radio Broadcasts for December 2010

In December 2010, The New York Philharmonic This Week - the two-hour, national, weekly radio program of concerts by the New York Philharmonic, hosted by actor Alec Baldwin - begins with conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos leading the Orchestra in Glinka's Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila; Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, with Leonidas Kavakos as soloist; Debussy's Nocturnes, with the Women of the New York Choral Artists; and Stravinsky's 1919 Suite from The Firebird.

The following week, Sir Colin Davis conducts Beethoven's Symphony No. 2, closing with Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn, with soprano Dorothea Röschmann in her Philharmonic debut and tenor Ian Bostridge. In the third broadcast, Bernard Labadie conducts the holiday favorite, Handel's Messiah, with soprano Karina Gauvin, contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux, tenor Tilman Lichdi, bass AnDrew Foster-Williams (all in their Philharmonic debuts), and the New York Choral Artists.

The final December broadcast will feature commercial New York Philharmonic recordings of American works, released on the Orchestra's own and other labels: Ives's Three Places in New England (conducted by Kurt Masur in 1998, released on New York Philharmonic Special Editions); Paine's Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 23 (Zubin Mehta, 1989, New World); Thomson's The Mother of Us All (Leopold Stokowski, 1950, New York Philharmonic Radiothon Special Editions); and Schuman's Symphony No. 8 (Leonard Bernstein, 1962, SMK).

The New York Philharmonic This Week airs locally in the New York metropolitan area on Classical 105.9 FM WQXR, Thursdays at 9:00 p.m. [Check local listings]. Concerts are available on the Philharmonic's Website, nyphil.org, for two weeks following the broadcast. The broadcasts are produced and syndicated to more than 300 outlets nationwide by the WFMT Radio Network. Alec Baldwin is the host of the program, WFMT's Mark Travis is the broadcast producer, and New York Philharmonic Audio Director Lawrence Rock is the engineer and music producer.

The New York Philharmonic's first Live National radio broadcast took place on October 5, 1930, over the CBS radio network. On that Sunday, Erich Kleiber was on the podium leading the Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Since that historic broadcast, the Philharmonic has enjoyed an almost continuous presence on national radio. Advancing its role as a media pioneer, the Philharmonic, since 2002, has shared its radio broadcast with a worldwide audience through its Website, nyphil.org. In 2004, the New York Philharmonic was the first major American orchestra to offer downloadable concerts, recorded live. Following on this innovation, in 2009 the Orchestra announced the first-ever subscription download series: Alan Gilbert: The Inaugural Season, available exclusively on iTunes, produced and distributed by the New York Philharmonic, and comprising more than 50 works performed during the 2009-10 season.

The New York Philharmonic This Week 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 New York Philharmonic THIS WEEK: DECEMBER 2010

Week of December 6 (from November 26-27, 2010):

Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, conductor; Leonidas Kavakos, violin; Women of the New York Choral Artists; Joseph Flummerfelt, director.

GLINKA -- Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila

TCHAIKOVSKY -- Violin Concerto

DEBUSSY -- Nocturnes

STRAVINSKY -- Suite from The Firebird (1919)

Week of December 13 (from December 2, 4, and 7, 2010):

Sir Colin Davis, conductor; Dorothea Röschmann, soprano*; Ian Bostridge, tenor.

BEETHOVEN -- Symphony No. 2

MAHLER -- Des Knaben Wunderhorn

Week of December 20 (from December 14-18, 2010):

Bernard Labadie, conductor; Karina Gauvin, soprano*; Marie-Nicole Lemieux, contralto*; Tilman Lichdi, tenor*; AnDrew Foster-Williams, bass*; New York Choral Artists; Joseph Flummerfelt, director.

HANDEL -- Messiah

*denotes New York Philharmonic debut

Week of December 27 (commercial New York Philharmonic recordings):

IVES -- Three Places in New England

PAINE -- Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 23

THOMSON -- The Mother of Us All (Suite)

SCHUMAN -- Symphony No. 8

All information subject to change. For more information, visit nyphil.org.

The WFMT Radio Network, the international syndication division of award-winning Chicago classical music station 98.7WFMT (streaming live at wfmt.com/streaming), produces and distributes these broadcasts nationwide. In addition to the New York Philharmonic broadcasts, the WFMT Radio Network syndicates concerts by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, as well as ongoing series such as Jazz at Lincoln Center Radio and Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin. The WFMT Radio Network also offers a full season of American opera companies such as the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Los Angeles Opera On Air, San Francisco Opera, and Houston Grand Opera. In addition, exclusive programming from Germany's Deutsche Welle Radio, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and dozens of classical, folk, jazz, news series, and specials are offered to radio outlets around the world.

Screen and stage actor Alec Baldwin has hosted The New York Philharmonic This Week since the beginning of the 2009-10 season. He received the 2009 and 2008 Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his starring role in the television series 30 Rock. For the same role he also won the 2010 Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Television Comedy and the 2010 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series. Mr. Baldwin made his Philharmonic debut narrating the New York Philharmonic's Inside the Music program on October 10, 2008, and narrated an additional Inside the Music program on January 23, 2009. As part of the The Russian Stravinsky: A Philharmonic Festival, Mr. Baldwin narrated L'Histoire du Soldat on May 2, 2010.

New York Philharmonic DG Concerts downloads; and a Deutsche Grammophon recording of music by Richard Strauss, performed by the Philharmonic. In 2005 Mr. Rock received three Grammy Awards for John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls, for which he served as co-producer with the composer, and in 1997 he won a Grammy for engineering an album of works by Aaron Copland, performed by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. For the Philharmonic's own recording label, New York Philharmonic Special Editions, Mr. Rock co-produced the Grammy-nominated CD Sweeney Todd: Live at the New York Philharmonic and the 10-CD set Kurt Masur at the New York Philharmonic. He has also made recordings with the Chicago, Houston, and Milwaukee symphony orchestras.

Mark Travis, in his 11th year with the WFMT Radio Network in Chicago, is an editor and producer for Alan Gilbert: The Inaugural Season, the Philharmonic's recent subscription download series released on iTunes. Mr. Travis has produced the Philharmonic radio broadcasts since 2003-04, beginning with the monthly New York Philharmonic Live!, and he has been a producer of The New York Philharmonic This Week since its first season, in 2004-05. He has also written and directed broadcasts by the Berlin Philharmonic, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and the Bavarian Staatsoper, and is currently the managing producer of the Bucksbaum Family Opening Night Lyric Opera of Chicago series. Mr. Travis has an extensive discography as a music-producer that ranges from recordings by the New York Philharmonic on DG to recordings by William Warfield, Jenny Lin, Jeffrey Siegel, and the Chicago Chorale, for labels such as Naxos, Sony, DG, Random House, and Koch. Mr. Travis, an accomplished singer and classical guitarist, is also one of the producers and hosts of the award-winning New York Philharmonic Podcast, which previews upcoming programs through musical selections as well as interviews with guest artists, Orchestra musicians, and experts.