New York Philharmonic Celebrate 2010 Holiday Season With Holiday Brass, Handel's Messiah, And More

The New York Philharmonic will celebrate the 2010 holiday season with perennial favorites: the annual Holiday Brass concerts; Handel's Messiah, led by Bernard Labadie; and a nationally telecast All-Tchaikovsky New Year's Eve Concert, conducted by Music Director Alan Gilbert and featuring pianist Lang Lang as soloist.

Sunday, December 12, 2010, at 12:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. - Holiday Brass The New York Philharmonic Principal Brass Quintet shares the stage with the West Point Band, Lt. Col. Jim Keene, commander/conductor, for two back-to-back performances of the Philharmonic's 16th annual Holiday Brass concert, featuring music by J.S. Bach and Tchaikovsky alongside Leroy Anderson and Rodgers and Hammerstein, as well as holiday favorites such as "Greensleeves" and "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year."

Tuesday, December 14-Saturday, December 18, 2010, all at 7:30 p.m. -
Handel's Messiah, Presented by the Robert Hekemian Family Foundation Handel's celebrated and celebrative oratorio returns, this year conducted by Bernard Labadie and sung by soprano Karina Gauvin, contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux, tenor Tilman Lichdi, and bass AnDrew Foster-Williams (all making their New York Philharmonic debuts), with the New York Choral Artists, Joseph Flummerfelt, director.

Composer Joelle Wallach will introduce the program with a Pre-Concert Talk, beginning one hour before each performance. Attendance is limited to 90 people.

Friday, December 31, 2009, 8:00 p.m. - All-Tchaikovsky New Year's Eve Concert, Conducted by Alan Gilbert with Pianist Lang Lang, Presented by Breguet

New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert rings in 2011 with piano virtuoso Lang Lang in a concert featuring Tchaikovsky favorites: the Polonaise from Eugene Onegin, Piano Concerto No. 1, and The Nutcracker, Act II. The concert will be nationally broadcast on Live From Lincoln Center on PBS stations at 8:30 p.m.

Artists
Holiday Brass (December 12, 2010)
The New York Philharmonic Principal Brass Quintet enjoys worldwide exposure and an international reputation. The QTrumpet Ethan Bensdorf, Principapal Brass Quintet enjoys worldwide exposure and an international reputation. The Quintet - featuring Principal Trumpet Philip Smith, Trumpet Ethan Bensdorf, Principal Horn Philip Myers, Principal Trombone Joseph Alessi, and Principal Tuba Alan Baer - has hosted an annual Holiday Concert at Lincoln Center since 1995, collaborating most frequently with the Canadian Brass. Other guests have included groups such as The German Brass and the Salvation Army's New York Staff Band, and last year, for the first time, the U.S. Military Academy Band (now known as the West Point Band). The Principal Brass Quintet has become a regular encore feature on Philharmonic tours and residencies.

The West Point Band, Lt. Col. Jim Keene, commander/conductor, is the U.S. Army's oldest active band and the oldest unit at the United States Military Academy, tracing its roots to the Revolutionary War. Today's band consists of four components: the Concert Band, the Jazz Knights, the Hellcats, and support staff - these combine to form the Marching Band. The organization fulfills all of the official musical requirements of the Academy, including military and patriotic ceremonies, public concerts, sporting events and radio and television broadcasts, as well as social activities for the Corps of Cadets and the West Point community. The band has appeared at many historical events.

Handel's Messiah (December 14-18, 2010)
Bernard Labadie has established himself worldwide as one of the leading conductors of Baroque and Classical repertoire, a reputation that is closely tied with his connections to Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Québec, which he founded and continues to lead as music director to this day. He regularly tours Canada, the United States, and Europe with the two ensembles, visiting major venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Kennedy Center, Barbican Centre, and Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw, as well as the Salzburg Festival. Mr. Labadie has also been artistic director of L'Opéra de Québec and L'Opéra de Montréal, and has conducted Handel's Orlando with Glimmerglass Opera, Mozart's COSI FAN TUTTE at the Mostly Mozart Festival, and Mozart's Lucio Silla with Santa Fe Opera.

Mr. Labadie has conducted major North American orchestras including the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, St. Louis, Houston, Atlanta, Detroit, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver symphony orchestras. Internationally, he has led Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw, Glasgow's Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Hanover's NDR Symphony Orchestra, and the Melbourne ABC Orchestra. In September 2009 he made his debut with The Metropolitan Opera in Mozart's The Magic Flute, and in early 2010 he made his Cleveland Orchestra debut. For his achievements, the Canadian government named him Officer of the Order of Canada in 2005, and Quebec appointed him a Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Québec in 2006.

Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin's repertoire ranges from the music of J.S. Bach to Luciano Berio. She has sung with many major orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, and Toronto Symphony Orchestra, as well as period-instrument groups such as Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Musica Antiqua Köln, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Les Violons du Roy, and Accademia Bizantina. She has performed with conductors including Charles Dutoit, Kent Nagano, Semyon Bichkov, Roger
Norrington, Christopher Hogwood, Alan Curtis, Helmuth Rilling, Bernard Labadie, and Christophe Rousset. An active recitalist, she has collaborated with several chamber music ensembles and with pianists Marc-André Hamelin, Michael McMahon, and Roger Vignoles.

Ms. Gauvin's recording catalogue includes more than 20 releases. She has been consistently nominated for the Juno Award, and twice for a Grammy in the past decade. Fête galante, her collection of French art songs with pianist Mr. Hamelin, received the 2000 Opus award for Best Vocal Recording and was Chamber Music America's Recording of the Year. Other honors include first prize at the CBC Young Performers Competition; the Lieder and Public's prize at the s'Hertogenbosch International Vocal Competition in the Netherlands, and the Opus Award as Performer of the Year. A graduate of the Montreal Conservatory of Music, Karina Gauvin studied with Marie Daveluy and pursued her post-graduate studies with Pamela Bowden at the Royal
Scottish Academy in Glasgow. In 2010 Ms. Gauvin is scheduled to record Handel's ARIODANTE with Alan Curtis and Complesso Barocco for Virgin Classics. Ms. Gauvin is making her New York Philharmonic debut in these concerts.

In 2000 contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux became the first Canadian to win the First Prize and the Special Prize for Lieder at the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition. Since then she has performed in prestigious venues and international music festivals across Europe and North America, such as the Berlin Staatsoper, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Paris's Théâtre des Champs Élysées, Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels. Ms. Lemieux regularly performs the works of Berlioz, Debussy, Gluck, Handel, Honegger, Monteverdi, Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, Vivaldi, and Wagner. She has an exclusive contract with the Naïve label, for
which she recorded the title roles in Vivaldi's Griselda and Orlando furioso, in addition to seven discs, among them her first recital CD, L'Heure exquis.

In 2010 Ms. Lemieux appeared in Verdi's Falstaff at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées; Bach's St. Matthew Passion at the Concertgebouw, under Bernard Labadie; Bach's Mass in B minor in Washington, D.C., with the National Symphony Orchestra; and concerts with Les Violons du Roy in Québec City and Montreal. These concerts represent Ms. Lemieux's New York Philharmonic debut.

Tilman Lichdi grew up near Heilbronn, Germany, and began singing lessons at the age of 18. He has performed all of the major works in the realm of oratorio, and has worked with conductors such as Christoph Poppen, Wolfgang Gönnenwein, and Jörg Straube. Mr. Lichdi devotes himself especially to the Evangelist parts in the music of J.S. Bach, and recently sang Bach's St. Matthew Passion with Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Barock in a tour across Italy and Spain. Recent engagements have brought Mr. Lichdi to Charlotte, N.C., where he performed Haydn's The Creation with Christoph Perick; to Brazil, to perform Bach's St. Matthew Passion with Kent Nagano; to Chicago, where he made his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Bernard Labadie; and to the opera houses of Würzburg, Heidelberg, Flensburg, Kaiserslautern, and Mannheim, as well as the Munich Biennale. Later this season, Tilman Lichdi will perform in a staged version of Handel's Messiah at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, conducted by Martin Haselböck. He recorded Hans Werner Henze's Boulevard Solitude under the auspices of the Ruhr Festival in Germany. This performance marks Tilman Lichdi's New York Philharmonic debut.

Bass AnDrew Foster-Williams has performed frequently with many of the world's leading conductors and ensembles including Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra; Nicholas McGegan and the Philharmonia Baroque; Andreas Delfs and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; Paul Goodwin and The Philadelphia Orchestra; Sir Roger Norrington and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; and Bernard Labadie and Les Violons du Roy. In the current season his appearances include J.S. Bach's Lutheran Mass with The Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst; Mozart's Requiem with The Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin; Mendelssohn's Elijah with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, led by Andrew Manze; Bach's St. John Passion in Leipzig with Al Ayre Español; and Stravinsky's Pulcinella with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

In recent seasons Mr. Foster-Williams sang the bass-baritone roles in Purcell's THE FAIRY QUEEN; Zebul in Handel's JEPHTHA; and Borée in Rameau's LES BOREADES. Other roles included The Count in Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO at the Beaune Festival; Publio in Mozart's LA CLEMENZA DE TITO for the English National Orchestra; Alidoro in Rossini's LA CENERENTOLA for Welsh National Opera, and Glyndebourne on tour; Nick Shadow in Stravinsky's THE RAKE'S PROGRESS with Basel Chamber Orchestra; Larkens in Puccini's THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; and Garibaldo in Handel's RODELINDA, Melisso in ALCINA, and Argante in RINALDO at the Göttingen Handel Festival. Mr. Foster-Williams is making his New York Philharmonic debut in these concerts.

New York Choral Artists, a professional chorus founded and directed by Joseph Flummerfelt, has been heard with the New York Philharmonic in recent seasons performing repertoire ranging from Michael Tippett's A Child of Our Time to Mozart's Requiem. Among the memorable collaborations with the New York Philharmonic was the concert on September 20, 2001, of Brahms's A German Requiem, commemorating the events of September 11, which was broadcast nationally on both television and radio. The chorus opened the Philharmonic's 2002-03 subscription season performing the World Premiere of John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic with Lincoln Center's Great Performers. Other highlights of the group's history include participation in the 1995 New York Philharmonic concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, and a televised performance of the 1986 Statue of Liberty Concert in Central Park. The chorus performed Britten's War Requiem and Mahler's Symphony No. 8 in June 2009 during Lorin Maazel's finAl Weeks as the New York Philharmonic's Music Director. The ensemble was featured in two important programs in the finAl Weeks of Alan Gilbert's inaugural season as Music Director: the Philharmonic's staged presentation of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre in May 2010, and Beethoven's Missa solemnis in June 2010. The chorus most recently joined the Philharmonic for Mendelssohn's Elijah, led by Alan Gilbert, in November 2010.

All-Tchaikovsky New Year's Eve Concert (December 31, 2010)
Alan Gilbert became Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in September 2009, the first native New Yorker to hold the post, ushering in what The New York Times called "an adventurous new era" at the Philharmonic. In his inaugural season he introduced a number of new initiatives: the positions of The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence, held by Magnus Lindberg; The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in- Residence, held in 2010-11 by violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter; an annual three-week festival, which in 2010-11 is titled Hungarian Echoes, led by Esa-Pekka Salonen; and CONTACT!, the New York Philharmonic's new-music series. In the 2010-11 season Mr. Gilbert is leading the Orchestra on two tours of European music capitals; two performances at Carnegie Hall, including the venue's 120th Anniversary Concert; and a staged presentation of Janá?ek's The Cunning Little Vixen. Highlights of his inaugural season included major tours of Asia and Europe and an acclaimed staged presentation of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre.

Mr. Gilbert is conductor laureate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and principal guest conductor of Hamburg's NDR Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted other leading orchestras in the U.S. and abroad, including the Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco symphony orchestras; Los Angeles Philharmonic; Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras; and the Berlin Philharmonic, Munich's Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. From 2003 to 2006 he served as the first music director of the Santa Fe Opera.

Alan Gilbert studied at Harvard University, The Curtis Institute of Music, and The Juilliard School. From 1995 to 1997 he was the assistant conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra. In November 2008 he made his acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut conducting John Adams's Doctor Atomic. His recordings have received a 2008 Grammy Award nomination and top honors from the Chicago Tribune and Gramophone magazine. On May 15, 2010, Mr. Gilbert received an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from The Curtis Institute of Music.

Pianist Lang Lang plays sold-out recitals and concerts in every major city in the world. In 2008 he was performed with jazz pianist Herbie Hancock at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, and was a featured performer at the Opening Ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Lang Lang has been an inspiration to the 40 million classical piano students in China, and he has made it his mission to broaden the reach of classical music around the world, with a focus on children. In 2004 he was appointed an International Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), and in 2008 he established the Lang Lang International Music Foundation, with the goal of expanding young audiences and inspiring the next generation of musicians through outreach programs. Lang Lang began playing the piano at age three, and by age five had given his first public recital. He entered Beijing's Central Music Conservatory at age nine, won first prize at
the Tchaikovsky International Young Musicians Competition, and played the complete 24 Chopin études at the Beijing Concert Hall at age thirteen. Lang Lang's break into stardom came at age 17 when he was called upon as a last-minute substitution at the "Gala of the Century," playing the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Shortly thereafter, he became the first Chinese pianist to be engaged by the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, and the top American orchestras. He has performed with the New York Philharmonic numerous times: the first, in May 2002, playing Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3, and most recently, in November 2008, performing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. On July 13, 2010, he joined the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Long Yu, on a special performance in the New York Philharmonic's Concerts in the Parks, Presented by Didi and Oscar Schafer.

Credit Suisse is the Global Sponsor of the New York Philharmonic.

The performances of Handel's Messiah are presented by the Robert Hekemian Family
Foundation.

The New Year's Eve Concert is presented by Breguet.

The New York Philharmonic gratefully acknowledges support for its activities from the
Gurnee and Marjorie Hart Endowment Fund.

Programs of the New York Philharmonic are supported, in part, by public funds from the
New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the
Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Single tickets for the Holiday Brass performance are $50 to $80. Single tickets for
Messiah are $32 to $120. Single tickets for the All-Tchaikovsky New Year's Eve
Concert are $69 to $265. Tickets for Pre-Concert Talks for Messiah are $7. Tickets for
Open Rehearsals are $18. All tickets may be purchased online at nyphil.org or by calling
(212) 875-5656, 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and 12:00 noon to
5:00 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets may also be purchased at the Avery Fisher Hall
Box Office or the Alice Tully Hall Box Office at Lincoln Center, Broadway at 65th
Street. 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. A limited number of $12.50
tickets for select concerts may be available through the Internet for students within 10 days of the performance, or in person the day of. Valid identification is required. To determine ticket availability, call the Philharmonic's Customer Relations Department at (212) 875-5656. [Ticket prices subject to change.]

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