New York Philharmonic Young People's Concerts Continue with Brahms's Piano Concerto 1, 4/12

This season's New York Philharmonic Young People's Concerts (YPCs) conclude with a focus on Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 1, led by Philharmonic Assistant Conductor Joshua Weilerstein and featuring pianist Paul Lewis, Saturday, April 12, 2014, at 2:00 p.m. This is the final program in this season's series, Points of Entry, in which each concert explores facets of music and the orchestra itself through one influential score. The concert will also feature Brahms's Hungarian Dance No. 1 and Ritual Fire Dance from Falla's El Amor brujo.

Designed for ages 6 to 12, the series is hosted by Philharmonic Vice President, Education, Theodore Wiprud, The Sue B. Mercy Chair, and written and directed by Tom Dulack.

All YPCs are preceded by Kidzone Live!, an interactive music fair at which children meet Philharmonic musicians, create and hear their own music, try out orchestral instruments, and learn new technologies on the Grand Promenade and upper tiers of Avery Fisher Hall at 12:45 p.m. Beginning one week before each YPC a special podcast for children is made available, at nyphil.org/ypc, as is TuneUp, the children's concert program, complete with activities related to the event.

Artists
Joshua Weilerstein is in his third season as a New York Philharmonic Assistant Conductor. In 2009 Mr. Weilerstein, then 21 years old, was unanimously named the winner of the 2009 Malko Competition for Young Conductors in Copenhagen, Denmark. His first-prize honors included a series of engagements with major Scandinavian orchestras, the first of which was the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in June 2009, marking his professional conducting debut. During the 2013-14 season, he makes several debuts in the United States with the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Fort Worth, and New Mexico, and he returns to the Florida Orchestra.

In Europe he debuts with the Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Belgique, Salzburg Mozarteumorchester, and Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. He also returns to the BBC, Danish National, and Finnish Radio symphony orchestras; Oslo Philharmonic; Swedish Chamber Orchestra; and Northern Sinfonia. Born into a musical family, Joshua Weilerstein studied at the New England Conservatory, from which he received his dual master of music degrees in orchestral conducting (with Hugh Wolff) and in violin (with Lucy Chapman) in 2011. He spent the summers of 2009 and 2010 studying with David Zinman and Robert Spano at the Aspen Music Festival and School, where he was awarded the Robert J. Harth and Aspen Conducting Prizes, its most distinguished honors. In 2007 the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela (SBSO) engaged Mr. Weilerstein as a violin soloist. Shortly after this appearance, the SBSO asked him to join the first violin section for the orchestra's 2007 American tour with music director Gustavo Dudamel, making Mr. Weilerstein the ensemble's first non-Venezuelan guest member. In January 2010 he made his guest conducting debut with the SBSO. Recent engagements include the Los Angeles, Copenhagen, Royal Stockholm, and Brussels philharmonic orchestras; Toronto, BBC, and BBC Scottish symphony orchestras; and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Weilerstein made his subscription debut with the New York Philharmonic in October 2013 leading works by Osvaldo Golijov, Mendelssohn, and Dvo?ák with violinist Arabella Steinbacher as soloist.

British pianist Paul Lewis's recent cycles of Beethoven's and Schubert's core works for piano received unanimous critical and public acclaim worldwide. He has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, and enjoys particularly strong relationships with both the Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. He is also a frequent guest at festivals including Lucerne, Mostly Mozart, Tanglewood, Schubertiade, Salzburg, Edinburgh, La Roque d'Antheron, Rheingau, Klavier Festival Ruhr, and London's BBC Proms, where in 2010 he became the first pianist to perform a complete Beethoven piano concerto cycle in one season. His recital career takes him to London's Wigmore Hall and Royal Festival Hall, New York's Alice Tully Hall and 92nd Street Y, Vienna's Musikverein and Konzerthaus, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, the Berlin Philharmonie and Konzerthaus, Zurich's Tonhalle, Palau de Musica Barcelona, Tokyo's Oji Hall, Melbourne's Recital Centre, and the Sydney Opera House. His multi-award winning discography for Harmonia Mundi includes the complete Beethoven piano sonatas, concertos, and Diabelli Variations; Liszt's B-minor Sonata and other late works; and all of Schubert's major piano works from the last six years of his life, including the three song cycles with tenor Mark Padmore. Awards include the Royal Philharmonic Society's Instrumentalist of the Year, the South Bank Show Classical Music Award, and three Gramophone awards. Paul Lewis studied with Joan Havill at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London before going on to study privately with Alfred Brendel. Along with his wife, Norwegian cellist Bjørg Lewis, he is artistic director of Midsummer Music, an annual chamber music festival held in Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom.

Theodore Wiprud, Vice President, Education, The Sue B. Mercy Chair, has directed the Education Department of the New York Philharmonic since 2004. The Philharmonic's education programs include the historic Young People's Concerts, the Very Young People's Concerts, the School Partnership Program (one of the largest in-school programs among U.S. orchestras), Very Young Composers, adult education programs, and many special projects. Mr. Wiprud has also created innovative programs as director of education and community engagement at the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the American Composers Orchestra; served as associate director of
The Commission Project; and assisted the Orchestra of St. Luke's on its education programs.

Tom Dulack is an award-winning playwright, novelist, and director. His play Incommunicado won a Kennedy Center Prize for New American Drama, and Friends Like These won the Kaufman and Hart Prize for New American Comedy. Among his other plays, which have appeared on and Off-Broadway as well as in leading regional theaters around the country, are Breaking Legs, Diminished Capacity, Francis, York Beach, Just Deserts, Solomon's Child, 1348, Shooting Craps, The Elephant, and Mrs. Rossetti. His novels include The Stigmata of Dr. Constantine and the forthcoming The Misanthropes. He is also the author of the theater memoir In Love With Shakespeare. He has written and directed the scripts for the YPCs since 2005. He is also professor of English Literature at the University of Connecticut.

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