New York Philharmonic to Offer Three Additional Concerts 10/30 and 10/31

The New York Philharmonic has added three concerts to its schedule, conducted by Music Director Alan Gilbert, with pianist Emanuel Ax as soloist, Friday and Saturday, October 30–31, 2009, at 8:00 p.m., and Saturday, October 31 at 2:00 p.m. Mr. Ax will be the soloist in all three performances; Mr. Gilbert will play violin in the chamber work on the Saturday Matinee Concert, joining Mr. Ax and Members of the Orchestra. These concerts follow the postponement of the Orchestra's trip to Cuba.
 
The evening concerts will feature two works by Beethoven - his Egmont Overture and the Piano Concerto No. 3; Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story; and the Suite No. 2 from Falla's The Three-Cornered Hat. The Saturday Matinee Concert will begin with Schumann's Piano Quintet in E-flat major, performed by Mr. Ax; Glenn Dicterow and Mr. Gilbert, violin; Cynthia Phelps, viola; and Carter Brey, cello. The second half of the concert will feature Beethoven's Egmont Overture and the Piano Concerto No. 3.

Alan Gilbert began his tenure as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in the 2009–10 season, the first native New Yorker to hold the post. For his inaugural season he has introduced a number of new initiatives: The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in- Residence Magnus Lindberg; The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Thomas Hampson; an annual three-week festival; and CONTACT, the New York Philharmonic's new-music series. He will also lead the Orchestra on a major tour of Asia in October 2009, with debuts in Hanoi and Abu Dhabi; a European tour in January–February 2010; and performances of world, U.S., and New York premieres. Also in the 2009–10 season Mr. Gilbert becomes the first to hold the William Schuman Chair in Musical Studies at The Juilliard School, a position that will include coaching, conducting, and performance master classes. 
 
Highlights of Mr. Gilbert's 2008–09 season with the New York Philharmonic included the November 14, 2008, Bernstein anniversary concert at Carnegie Hall, and a performance with the Juilliard Orchestra, presented by the Philharmonic, featuring Bernstein's Symphony No. 3, Kaddish. In May 2009 he conducted the World Premiere of Peter Lieberson's The World in Flower, a New York Philharmonic Commission, and in July 2009 he led the New York Philharmonic Concerts in the Parks, Presented by Didi and Oscar Schafer, and four concerts at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival in Colorado. 
 
In June 2008 Mr. Gilbert was named conductor laureate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, following his final concert as its chief conductor and artistic advisor. He has been principal guest conductor of Hamburg's NDR Symphony Orchestra (NDRSO) since 2004. Mr. Gilbert regularly conducts other leading orchestras in the U.S. and abroad, including the Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco symphony orchestras; The Cleveland Orchestra; Munich's Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw; and Orchestre National de Lyon. In 2003 he was named the first music director of Santa Fe Opera, where he served for three seasons.  
 
Born and raised in New York City, Alan Gilbert studied at Harvard University, The Curtis Institute of Music, and The Juilliard School; he was a substitute violinist with The Philadelphia Orchestra for two seasons, and assistant conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra from 1995 to 1997. In November 2008 he made his acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut conducting John Adams's Dr. Atomic. His recording of Prokofiev's Scythian Suite with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance.
 
Pianist Emanuel Ax was born in Lvov, Poland, and moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy. His studies at The Juilliard School were supported by the sponsorship of the Epstein Scholarship Program of the Boys Clubs of America, and he subsequently won the Young Concert Artists Award. Mr. Ax, who attended Columbia University with a major in French, captured public attention in 1974 when he won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975 he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists, followed four years later by the Avery Fisher Prize. In the 2008–09 season Mr. Ax returned to several orchestras with which he has had relationships for many years including the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco, St. Louis,  Toronto, and Kansas City symphony orchestras; in Kansas City he performed the world premiere of Stephen Hartke's Piano Concerto. Special projects included a duo recital tour  with pianist Yefim Bronfman; a performance with violinist Itzhak Perlman and cellist Yo-Yo Ma at Carnegie Hall; and a solo recital tour in both North America and Europe. In  recognition of the bicentenaries of Chopin and Schumann in 2010 and in partnership with London's Barbican, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony, Mr. Ax has commissioned new works from composers John Adams, Peter Lieberson, and Osvaldo Golijov for three recital programs to be presented in each of those cities with colleagues Yo-Yo Ma, cellist, and Dawn Upshaw, soprano. 
 
Mr. Ax last appeared with the New York Philharmonic in January 2009, playing works by R. Strauss and Szymanowski, conducted by Lorin Maazel. He is performing on tour with the Orchestra on Asian Horizons in October 2009.
 
Ludwig van Beethoven, a great admirer of Goethe, was pleased and honored when the Hoftheater of Vienna commissioned him to compose music for a revival of Goethe's play Egmont - one of a half-dozen stage plays for which Beethoven wrote incidental music.  The overture, the most frequently performed piece of his Egmont music, introduced a play that addressed political ideologies that were significant to him, and was based on a 16th-century incident involving the Flemish nobleman, Count Egmont. The overture depicts the suffering, optimistic spirit, and eventual victory of the Flemish people over oppression by the Spanish. The New York Philharmonic first performed the work in November 1847, with George Loder conducting, and as of the concert date will have been performed most recently while on tour in Asia in October 2009, led by Alan Gilbert.
 
In April 1803, Beethoven presented the world premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 3, playing partly from memory, as he had not yet finished writing out the piano score. The concert also featured the premieres of his Symphony No. 2 and his oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives. The stark and forceful concerto marked a crucial step forward in Beethoven's creative progress and was published the next year with a dedication to Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia. The New York Philharmonic first performed the complete work in March 1865, under the direction of Carl Bergmann, having previously played the first movement. The Orchestra most recently performed the concerto in January 2009 with Radu Lupu as soloist and Riccardo Muti conducting.
 
Discussions about the creation of West Side Story began in early 1949, but the show itself - with music by Leonard Bernstein, a book by Arthur Laurents, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and choreography by Jerome Robbins - was put aside in favor of other projects, notably Bernstein's Candide. West Side Story finally came to life in August 1957 as a tale of conflict between two teenage gangs in the Manhattan neighborhood that would be razed a few years later to make way for Lincoln Center. The Symphonic Dances were first performed by the Philharmonic in February 1961, conducted by Lukas Foss; the most recent complete performance was given in Vail, Colorado in July 2007, led by Bramwell Tovey.
 
Manuel De Falla based his one-act ballet The Three-Cornered Hat on a classic Spanish novel that relates the story of a naïve miller and his wife, who prevail over the conniving and adulterous magistrate of their hometown in Spain. The movements are inflected with the rhythms and melodies of traditional Spanish folk dances and song. The two suites of excerpts culled from the ballet have become the most well known of Falla's works heard 
 
in the concert hall. The Suite No. 2 falls into three movements and includes "The
Neighbor's Dance," "The Miller's Dance," and "Final Dance." The New York Symphony (which merged with the New York Philharmonic in 1928 to form today's New York Philharmonic) first performed selections from The Three-Cornered Hat in December 1923 under Walter Damrosch; the Orchestra's most recent performances of selections were given in Vail, Colorado, in July 2008, led by Bramwell Tovey.
 
Credit Suisse is the Global Sponsor of the New York Philharmonic.
 
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 these performances are $31 to $112. Tickets for Pre-Concert Talks are $5. Tickets for Open Rehearsals are $16. All tickets may be purchased online at nyphil.org or by calling (212) 875-5656, 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. daily. 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 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.