Jaap van Zweden To Lead New York Philharmonic on ASIA 2018 Tour

Music Director Designate Jaap van Zweden will lead the New York Philharmonic on the ASIA 2018 tour, March 8-18, 2018. The ten-day tour - Jaap van Zweden's first international tour with the Orchestra - will feature eight concerts in five cities. The Orchestra will perform in Beijing, Kyoto, Tokyo, Nagoya, and Taipei. The soloists on the tour are Beijing-born pianist Yuja Wang and Japanese-American violinist Ryu Goto.

Jaap van Zweden will lead the New York Philharmonic in Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, Mahler's Symphony No. 5, and J. Wagenaar's Cyrano de Bergerac Overture. Yuja Wang will join Maestro van Zweden and the Orchestra for Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3. Ryu Goto will join Maestro van Zweden and the Orchestra for Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in his Philharmonic debut. The Orchestra will perform at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing; Kyoto Concert Hall in Kyoto; Suntory Hall in Tokyo; Nagoya Shimin Kaikan in Nagoya; and National Theater & Concert Hall in Taipei.

"I have loved making music with this exceptional Orchestra ever since my debut six years ago, and I'm thrilled to be collaborating with them in the intensive, immersive context of a tour," said Music Director Designate Jaap van Zweden. "The brilliant musicians of the New York Philharmonic bring insight to Mahler, beauty to Brahms, and, to all, admirable discipline and astounding virtuosity and passion. I also look forward to reuniting with Yuja Wang and working with Ryu Goto, and to revisiting Asia, whose sophisticated audience I've gotten to know over the years."

"The New York Philharmonic is a global orchestra," said President and CEO Deborah Borda. "Our players hail from around the world, including the cities we'll be visiting in March, and our extensive touring history includes many visits to Asia - we gave our first concert in Tokyo in 1961, first visited Taipei in 1984, and made our Beijing debut, which I remember, in 1998. And on this trip, audiences will be among the first to discover Jaap van Zweden's chemistry with the New York Philharmonic."

The New York Philharmonic has traveled to Tokyo 14 times and Nagoya 11 times since 1961, the Philharmonic's first appearances in Asia, led by then Music Director Leonard Bernstein. The Orchestra has toured to Taipei seven times beginning in 1984, led by then Music Director Zubin Mehta. The ASIA 2018 tour will not only mark the Orchestra's fourth trip to Beijing since its debut there in 1998, when it performed for the first time in The Great Hall of the People, led by then Music Director Kurt Masur; it will also mark the Orchestra's return to the stage of the National Centre for the Performing Arts after its first performance there in 2008, led by then Music Director Lorin Maazel. The tour will also mark the Orchestra's fifth visit to Kyoto.

Artists
Jaap van Zweden has become an international presence on three continents over the last decade. The 2017-18 season marks a major milestone as he completes his ten-year tenure as music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and becomes Music Director Designate of the New York Philharmonic, anticipating his inaugural season, in 2018-19, when he becomes Music Director. He continues as music director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, a post he has held since 2012. In addition to performances with the New York Philharmonic in New York and on tour, his 2017-18 season highlights include returns to the Chicago Symphony, Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw, Rotterdam Philharmonic, and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic orchestras.

Maestro van Zweden has also guest conducted The Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras; Boston, London, and Shanghai symphony orchestras; Los Angeles, Vienna, Berlin, and Munich philharmonic orchestras; Orchestre national de France; and Orchestre de Paris. In 2015 he launched the annual SOLUNA International Music & Arts Festival with the Dallas Symphony, and embarked on a four-year project with the Hong Kong Philharmonic to conduct the first-ever Hong Kong performances of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, to be released on Naxos Records. In the summers of 2017-19 he serves as principal conductor of the Gstaad Festival Orchestra and Gstaad Conducting Academy.

Jaap van Zweden's acclaimed recordings include Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and Petrushka, Britten's War Requiem, and complete cycles of the Beethoven, Brahms, and Bruckner symphonies. He recorded Mahler's Symphony No. 5 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Mozart piano concertos with the Philharmonia Orchestra and David Fray. His celebrated performances of Wagner's Lohengrin, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal (the last of which earned him the prestigious Edison award for Best Opera Recording in 2012) are available on CD and DVD. On the Dallas Symphony's record label, he has conducted symphonies by Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Mahler, and Dvo?ák, as well as the World Premiere recording of Stucky's August 4, 1964. A recording of Jaap van Zweden and the New York Philharmonic's performances of Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. 5 and 7 will be released on CD and for streaming and download in February 2018; the release launches the Philharmonic's partnership with Decca Gold, Universal Music Group's newly established U.S. classical music label.

Born in Amsterdam, Jaap van Zweden was appointed the youngest-ever concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at 19. He began his conducting career 20 years later, in 1995. He is honorary chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, where he served as chief conductor, 2005-13, and conductor emeritus of the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra. He also held the post of chief conductor of the Royal Flanders Orchestra, 2008-11. Maestro van Zweden was named Musical America's 2012 Conductor of the Year.

In 1997 Jaap van Zweden and his wife, Aaltje, established the Papageno Foundation to support families of children with autism, including by training music therapists and musicians. In August 2015 the opening of Papageno House, a home for autistic young adults and children, in Laren, the Netherlands, was attended by Her Majesty Queen Maxima.

Violinist Ryu Goto began his career at age seven, when he made his debut at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan. He has since appeared as a soloist with many of the world's leading orchestras, including the National, Vienna, Sydney, Montreal, Frankfurt Radio, Hamburg, and Shanghai symphony orchestras; London, Munich, and Vienna philharmonic orchestras; and The Philadelphia Orchestra and Orchestre National de Lyon. He has worked with conductors Vladimir Ashkenazy, Myung-Whun Chung, Tan Dun, Fabio Luisi, Lorin Maazel, Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jonathan Nott, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, and Leonard Slatkin. Mr. Goto has performed in many of the world's most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Suntory Hall, Sydney Opera House, Shanghai Grand Theater, Taipei's National Theater & Concert Hall, Vienna's Musikverein, and Munich's Herkulessaal and Gasteig. He celebrates Bernstein's centennial with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in January 2018, and makes his New York Philharmonic debut on the Orchestra's ASIA 2018 tour. Mr. Goto's philanthropic endeavors include working with student musicians throughout the world, mentoring their development and conducting master classes. His efforts include the Ryu Goto Excellence in Music Initiative Scholarship with the New York City Department of Education, as well as collaborations with The Juilliard School and Harvard Bach Society Orchestra. Ryu Goto records for Deutsche Grammophon in collaboration with Universal Classics Japan. In May 2011 he graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in Physics, and is currently studying violin with Ana Chumachenco. A member of the U.S.-Japan Council, he received an award from the Japanese American Bar Association as a Japanese-American leader. He holds a third-degree black belt from the Japan Karate Association, and is fluent in multiple languages, including English, Japanese, French, and Chinese. He performs on the Stradivarius 1722 violin "Jupiter" on loan to him from Nippon Music Foundation. These performances mark Ryu Goto's New York Philharmonic debut.

Pianist Yuja Wang's 2017-18 season features recitals, concert series, and tours with some of the world's most venerated ensembles and conductors. She began the summer of 2017 on tour with the London Symphony Orchestra and Michael Tilson Thomas and a program featuring Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 2, followed by a performance of Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 1 at the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Lionel Bringuier. Later engagements include concerts with the Munich Philharmonic and Valery Gergiev, a series of performances at the Verbier Festival, and a three-city German tour with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. She also embarks on play-conduct tours with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and joins Jaap van Zweden's inaugural tour with the New York Philharmonic and the final tour of Yannick Nézet-Séguin's directorship with the Rotterdam Philharmonic. Other notable appearances include concerts in Hong Kong, Miami, Prague, Tel Aviv, Berlin, and Washington, D.C. In the winter of 2017 Ms. Wang reunites with violinist and frequent collaborator Leonidas Kavakos for a European chamber tour, and in the spring of 2018 she embarks on a recital tour to premier venues in the U.S. and Europe, which includes stops in New York City, San Francisco, Rome, Vienna, Berlin, and Paris. Yuja Wang was born into a musical family in Beijing. After childhood piano studies in China, she received advanced training in Canada and at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music with Gary Graffman. Her international breakthrough came in 2007 when she replaced Martha Argerich as soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Two years later she signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon and has since established her place among the world's leading artists with a succession of critically acclaimed performances and recordings. Ms. Wang was named Musical America's Artist of the Year for 2017. Yuja Wang made her New York Philharmonic debut performing Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1, led by Bramwell Tovey, in July 2006 at Bravo! Vail in Colorado. She most recently joined the Orchestra performing Messiaen's Turangalîla-symphonie in March 2016, led by Esa-Pekka Salonen.

About the New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic plays a leading cultural role in New York City, the United States, and the world. Each season the Philharmonic connects with up to 50 million music lovers through live concerts in New York City and on its worldwide tours and residencies as well as with its digital recording series, international broadcasts, and education programs. In the 2017-18 season, during which Jaap van Zweden serves as Music Director Designate, the Philharmonic celebrates its greatest strengths and essential commitments while looking to the future as an innovative, global ensemble, spotlighting its musicians and partners, dedication to new music, wide-ranging repertoire, education programs, and accessibility.

The Philharmonic has commissioned and / or premiered works by leading composers from every era since its founding in 1842, including Dvo?ák's New World Symphony; Gershwin's Concerto in F; John Adams's Pulitzer Prize-winning On the Transmigration of Souls, dedicated to the victims of 9/11; Esa-Pekka Salonen's Piano Concerto; Wynton Marsalis's The Jungle(Symphony No. 4); and Anna Thorvaldsdottir's Metacosmos, to be premiered in April 2018.

A resource for its community and the world, the Philharmonic complements annual free concerts across the city - including the Concerts in the Parks, Presented by Didi and Oscar Schafer - with Philharmonic Free Fridays and the famed, long-running Young People's Concerts. Committed to developing tomorrow's leading orchestral musicians, the Philharmonic established the Shanghai Orchestra Academy and Residency Partnership as well as a multiyear residency partnership with the University Musical Society of the University of Michigan.

Renowned around the globe, the Orchestra has appeared in 432 cities in 63 countries. Highlights include the groundbreaking 1930 tour of Europe; the unprecedented 1959 tour to the USSR; the historic 2008 visit to Pyongyang, D.P.R.K., the first there by an American orchestra; and the Orchestra's debut in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2009.

A media pioneer, the Philharmonic has made more than 2,000 recordings since 1917, and was the first major American orchestra to offer downloadable concerts, recorded live. The Philharmonic launches its partnership with Decca Gold, Universal Music Group's newly established U.S. classical music label, in February 2018 with the release of Jaap van Zweden and the Philharmonic's performances of Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. 5 and 7, on CD and for streaming and download.

In 2016 it produced its first-ever Facebook Live concert broadcast, reaching more than one million online viewers through three broadcasts that season. The Orchestra's extensive history is available free, online, through the New York Philharmonic Leon Levy Digital Archives, which makes available every printed program since 1842, plus scores and parts marked by musicians and Music Directors, including Mahler and Bernstein. By the end of 2018 more than three million pages of documents will be available.

Founded in 1842 by local musicians led by American-born Ureli Corelli Hill, the New York Philharmonic is the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, and one of the oldest in the world. Notable composers and conductors who have led the Philharmonic include Tchaikovsky, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Copland, and Mitropoulos. Jaap van Zweden will become Music Director in 2018-19, succeeding musical leaders including Alan Gilbert, Maazel, Masur, Zubin Mehta, Boulez, Bernstein, Toscanini, and Mahler.

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Photo Credit: Chris Lee

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