VIDEO: Jessica Vosk Hosts New York Philharmonic at Bryant Park

watch the festive and varied kick-off of Bryant Park's Picnic Performances treats New Yorkers to music by past masters - including the Classical era's Mozart and Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges - and American sounds, including an uplifting piece by Philharmonic Very Young Composer Ilana Rahim-Braden.

The New York Philharmonic plays a leading cultural role in New York City, the United States, and the world. Each season the Orchestra connects with up to 50 million music lovers through live concerts in New York and around the world, broadcasts, recordings, and education programs. Jaap van Zweden began his tenure as the 26th Music Director in the 2018-19 season. In 2019-20 he and the Philharmonic reaffirm their vital commitments to serving as New York's orchestra and to championing new music. Maestro van Zweden conducts seven World Premieres and symphonic cornerstones and presides over Project 19, marking the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment with commissions by 19 women composers; the hotspots festival, spotlighting new-music centers Berlin, Reykjavík, and New York; and Mahler's New York, examining the composer / conductor who spent time in New York as the Philharmonic's tenth Music Director. During the 2020 European tour, Maestro van Zweden and the Philharmonic will open the Concertgebouw's Mahler Festival as the first American orchestra in the festival's 100-year history.

The New York Philharmonic has commissioned and / or premiered works by leading composers from every era since its founding in 1842. Highlights include Dvořák'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 Julia Wolfe's Fire in my mouth. The two new-music series introduced in Jaap van Zweden's inaugural season - Nightcap and Sound ON - will return in 2019-20.

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