New York Philharmonic to Ring in 2017 with Tunes from MY FAIR LADY, SOUND OF MUSIC and More on PBS

This New Year's Eve, LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER rings in 2017 with the New York Philharmonic as international opera star Joyce DiDonato and Tony Award winner Paulo Szot join Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert for an Enchanted Evening. Humorist and CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Mo Rocca hosts the broadcast from David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.

The festive program will celebrate American classics from Broadway and the concert hall, featuring selections from Lerner & Loewe's My Fair Lady ("The Rain in Spain," "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face," "I Could Have Danced All Night"), as well as The Sound of Music ("I Have Confidence," "Climb Ev'ry Mountain") and Carousel (Carousel Waltz, "Billy's Soliloquy") by Rodgers & Hammerstein. Aaron Copland's iconic Rodeo and selections from Old American Songs, and Johann Strauss's lilting waltz, On the Beautiful Blue Danube, round out the program.

"For many homes across America, New Year's Eve isn't complete without LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER and the New York Philharmonic," said Andrew C. Wilk, Executive Producer of Live From Lincoln Center. "We're thrilled to continue this annual holiday tradition with two leading lights such as Joyce DiDonato and Paulo Szot singing favorites from the American songbook."

Mo Rocca said, "Let's face it, New Year's Eve is usually a bust. That's why I'm spending the evening at Lincoln Center with my mother. I urge you to do the same: Spend the evening at Lincoln Center with my mother. She's terrific."

Live From Lincoln Center's New York Philharmonic New Year's Eve: Enchanted Evening airs nationally on PBS on Saturday, December 31, 2016 at 8:00 pm*.

The first LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER broadcast on New Year's Eve took place in 1984 and featured the New York Philharmonic, which has appeared nearly every year since, including each of the last 12 years. This episode of LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER is directed for television by Lonny Price. *Check local listings

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Mo Rocca is a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning and the host of The Henry Ford's Innovation Nation, part of CBS's Saturday morning lineup of educational/informational programming. He's the creator and host of MY GRANDMOTHER'S RAVIOLI on the Cooking Channel. He's also a panelist on NPR's hit weekly quiz show, Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! and starred in Broadway's The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

A multiple Grammy Award winner, Kansas-born mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato has earned international prominence in operas by Rossini, Handel, and Mozart, and serves the community as an arts advocate. Ms. DiDonato's 2016-17 plans include a season-opening gala concert with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ludovic Morlot. She also gives concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Riccardo Muti and the Berlin Philharmonic with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, as well as a recital with Philippe Jordan in Paris. On the opera stage, she makes her role debut as Rossini's Semiramide in a new production at the Bavarian Staatsoper conducted by Michele Mariotti; she also appears as Handel's Ariodante on tour with the English Concert and Harry Bicket; Dido in Berlioz's Les Troyens with John Nelsons in Strasbourg; and Sesto in Mozart's La clemenza di Tito with Yannick Nézet-Séguin in Baden-Baden. Ms. DiDonato also makes her Off-Broadway debut in White Rabbit Red Rabbit, the internationally acclaimed play by Nassim Soleimanpour. The mezzo-soprano's most recent recording release is In War & Peace: Harmony Through Music; the November 2016 release is accompanied by a 20-city international tour that poses the question: in the midst of chaos, how do you find peace? Her acclaimed discography also includes the Grammy Award-winning Diva Divo, Drama Queens, ReJoyce!, and Stella di Napoli (Erato/Warner Classics). Other honors include the Gramophone Artist of the Year and Recital of the Year awards, three ECHO Klassik Awards for Female Singer of the Year, induction into the Gramophone Hall of Fame, and Best Female Singer of the Year at the 2016 Premios Líricos Teatro Campoamor. In-demand on the concert and recital circuit, she has recently held residencies at Carnegie Hall and at London's Barbican Centre; toured extensively in South America, Europe, and Asia; and appeared as guest soloist at the BBC's Last Night of the Proms.

Born in São Paulo, baritone Paulo Szot has appeared with many leading opera companies throughout Europe, the United States, and his native Brazil. In 2008 he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of Emile De Beque in the Broadway revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific at Lincoln Center Theater. In the current season, Mr. Szot sings Don Alfonso in a new production of Mozart's Così fan tutte at Paris Opéra, and performs a solo recital in Madrid as a salute to Antônio Carlos Jobim. He also returns to Feinstein's 54 Below in New York City for a series of solo performances, and creates the roles of Alexander Hamilton, Bill Clinton, and Dick Cheney in the world premiere of Mohammed Fairouz's The New Prince at Dutch National Opera. Highlights from previous seasons include Mr. Szot's critically acclaimed debut at The Metropolitan Opera as Kovalev in Shostakovich's The Nose, and his returns there as Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen, Lescaut in Massenet's Manon, Dr. Falke in R. Strauss's Die Fledermaus, and the Captain in John Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer. Mr. Szot has also sung the role of Kovalev at ROME Opera, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte for his Paris Opéra debut, Filippov in Alexander Raskatov's A Dog's Heart at Milan's Teatro alla Scala, Escamillo for his San Francisco Opera debut, Sharpless in Puccini's Madama Butterfly at Marseille's Opera Municipal, the title role in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin with Opera Australia, and Almaviva in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. He has also appeared at Carnegie Hall with Deborah Voigt and the Collegiate Chorale, and the New York Pops Orchestra. Paulo Szot made his New York Philharmonic debut alongside Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, and Kelli O'Hara in the April 2009 Spring Gala, New York Moments, conducted by Marvin Hamlisch.

As Music Director of the New York Philharmonic since 2009, Alan Gilbert concludes his final season as Music Director with four programs that reflect themes, works, and musicians that hold particular meaning for him, including Beethoven's Ninth Symphony alongside Schoenberg's A SURVIVOR from Warsaw, Wagner's complete Das Rheingold in concert, and an exploration of how music can effect positive change in the world. Past highlights include acclaimed stagings of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre, Janácek's The Cunning Little Vixen, Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd starring Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson (2015 Emmy nomination), and Honegger's Joan of Arc at the Stake starring Marion Cotillard; 28 world premieres; a tribute to Boulez and Stucky during the 2016 NY PHIL BIENNIAL; The Nielsen Project; the Verdi Requiem and Bach's B-minor Mass; the score from 2001: A Space Odyssey, performed live to film; Mahler's Resurrection Symphony on the tenth anniversary of 9/11; performing violin in Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time; and ten tours around the world. Conductor laureate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and former principal guest conductor of Hamburg's NDR Symphony Orchestra, Alan Gilbert regularly conducts leading orchestras around the world. This season he returns to the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Munich Philharmonic, Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw, and Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. He will record Beethoven's complete piano concertos with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and Inon Barnatan, and conduct Gershwin's Porgy and Bess at Milan's Teatro alla Scala, his first time leading a staged opera there. Mr. Gilbert is Director of Conducting and Orchestral Studies at The Juilliard School, where he holds the William Schuman Chair in Musical Studies.

The New York Philharmonic plays a leading cultural role in New York City, the United States, and the world. This season the Philharmonic will connect with up to 50 million music lovers through live concerts in New York City and on its worldwide tours and residencies; digital recording series; international broadcasts on television, radio, and online; and as a resource through its varied education programs and the New York Philharmonic Leon Levy Digital Archives. In the 2016-17 season the New York Philharmonic celebrates its 175th anniversary and Alan Gilbert's farewell season as Music Director.

The Orchestra has commissioned and/or premiered works by leading composers from every era since its founding in 1842-including Dvorák's New World Symphony, John Adams's Pulitzer Prize-winning On the Transmigration of Souls, dedicated to the victims of 9/11, and Magnus Lindberg's Piano Concerto No. 2.

Renowned around the globe, the Philharmonic has appeared in 432 cities in 63 countries-including 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. The New York Philharmonic serves as a resource for its community and the world. It complements its annual free concerts across the city - including the Concerts in the Parks, presented by Didi and Oscar Schafer-with Philharmonic Free Fridays and wide-ranging education programs, among them the famed, long-running Young People's Concerts and Philharmonic Schools, an immersive classroom program that reaches thousands of New York City students.

The Orchestra established the New York Philharmonic Global Academy-collaborations with partners worldwide offering training of pre-professional orchestral musicians, often alongside performance residencies-following the launch of the flagship collaboration with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and Shanghai Conservatory of Music, including the formation of the Shanghai Orchestra Academy. Additional Global Academy partners include the Music Academy of the West and The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. The Orchestra also has a residency partnership with the University Musical Society at the University of Michigan.

The oldest American symphony orchestra and one of the oldest in the world, the New York Philharmonic has made more than 2,000 recordings since 1917, including several Grammy Award winners, and its self-produced digital recording series continues in the 2016-17 season. Music Director Alan Gilbert began his tenure in September 2009, succeeding a distinguished line of 20th-century musical giants that includes Leonard Bernstein, Arturo Toscanini, and Gustav Mahler.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) serves three primary roles: presenter of artistic programming, national leader in arts and education and community engagement, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. A presenter of more than 3,000 free and ticketed events, performances, tours, and educational activities annually, LCPA offers 16 series, festivals, and programs, including American Songbook, Avery Fisher Career Grants and Artist program, David Rubenstein Atrium programming, Great Performers, The Performing Arts Hall of Fame at Lincoln Center, Lincoln Center at the Movies, Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Awards, Lincoln Center Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Lincoln Center Vera List Art Project, Midsummer Night Swing, Mostly Mozart Festival, White Light Festival, the Emmy Award-winning Live From Lincoln Center, which airs nationally on PBS, and Lincoln Center Education, which is celebrating 40 years enriching the lives of students, educators, and lifelong learners. As manager of the Lincoln Center campus, LCPA provides support and services for the Lincoln Center complex and the 11 resident organizations: The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Film Society of Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Juilliard School, Lincoln Center Theater, The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, School of American Ballet, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Lincoln Center has become a leading force in using new media and technology to reach and inspire a wider and global audience. Reaching audiences where they are-physically and digitally-has become a cornerstone of making the performing arts more accessible to New Yorkers and beyond. The reimagination of David Geffen Hall will play an important part in these efforts.

For more information, visit LincolnCenter.org.

Live From Lincoln Center is a cornerstone of performing arts broadcasting, presenting the world's greatest artists and performances in music, dance, and theater from Lincoln Center's renowned stages. Now in its 42nd season on PBS, the pioneering series-produced by Lincoln Center-has been seen by hundreds of millions of viewers since its debut and celebrated by 16 Emmy Awards and other honors for its broadcasting excellence. Additional LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER content is accessible online at PBS.org and Watch.LincolnCenter.org. For more about upcoming broadcasts, visit LiveFromLincolnCenter.org.

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