Alan Gilbert, Music Director and Conductor
In September 2009, Alan Gilbert began his tenure as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, the first native New Yorker to hold the post. For his inaugural season, he has introduced a number of new initiatives: the positions of The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence, held by Magnus Lindberg, and The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence, held by Thomas Hampson; an annual three-week festival; and CONTACT!, the New York Philharmonic's new-music series. He led the orchestra on a major tour of Asia in October 2009, with debuts in Hanoi and Abu Dhabi, and on a European tour in January–February 2010, as well as in performances of world, US, and New York premieres. Also in the 2009–2010 season, Mr. Gilbert has become the first person to hold the William Schuman Chair in Musical Studies at The Juilliard School, a position that includes coaching, conducting, and hosting performance master classes.
Highlights of Mr. Gilbert's 2008–2009 season with the New York Philharmonic included the Bernstein anniversary concert at Carnegie Hall and a performance with the Juilliard Orchestra, presented by the Philharmonic. 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 Philharmonic's Concerts in the Parks and Free Indoor Concerts, Presented by Didi and Oscar Schafer, as well as performances 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 the NDR Sinfonieorchester Hamburg since 2004, and he has conducted other leading orchestras in the US and abroad, including the Boston and Chicago symphony orchestras, the San Francisco Symphony, and the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras, as well as the Berliner Philharmoniker, Munich's Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and Orchestre National de Lyon. In 2003, he was named the first music director of the Santa Fe Opera.
Alan Gilbert studied at Harvard University, The Curtis Institute of Music, and The Juilliard School. From 1995 to 1997, he was the assistant conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra. In November 2008, he made his acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut, conducting John Adams's Doctor Atomic. His recording of Prokofiev's Scythian Suite with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award, and his recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 9 received top honors from the Chicago Tribune and Gramophone magazine.
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic, founded in 1842 by a group of local musicians led by American-born Ureli Corelli Hill, is by far the oldest symphony orchestra in the US and one of the oldest in the world. It currently plays some 180 concerts a year, and on December 18, 2004, gave its 14,000th concert—a milestone unmatched by any other symphony orchestra in the world.
Alan Gilbert began his tenure as Music Director in September 2009, the latest in a distinguished line of musical giants that has included Lorin Maazel (2002–2009); Kurt Masur (music director from 1991 to the summer of 2002; named Music Director Emeritus in 2002); Zubin Mehta (1978–1991); Pierre Boulez (1971–1977); and Leonard Bernstein, who was appointed Music Director in 1958 and given the lifetime title of Laureate Conductor in 1969.
Since its inception, the Orchestra has championed the new music of its time, commissioning or premiering many important works, such as Dvorák's Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”; Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3; Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F; and Copland's Connotations. The Philharmonic has also given the US premieres of such works as Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. 8 and 9 and Brahms's Symphony No. 4. This pioneering tradition has continued to the present day, with works of major contemporary composers regularly scheduled each season, including John Adams's Pulitzer Prize– and Grammy Award–winning On the Transmigration of Souls, Stephen Hartke's Symphony No. 3, Augusta Read Thomas's Gathering Paradise, Emily Dickinson Settings for Soprano and Orchestra, and Esa-Pekka Salonen's Piano Concerto.
The roster of composers and conductors who have led the Philharmonic includes such historic figures as Theodore Thomas, Antonín Dvorák, Gustav Mahler (Music Director, 1909–1911), Otto Klemperer, Richard Strauss, Willem Mengelberg (Music Director, 1922–1930), Wilhelm Furtwängler, Arturo Toscanini (Music Director, 1928–1936), Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Bruno Walter (Music Advisor, 1947–1949), Dimitri Mitropoulos (Music Director, 1949–1958), Klaus Tennstedt, George Szell (Music Advisor, 1969–1970), and Erich Leinsdorf.
Long a leader in American musical life, the Philharmonic has over the last century become renowned around the globe, appearing in 429 cities in 61 countries on five continents. In February 2008, the orchestra, led by then–music director Lorin Maazel, gave a historic performance in Pyongyang, Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The first visit there by an American orchestra, it was an event watched around the world, and it earned the Philharmonic the 2008 Common Ground Award for Cultural Diplomacy. Other historic tours have included the 1930 Tour to Europe, with Toscanini; the first Tour to the USSR, in 1959; the 1998 Asia Tour with Kurt Masur, featuring the first performances in mainland China; and the 75th Anniversary European Tour, in 2005, with Lorin Maazel.
A longtime media pioneer, the Philharmonic began radio broadcasts in 1922 and is currently represented by The New York Philharmonic This Week—syndicated nationally 52 weeks per year, and available on nyphil.org and Sirius XM Radio. On television, in the 1950s and 1960s, the Philharmonic inspired a generation through Bernstein's Young People's Concerts on CBS. Its television presence has continued with annual appearances on Live From Lincoln Center on PBS, and in 2003, it made history as the first orchestra ever to perform live on the Grammy Awards, one of the most-watched television events worldwide. More recently, the Philharmonic became the first major American orchestra to offer downloadable concerts, recorded live. Since 1917, the Philharmonic has made nearly 2,000 recordings, with more than
500 currently available.
On June 4, 2007, the New York Philharmonic proudly announced a new partnership with Credit Suisse, its first-ever and exclusive Global Sponsor.
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