NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC PRINCIPAL BRASS
PERFORMS AT SINGAPORE’S BOTANIC GARDENS,
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2009
Free Outdoor Performance is a Joint Initiative
of the New York Philharmonic and Credit Suisse
The New York Philharmonic Principal Brass, a quintet comprising the principals of the Brass sections of the New York Philharmonic, will offer a free public performance at Singapore’s Botanic Gardens on the evening of Sunday, October 18, 2009. This free concert, the first performance by musicians of a major international orchestra at the Botanic Gardens in its 150 years of history, is offered to the people of Singapore by the Orchestra and Credit Suisse, the Global Sponsor of New York Philharmonic. It also kicks off the Orchestra’s visit to Singapore as part of the Asian Horizons tour, the first international concert tour under the leadership of Alan Gilbert, who began his tenure as Music Director in September 2009. Furthering its commitment to its employees and the Singapore community, Credit Suisse has invited its staff and families as well as children from the Credit Suisse-sponsored Central Development Council Nurture Program to this special event.The New York Philharmonic Principal Brass will share the stage with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO), with the SCO performing at 6:00 p.m. and the New York Philharmonic Principal Brass at 6:50 p.m.
In addition to this free event, the New York Philharmonic will perform two concerts at the Esplanade Concert Hall in Singapore, on October 19 and 20, 2009, conducted by Music Director Alan Gilbert. Asian Horizons, October 8–24, 2009, will consist of eleven concerts, spanning five Asian countries, with performances in Tokyo, Japan; Seoul, Korea; Hanoi, Vietnam; Singapore; and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The Philharmonic will make its debut performances in Hanoi and Abu Dhabi. The Asian Horizons tour is the fourth New York Philharmonic concert tour — and the second in Asia — under the aegis of Credit Suisse, the Orchestra’s Global Sponsor.
The New York Philharmonic Principal Brass consists of Principal Trumpet Philip Smith, Associate Principal Trumpet Matthew Muckey, Principal Horn Philip Myers, Principal Trombone Joseph Alessi and Principal Tuba Alan Baer; the program for October 18 will include works by Bernstein, Ellington and Kander, among others. The Philharmonic’s first concert in Singapore, October 19, will feature Brahms’s Violin Concerto, with Frank Peter Zimmermann as soloist, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. The concert on October 20 will be an all-Beethoven evening with the Piano Concerto No. 4, featuring Emanuel Ax as soloist and Symphony No. 7. Both concerts will begin at 7:30 p.m.
As a complement to the Orchestra’s concerts, Alan Gilbert, Emanuel Ax, and members of the New York Philharmonic string and wind sections will participate in master classes with music students at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, October 19 and 20, 2009. The Philharmonic musicians who will give master classes include violist Robert Rinehart, Principal Flute Robert Langevin, Principal Oboe Liang Wang, Acting Principal Clarinet Mark Nuccio, Principal Trumpet Philip Smith, and Principal Trombone Joseph Alessi.
Artists
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.
The New York Philharmonic Principal Brass, comprising the principal brass players of the New York Philharmonic, enjoys worldwide exposure and an international reputation. The group’s debut came at the invitation of the Canadian Brass, when they joined the Canadians for a 1983 concert in Ottawa, Canada; that was the start of what has become a regular musical collaboration, which has included appearances at the summer festivals of Tanglewood, Wolf Trap, Great Woods, and Mostly Mozart, and in cities throughout Canada and the United States. The Principal Brass has collaborated with their brass colleagues from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and The Philadelphia Orchestra in five recordings and one educational video.
The New York Philharmonic Principal Brass has hosted an annual New York Philharmonic Holiday Concert at Lincoln Center since 1995. Its guests have included groups such as the Canadian Brass, German Brass, and the Salvation Army’s New York Staff Band; the brass players joined this last ensemble in two Gala Festivals at Alice Tully Hall in New York. In addition, the Principal Brass performed with the Empire Brass at the Carnegie Hall Centennial Gala in May 1991.
During Kurt Masur’s tenure as the New York Philharmonic’s Music Director, the Principal Brass became a regular encore feature on the Orchestra’s tours of Europe, South America, Asia, and the U.S. The ensemble continued to perform along the Orchestra’s tours during Lorin Maazel’s tenure, including in the Philharmonic’s residencies in Cagliari, Italy, and in Vail, Colorado, and on the Tour of Europe 2008. The ensemble has given solo concerts throughout the U.S. and Japan, and in the cities of Luxembourg, Monterrey (Mexico), Shanghai (China), and Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo (Brazil).
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. Other European engagements include a tour of the Far East with the Dresden Staatskapelle and Fabio Luisi, and performances with Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra; the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich and Carnegie Hall; London Philharmonia; and Orchestre National de France. Mr. Ax last appeared with the New York Philharmonic in January 2009, performing R. Strauss’s Burleske for Piano and Orchestra and Szymanowski’s Symphony No. 4 for Piano and Orchestra, led by then-Music Director Lorin Maazel. He is appearing on tour with the Philharmonic for the first time since the 2007 Tour of Europe.
Born in 1965 in Duisburg, Germany, Frank Peter Zimmermann began playing the violin when he was five years old, and gave his first concert with an orchestra at the age of ten. Since finishing his studies in 1983, he has been performing with the world’s major orchestras and conductors. Recent and future highlights include engagements with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras; Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw; and the Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh, and London symphony orchestras. He has given the world premieres of violin concertos by Augusta Read Thomas, Brett Dean, and Matthias Pintscher. Mr. Zimmermann is also an avid chamber musician and recitalist; his music partners include pianists Emanuel Ax, Piotr Anderszewski, Enrico Pace, and Christian Zacharias, and cellist Heinrich Schiff. He also performs as a member of the Trio Zimmerman with violist Antoine Tamestit and cellist Christian Poltéra.
Over the past two decades Mr. Zimmermann has recorded virtually all the major concertos, as well as many recital works. His recordings — released by EMI Classics, Teldec Classics, ECM Records, and Sony Classical — have received awards and prizes worldwide. Frank Peter Zimmermann plays a Stradivarius from 1711 which once belonged to Fritz Kreisler, and which is sponsored by the WestLB AG. He last appeared with the New York Philharmonic in March 2006, performing Brahms’s Violin Concerto, led by Ludovic Morlot.
Founded in 1842, the New York Philharmonic is the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States and one of the oldest in the world. Since its inception, the Philharmonic has played a leading role in American musical life, championing the new music of its time and commissioning or premiering many important works, from Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World (1893) and Gershwin’s An American in Paris (1928) to John Adams’s Pulitzer Prize-winning On the Transmigration of Souls (2002) and Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Piano Concerto (2007). Alan Gilbert became Music Director in the 2009–10 season, succeeding Lorin Maazel in a distinguished line of 20th-century musical giants that has included Kurt Masur, Leonard Bernstein, Zubin Mehta, Pierre Boulez, Gustav Mahler, Bruno Walter, and Arturo Toscanini. Over the last century the Philharmonic has become renowned around the globe, having appeared in 425 cities in 59 countries on five continents. In February 2008 the Philharmonic made a historic visit to Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — the first performance there by an American orchestra and an event that was watched around the world and for which the Philharmonic received the 2008 Common Ground Award for Cultural Diplomacy.
Long a media pioneer, the Orchestra began radio broadcasts in 1922, and is currently represented by The New York Philharmonic This Week, syndicated nationally 52 weeks per year, streamed on the Orchestra’s Website, nyphil.org, and carried on Sirius XM Radio. On television, in the 1950s and ’60s, the Philharmonic inspired a generation of music lovers through Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts, telecast on CBS, and its presence on television has continued with annual appearances on Live From Lincoln Center, which began with that series’ inaugural episode in 1976. The Internet has expanded the Orchestra’s reach, and in 2006 the Philharmonic became the first major American orchestra to offer downloadable concerts, recorded live, which are available on the DG Concerts label, exclusively on iTunes. Credit Suisse is the exclusive Global Sponsor of the New York Philharmonic.
About Credit Suisse
As one of the world’s leading banks, Credit Suisse provides its clients with private banking, investment banking, and asset management services worldwide. Credit Suisse offers advisory services, comprehensive solutions, and innovative products to companies, institutional clients, and high-net-worth private clients globally, as well as retail clients in Switzerland. Credit Suisse is active in more than 50 countries and employs approximately 46,700 people. Credit Suisse is comprised of a number of legal entities around the world and is headquartered in Zurich. The registered shares (CSGN) of Credit Suisse’s parent company, Credit Suisse Group AG, are listed in Switzerland and, in the form of American Depositary Shares (CS), in New York. Further information about Credit Suisse can be found at www.credit-suisse.com.
About Symphony 92.4FM
Symphony 92.4FM is Singapore’s premier classical music station that features the world’s best orchestras, plays works of the great composers, and showcases today’s rising stars. It broadcasts 24 hours a day, reaching out to 227,000* listeners with the best of the classics each week (*Figure is weekly cumulative listenership from Nielsen Media Research Diary Survey 2008 Wave 2). It keeps listeners informed of the latest in the arts and music scene, promotes young talents, and works with cultural organizations to bring the appreciation of the arts and classical music to an even wider audience through its music appreciation talks for schools and the public.
Ticket information
Tickets for the concerts can be bought through SISTIC by calling the SISTIC Hotline at +65-6348-555, by visiting www.sistic.com, or by visiting authorized agents. For further information about discounts for senior citizens, students, or group bookings, please visit the SISTIC website.
