Thomas AdèsMahler

Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic

2011–12 Season

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Alan Gilbert, Conductor

Recorded live January 5, 7 & 10, 2012Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

Thomas ADÈS (b. 1971)

Polaris: Voyage for Orchestra (2010–11; New York

Premiere, Co-Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and

Miami’s New World Symphony, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw

Orchestra, Lisbon’s Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, London’s

Barbican Centre, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San

Francisco Symphony) 13:47

MAHLER (1860–1911)

Symphony No. 9 1:21:39Andante comodo 27:33

In the tempo of a comfortable ländler, somewhat clumsy

and very coarse 15:10

Allegro assai, very insolent 13:12

Very slow and even holding back 25:44

New York PhilharmonicAlan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic 2011–12 Season

Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic: 2011–12 Season — twelve live recordings of performances conducted by the Music Director, two of which feature guest con-ductors — reflects the passion and curiosity that marks the Orchestra today. Alan Gil-bert’s third season with the New York Phil-harmonic continues a voyage of exploration of the new and unfamiliar while reveling in the greatness of the past, in works that the Music Director has combined to form telling and intriguing programs.

Every performance reveals the chemistry that has developed between Alan Gilbert and the musicians, whom he has praised for having “a unique ethic, a spirit of want-ing to play at the highest level no matter what the music is, and that trans lates into an ability to treat an incredible variety of styles brilliantly.” He feels that audi-ences are aware of this, adding, “I have noticed that at the end of performances the ovations are often the loud est when

the Philharmonic musicians stand for their bow: this is both an acknowledgment of the power and beauty with which they per-form, and of their dedication and commit-ment — and their inspiration — throughout the season.”

These high-quality recordings of almost 30 works, available internationally, reflect Alan Gilbert’s approach to programming which combines works as diverse as One Sweet Morning — a song cycle by Ameri-can master composer John Corigliano exploring the nature of war on the tenth anniversary of the events of 9/11 — with cornerstones of the repertoire, such as Dvorák’s lyrical yet brooding Seventh Symphony. The bonus content includes audio recordings of Alan Gilbert’s onstage commentaries, program notes published in each concert’s Playbill, and encores given by today’s leading soloists.

For more information about the series, visit nyphil.org/recordings.

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Alan Gilbert on This Program

Thomas Adès is a composer who has an incredible ear and sense of rhythm, so the complexity in his scores is always there for a reason — Tom really knows how to express feelings through his craft. This quality is very apparent in his opera The Tempest, which I conducted in Santa Fe some years ago, and in In Seven Days, which the Philharmonic and I performed in 2010, as there are dramatic aspects to both of those pieces, but even in non-narrative works he tells a story. Always in his work, what the audience hears is understandable even at the first exposure: there are colors and harmonies that are recognizable, but are combined in a very unique and personal way. Tom is such an honest, serious composer that I’ve always known that Polaris would be interesting, and I am looking forward to the increased focus on the orchestra that is possible when not presenting the visuals that can be associated with this work.

Mahler’s Ninth Symphony is the last symphony he completed, and as such has a par-ticular resonance. It ends with a powerful, valedictory moment, which seems like death, or perhaps the attainment of the ultimate spiritual peace. All of Mahler’s symphonies are great, and all attempt to really encapsulate the human experience, but the Ninth prob-ably goes the farthest. I think that all conductors wrestle with this piece — approaching it feels like climbing an epic mountain — but the rewards are tremendous. It really does say it all, and it seems to give a picture of what it means to be human in every sense, both the joys of living and the difficulty of coming to the end of one’s life. Mahler’s Ninth Symphony never fails to go straight to the heart.

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New York Philharmonic

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can be presented as a purely musical piece.A work of some 14 minutes in duration,

Polaris is structured broadly in three sec-tions. At the very outset we hear piano and second violins intoning delicate droplets of eighth notes. High woodwinds, harp, and touches of percussion join this remote, chilly texture. Here Adès uses the technique of diminution canon, through which the same melodic sequence sounds against itself at different speeds. (This method of melodic-rhythmic construction is inherent to Indonesian gamelan music, a possible influence, although the effect here is quite different.) Even if one’s ear does not pick up on the canons, there is no mistaking the overall effect, which suggests the process of change-ringing and which yields a kind of ostinato that repeats (not literally, but in its general contour) to lend a clarity of struc-ture through nearly all of the piece.

A gradual enriching of the texture leads to the entry of the brass section, bit by bit, again with canons at play. Adès allows the brass section to be located at a distance from the rest of the orchestra if the conduc-tor so desires. Their slow undulation sug-gests billowing waves, with the sparkle of the ostinato always hovering starlike above. Only a minute before the end does the os-tinato retreat, leaving the orchestra to ham-mer out its last pages with weighty finality. Just as Polaris, the North Star, serves as the center of magnetism, so Adès zeroes in on a single note at the end: the note “A” — to which all the instruments adjust their tuning before a concert begins. For an orchestra, the note “A” serves as the lodestar. It is the musicians’ Polaris.

In the Composer’s Words

Polaris explores the use of star con-stellations for naval navigation and the emotional navigation between the absent sailors and what they leave behind. ... It is scored for orchestra, including groups of brass instruments that may be isolated from the stage. These instruments play in canon, one in each of the three sections of the piece, entering in order, from the highest (trumpets) to the lowest (bass tuba). Their melody, like all the music in this work, is derived from a magnetic series, a musical device heard here for the first time, in which all 12 notes are gradually presented, but persistently return to an anchoring pitch, as if mag-netized. With the first appearance of the twelfth note, marked clearly with the first entrance of the timpani, the poles are reversed. At the start of the third and final section, a third pole is discovered, which establishes a stable equilibrium with the first.

— Thomas Adès

Notes on the ProgramBy James M. Keller, Program AnnotatorThe Leni and Peter May Chair

Polaris: Voyage for OrchestraThomas Adès

The British composer Thomas Adès studied piano and composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and at King’s College, Cambridge, where his composition teachers included Alexander Goehr and Robin Holloway. In 1989 he was awarded second prize in the BBC’s “Musician of the Year” contest, in recogni-tion of his skill as a pianist, and to this day he continues to concertize and record as a pianist, both in solo repertoire and as a collaborative artist.

He also appears regularly as a conduc-tor of symphony orchestras and opera. Adès has served as composer-in-resi-dence for several organizations, including the Hallé Orchestra (1993–95) and the Ojai Festival (2000). He held Carnegie Hall’s composer chair during the 2007–08 season, and in 2009–10 he was the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic’s featured composer. He has recently been fêted through the “Aspects of Adès” festival at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, as an artist-in-residence at the Melbourne Festival, and as a featured composer at the 2011 Holland Festival. His two operas have met with considerable success: Powder Her Face was premiered at the Cheltenham Festival in 1995, and The Tempest was premiered and later revived at Covent Garden and has received further performances from the opera companies of Copenhagen, Strasbourg, and Santa Fe (where it was conducted by Alan Gilbert).

Adès has served as Britten Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Mu-sic; was music director of the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (1998–2000); and from 1999 to 2008 was artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival. He has been honored with many awards, including the Stoeger Prize of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (1998) and an honorary doctorate from Essex University (2004). In 2000 he received the presti-gious Grawemeyer Award for his orches-tral work Asyla. The EMI recording of The Tempest has earned him two impressive honors: the Diapason d’Or de l’Année and the 2010 Classical BRIT Award for Com-poser of the Year.

Polaris was conceived for performance with a projected visual work by the film and video-maker Tal Rosner. The work has been given with projections arranged in dif-ferent ways, but it is also written so that it

In ShortBorn: March 1, 1971, in London, England

Resides: in London

Work composed: in 2010, co-commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and Miami’s New World Symphony, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Lisbon’s Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, London’s Barbican Centre, the Los Angeles Phil-harmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony; musical score revised through April 2011

World premiere: January 26, 2011, Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the New World Symphony at the opening of the New World Center in Miami Beach, Florida

New York Philharmonic premiere: these per-formances, which mark the New York premiere

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Instrumentation: three flutes (one dou-bling piccolo, another doubling piccolo and alto flute), three oboes, three clarinets (one doubling bass clarinet), two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets and piccolo trumpet, three trombones, tuba, timpani, marimba, vibraphone, orchestra bells, tubular bells, crotales, wood chimes, shell chimes, tam-tam, bass drum, two harps, piano (doubling celesta), and strings.

This note is adapted from an essay that originally appeared in the programs of the San Francisco Symphony, and is used with permission. © James M. Keller

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a cruel one for Mahler: in addition to his break from the musical life of Vienna, where he had been based for years, he had lost his eldest daughter to scarlet fever; then, that summer, he had learned that he was suffering from heart disease (a valvular defect) that, while not likely to prove im-mediately fatal, was potentially dangerous and could well shorten his life. An outdoor enthusiast, he was forced to curtail his physical activities drastically.

Against such a background, the composi-tion of a ninth symphony also held other troubling prospects. Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner, and Dvorák had all brought their symphonic cycles to completion with their Ninth Symphonies. To Mahler, whose mind-set had recently developed a superstitious streak, the very idea of a ninth symphony summoned up thoughts of mortality. In fact, pretty much everything summoned up thoughts of his own mortality, but he was not yet ready to give in to fate. When he completed his Ninth Symphony he was still three months short of his 50th birthday, and upon finishing it he promptly plunged into the composition of yet another symphony.

Sadly, Mahler’s Tenth would remain an incomplete torso, leaving his Ninth to stand as a poignant swan song. The idea of this work as a sort of leave-taking seems rein-forced by its musical content; its principal theme is derived from Beethoven’s Fare-well (Les Adieux) Piano Sonata, and the symphony — particularly its opening and concluding movements, both of which are slow — is filled with intimations of yearning, nostalgia, regret, despair, isolation, resigna-tion, and even personal solace.

The End of an Era

Mahler’s Ninth Symphony not only brings to a conclusion his completed orches-tral oeuvre, but it also represents a final achievement in the mainstream symphonic tradition that had been developing for more than a century and a half. Bruno Walter wrote of “the prophetic significance” of the work:

Here Mahler stands once more upon the mysterious threshold beyond which lies a new unexplored province of the realm of music. Mahler’s “quotation” themes appear as ghostly symbols, reduced to bare outlines; the texture is thinned out, much as in some passages of the latest Beethoven; the indepen-dent melodic lines are projected bluntly against a vast empty horizon and clash with each other in harsh, portentous friction. This is not only Mahler’s last symphony: the symphonic form as such is torn apart after having been tried to the limit.

Notes on the Program(continued)

Symphony No. 9Gustav Mahler

Throughout his career Gustav Mahler bal-anced the competing demands of his dual vocation as a composer and conductor. Responsibilities on the podium and in the administrative office completely occupied him during the concert season, thereby forcing him to relegate his composing to the summer months, which he would spend as a near-hermit at some idyllic spot in the countryside.

Mahler wrote his Ninth Symphony mostly during the summer of 1909 at Alt-Schluderbach near Toblach, an Italian community in South Tyrol, on the border with Austria in the Dolomite Alps. He had constructed a composition studio set at the edge of a spruce forest, not far from the home that he and his wife, Alma, rented; a fence topped with barbed wire ensured that nobody would interrupt him while he worked, which he did beginning at six o’clock every morning. Gustav and Alma had already spent the summer of 1908 there, where he recharged himself after an extended visit to conduct various works at The Metropolitan Opera in New York. He was back in New York for the 1908 season, conducting the New York Symphony as well as at The Met; near the end of the season he also led the New York Philharmonic, which he had agreed to take over as Music Director beginning in the fall of 1909. The composition of the Ninth Symphony therefore coincided with the beginning of his New York Philhar-

In ShortBorn: July 7, 1860, in Kalischt (Kalište), Bohemia, near the town of Humpolec

Died: May 18, 1911, in Vienna, Austria

Work composed: sketches begun in summer 1908, mostly composed late spring 1909 through April 1, 1910

World premiere: June 26, 1912, by the Vienna Philharmonic, Bruno Walter, conductor

New York Philharmonic premiere: December 20, 1945, Bruno Walter, conductor

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Instrumentation: four flutes and pic-colo, three oboes (one doubling English horn), three clarinets and E-flat clarinet and bass clarinet, four bassoons (one doubling contrabassoon), four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani (two pairs), cymbals, snare drum, bass drum, tam-tam, triangle, orchestra bells, low-pitched chimes, two harps, and strings. Mahler’s autograph uses a single harp, but Bruno Walter divided the part between two instruments, an arrangement that is used in these performances.

monic years, which were regrettably brief, ending after only two seasons, with his death in May 1911 in Vienna.

On April 1, 1910, Mahler wrote to his amanuensis, the conductor Bruno Walter, to report that he had completed his Ninth Symphony. “In it,” he declared, “some-thing is said that I have had on the tip of my tongue for some time; perhaps (as a whole) it comes closest to the 4th. (But it is completely different.)” Indeed, this heartrending revelation of Mahler’s soul is “completely different” from the often dreamlike expanses of his fairy-tale Fourth (which preceded the Ninth by a decade). Nevertheless, the two do share a sense of conveying something about the transience of life — perhaps somewhat fancifully in the Fourth, certainly with unrestrained emotion and sentiment in the Ninth.

Mahler was pushing himself to his limit through his overbooked calendar of conducting commitments, not to mention the physical and intellectual drain of his composing, and he was doing so against doctors’ orders. The year 1907 had been

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New York Philharmonic

ALAN GILBERTMusic Director The Yoko Nagae Ceschina Chair

Case ScaglioneJoshua WeilersteinAssistant Conductors

Leonard BernsteinLaureate Conductor, 1943–1990

Kurt MasurMusic Director Emeritus

VIOLINS

Glenn Dicterow Concertmaster The Charles E. Culpeper Chair

Sheryl Staples Principal Associate Concertmaster The Elizabeth G. Beinecke Chair

Michelle Kim Assistant Concertmaster The William Petschek Family Chair

Enrico Di CeccoCarol WebbYoko Takebe

Hae-Young Ham The Mr. and Mrs. Timothy M. George

Chair

Lisa GiHae KimKuan Cheng LuNewton Mansfield The Edward and Priscilla Pilcher

Chair

Kerry McDermottAnna RabinovaCharles Rex The Shirley Bacot Shamel Chair

Fiona SimonSharon YamadaElizabeth Zeltser The William and Elfriede Ulrich Chair

Yulia Ziskel

Marc Ginsberg Principal

Lisa Kim* In Memory of Laura Mitchell

Soohyun Kwon The Joan and Joel I. Picket Chair

Duoming Ba

Marilyn Dubow The Sue and Eugene Mercy, Jr. Chair

Martin EshelmanQuan Ge The Gary W. Parr Chair

Judith GinsbergStephanie Jeong+Hanna LachertHyunju Lee Joo Young OhDaniel ReedMark SchmoocklerNa SunVladimir Tsypin

VIOLAS

Cynthia Phelps Principal The Mr. and Mrs. Frederick P. Rose

Chair

Rebecca Young*Irene Breslaw** The Norma and Lloyd Chazen Chair

Dorian Rence

Katherine Greene The Mr. and Mrs. William J.

McDonough Chair

Dawn HannayVivek KamathPeter KenoteKenneth MirkinJudith NelsonRobert Rinehart The Mr. and Mrs. G. Chris Andersen

Chair

CELLOS

Carter Brey Principal The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Chair

Eileen Moon* The Paul and Diane Guenther Chair

Eric Bartlett The Shirley and Jon Brodsky Foundation Chair

Maria Kitsopoulos

Elizabeth Dyson The Mr. and Mrs. James E. Buckman Chair

Sumire KudoQiang Tu

Ru-Pei Yeh The Credit Suisse Chair

in honor of Paul Calello

Wei Yu Wilhelmina Smith++

BASSES

Timothy Cobb++ Acting Principal The Redfield D. Beckwith Chair

Orin O’Brien* Acting Associate Principal The Herbert M. Citrin Chair

William Blossom The Ludmila S. and Carl B. Hess

Chair

Randall ButlerDavid J. GrossmanSatoshi Okamoto

FLUTES

Robert Langevin Principal The Lila Acheson Wallace Chair

Sandra Church*Mindy Kaufman

PICCOLO

Mindy Kaufman

OBOES

Liang Wang Principal The Alice Tully Chair

Sherry Sylar*Robert Botti The Lizabeth and Frank Newman Chair

ENGLISH HORN- The Joan and Joel Smilow Chair

CLARINETS

Ricardo Morales Principal Designate

Mark Nuccio Acting Principal The Edna and W. Van Alan Clark

Chair

Pascual Martinez Forteza* Acting Associate Principal The Honey M. Kurtz Family Chair

Alucia Scalzo++Amy Zoloto++

E-FLAT CLARINET

Pascual Martinez Forteza

BASS CLARINET

Amy Zoloto++

BASSOONS

Judith LeClair Principal The Pels Family Chair

Kim Laskowski*Roger NyeArlen Fast

CONTRABASSOON

Arlen Fast

HORNS

Philip Myers Principal The Ruth F. and Alan J. Broder Chair

Stewart Rose++* Acting Associate Principal

Cara Kizer AneffR. Allen Spanjer Howard WallDavid Smith++ TRUMPETS

Philip Smith Principal The Paula Levin Chair

Matthew Muckey*Ethan BensdorfThomas V. Smith

TROMBONES

Joseph Alessi Principal The Gurnee F. and Marjorie L. Hart

Chair

Daniele Morandini++* Acting Associate Principal

David Finlayson The Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen

Chair

BASS TROMBONE

James Markey The Daria L. and William C. Foster Chair

TUBA

Alan Baer Principal

TIMPANI

Markus Rhoten Principal The Carlos Moseley Chair

Kyle Zerna**

PERCUSSION

Christopher S. Lamb Principal The Constance R. Hoguet Friends of the Philharmonic Chair

Daniel Druckman* The Mr. and Mrs. Ronald J. Ulrich Chair

Kyle Zerna

HARP

Nancy Allen Principal The Mr. and Mrs. William T. Knight III

Chair

KEYBOARD In Memory of Paul Jacobs

HARPSICHORD

Paolo Bordignon

PIANO The Karen and Richard S. LeFrak Chair

- Jonathan Feldman

ORGAN

Kent Tritle

LIBRARIANS

Lawrence Tarlow Principal

Sandra Pearson** Sara Griffin**

ORCHESTRA PERSONNEL MANAGER

Carl R. Schiebler

STAGE REPRESENTATIVE

Joseph Faretta

AUDIO DIRECTOR

Lawrence Rock

* Associate Principal** Assistant Principal+ On Leave++ Replacement/Extra

The New York Philharmonic uses the revolving seating method for section string players who are listed alphabetically in the roster.

HONORARY MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY

Emanuel Ax Pierre BoulezStanley DruckerLorin Maazel Zubin MehtaCarlos Moseley

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The Music Director

New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert, The Yoko Nagae Ceschina Chair, began his tenure in September 2009, creating what New York magazine called “a fresh future for the Philharmon-ic.” The first native New Yorker to hold the post, he has sought to make the Orches-tra a point of civic pride for both the city and the country.

Mr. Gilbert’s creative approach to pro-gramming combines works in fresh and innovative ways. He has forged artistic partnerships, introducing the positions of The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence and The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence, an annual three-week festival, and CONTACT!, the new-music series. In 2011–12 he con-ducts world premieres, Mahler sympho-

nies, a residency at London’s Barbican Centre, tours to Europe and California, and a season-concluding musical explora-tion of space at the Park Avenue Armory featuring Stockhausen’s theatrical immer-sion, Gruppen. He also made his Philhar-monic soloist debut performing J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins alongside Frank Peter Zimmermann in October 2011. Last season’s highlights included two tours of European music capitals, Carnegie Hall’s 120th Anniversary Concert, and Janácek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, hailed by The Washington Post as “another victory,” building on 2010’s wildly successful stag-ing of Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, which The New York Times called “an instant Philharmonic milestone.”

In September 2011 Alan Gilbert became

Director of Conducting and Orchestral Stud-ies at The Juilliard School, where he is the first to hold the William Schuman Chair in Musical Studies. Conductor Laureate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of Ham-burg’s NDR Symphony Orchestra, he regu-larly conducts the world’s leading orchestras, such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Or-chestra, and the Berlin Philharmonic.

Alan Gilbert made his acclaimed Met-ropolitan Opera debut in 2008 leading John Adams’s Doctor Atomic, the DVD of which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording in 2011. Other recordings have garnered Grammy Award nominations and top honors from the Chicago Tribune and Gramophone

magazine. Mr. Gilbert studied at Harvard University, The Curtis Institute of Music, and Juilliard, and was assistant conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra (1995–97). In May 2010 he received an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from Curtis, and in December 2011 he received Columbia University’s Ditson Conductor’s Award for his “exceptional commitment to the per-formance of works by American compos-ers and to contemporary music.”

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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 United States, and one of the oldest in the world. It currently plays some 180 concerts a year, and on May 5, 2010, gave its 15,000th concert — a milestone unmatched by any other sym-phony orchestra in the world.

Music Director Alan Gilbert, The Yoko Nagae Ceschina Chair, began his tenure in September 2009, the latest in a dis-tinguished line of 20th-century musical giants that has included Lorin Maazel (2002–09); Kurt Masur (Music Director 1991–2002, Music Director Emeritus since 2002); Zubin Mehta (1978–91); Pierre Boulez (1971–77); and Leonard Bernstein (appointed Music Director in 1958; given the lifetime title of Laureate Conductor in 1969).

Since its inception the Orchestra has championed the new music of its time, commissioning and/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 U.S. 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 contem-porary composers regularly scheduled each season, including John Adams’s Pu-litzer Prize– and Grammy Award–winning

On the Transmigration of Souls; Melinda Wagner’s Trombone Concerto; Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Piano Concerto; Magnus Lind-berg’s EXPO and Al largo; Wynton Marsa-lis’s Swing Symphony (Symphony No. 3); Christopher Rouse’s Odna Zhizn; and, by the end of the 2010–11 season, 11 works in CONTACT!, the new-music series.

The roster of composers and conductors who have led the Philharmonic includes such historic figures as Theodore Thomas, Antonín Dvorák, Gustav Mahler (music di-rector 1909–11), Otto Klemperer, Richard Strauss, Willem Mengelberg (Music Direc-tor 1922–30), Wilhelm Furtwängler, Arturo Toscanini (Music Director 1928–36), Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Bruno Walter (Music Advisor 1947–49), Dimitri Mitro-poulos (Music Director 1949–58), Klaus Tennstedt, George Szell (Music Advisor 1969–70), and Erich Leinsdorf.

Long a leader in American musical life, the Philharmonic has become renowned around the globe, appearing in 430 cities in 63 countries on 5 continents. Under Alan Gilbert’s leadership, the Orchestra made its Vietnam debut at the Hanoi Op-era House in October 2009. In February 2008 the Philharmonic, conducted by then Music Director Lorin Maazel, gave a his-toric performance in Pyongyang, D.P.R.K., earning the 2008 Common Ground Award for Cultural Diplomacy. In 2012 the Philharmonic becomes an International Associate of London’s Barbican Centre.

The Philharmonic has long been a me-dia pioneer, having begun radio broadcasts in 1922, and is currently represented by

The New York Philharmonic This Week — syndicated nationally and internation-ally 52 weeks per year, and available at nyphil.org. It continues its television presence on Live From Lincoln Center on PBS, and in 2003 made history as the first symphony orchestra ever to perform live on the Grammy Awards. Since 1917 the Philharmonic has made nearly 2,000 recordings, and in 2004 became the first major American orchestra to offer downloadable concerts, recorded live. Since June 2009 more than 50 concerts have been released as downloads, and the Philharmonic’s self-produced record-ings will continue with Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic: 2011–12 Season, comprising 12 releases. Famous for its long-running Young People’s Concerts, the Philharmonic has developed a wide range of educational programs, among them the School Partnership Program that enriches music education in New York City, and Learning Overtures, which fosters interna-tional exchange among educators.

Credit Suisse is the Global Sponsor of the New York Philharmonic.

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New York Philharmonic

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Executive Producer: Vince Ford

Producers: Lawrence Rock and Mark Travis

Recording and Mastering Engineer: Lawrence Rock

Assistant Producer: Nick Bremer

Photos of Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic: Chris Lee

Thomas Adès's Polaris used with permission from Faber Music, LTD and EAMD LLC

Major funding for this recording is provided to the New York Philharmonic by Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser.

Alan Gilbert, Music Director, holds The Yoko Nagae Ceschina Chair.

Major support provided by the Francis Goelet Fund.

Classical 105.9 FM WQXR is the Radio Home of the New York Philharmonic.

Instruments made possible, in part, by The Richard S. and Karen LeFrak Endowment Fund.

Programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural

Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Steinway is the Official Piano of the New York Philharmonic and Avery Fisher Hall.

Exclusive timepiece of the New York Philharmonic

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New York Philharmonic

Performed, produced, and distributed by the New York Philharmonic© 2012 New York Philharmonic

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