October 2008

Alan Gilbert

Sunday, October 12, 2008

A Note to Listeners: This month's episode airs on Sunday, October 12

Alan Gilbert is the Music Director Designate of the New York Philharmonic, and will begin his tenure as the orchestra's 25th Music Director with the start of the 2009-10 season. The Manhattan-born conductor, one of the youngest music directors in the history of the NYPO and the only native New Yorker to hold the post, was Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra from January 2000 through June 2008, after which he was named Conductor Laureate of the orchestra. He has been principal guest conductor of Hamburg's NDR Symphony Orchestra since 2004, and regularly guest conducts leading orchestras and opera companies in America, Europe, and Japan.

Alan Gilbert made his debut with the New York Philharmonic in 2001 as the Diamond American Conductor, and has returned to conduct the orchestra numerous times, including during the acclaimed Philharmonic Festival, Charles Ives – An American Original in Context, in 2004. In June 2004, the NYPO announced that he was one of three conductors who would be engaged to lead multiple weeks per season, leading to a series of programs that included the March 2008 world premiere of Marc Neikrug's Quintessence: Symphony No. 2, a New York Philharmonic commission. In the 2008-09 season, Gilbert's activities with the Philharmonic will include leading the Bernstein anniversary concert at Carnegie Hall, on November 14, 2008, as part of the citywide festival, Bernstein: The Best of All Possible Worlds, in collaboration with Carnegie Hall. Also as part of that celebration, the Philharmonic will present Gilbert with the Juilliard Orchestra in a special concert on November 24, 2008, featuring Bernstein's Symphony No. 3, Kaddish. In May 2009, he will conduct the world premiere of Peter Lieberson's The World in Flower, a New York Philharmonic commission.

Alan Gilbert opens his 2008-09 season on October 13 across the Lincoln Center plaza, making his Metropolitan Opera debut by leading a new production of John Adams's Doctor Atomic. Other U.S. engagements include concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

Among the highlights of Alan Gilbert’s 2008-09 season European engagements are multiple programs with Hamburg's NDR Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, concerts with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and a return engagement at the Zurich Opera, where he will lead a double-bill of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. In April, Gilbert will return to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra for his first concerts there since his triumphant debut in February 2006, when he replaced the ailing Bernard Haitink at short notice and to great acclaim.

Before leaving Sweden in June 2008, Gilbert recorded Mahler's Symphony No. 9 and a disc of works by Christopher Rouse with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic. The discs will be released by BIS during the coming season.

Highlights of Alan Gilbert's 2007-08 season in America included concerts with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Kimmel Center; with the orchestra of his alma mater – Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music – at home and at Carnegie Hall; and with the San Francisco Symphony. In Europe – in addition to his many programs with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic – he made his debut with the Vienna State Opera; returned to the Zurich Opera House, and led the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra; and conducted the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in Paris. He led the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg and other German cities, on tour in Central and Eastern Europe, and in the final concerts of the 2008 Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. He also returned to Japan for concerts with the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo.

Alan Gilbert’s tenure with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra was celebrated at home and abroad, with acclaim both for innovative, wide-ranging programming and for the high quality of the orchestra's performances, in Sweden and on tour. Highlights of his achievements there included annual festivals focusing exhaustively on the music of a single contemporary composer, such as Hans Werner Henze, John Adams, and Henri Dutilleux. In October 2005, Gilbert conducted the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, the first time the orchestra had performed there in more than two decades. While in New York, he also led the orchestra in a special commemorative concert at the United Nations.

As a guest conductor, Alan Gilbert regularly appears with the world's leading orchestras and opera companies. He has been a regular presence with such top American orchestras as the Chicago Symphony, which he led in a nine-concert residency in May 2007; the Cleveland Orchestra, where he was assistant conductor from 1995 to 1997; the Los Angeles Philharmonic; and the San Francisco Symphony. He was the first music director in the Santa Fe Opera's history, and during the company's 50th-anniversary season in 2006, he led the first U.S. production of Thomas Ades's Tempest after its 2004 world premiere at Covent Garden, as well as Bizet's Carmen, with Anne Sofie von Otter in her first U.S. performances in the opera. In November 2006, he made his debut with the Los Angeles Opera, leading a new production of Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel.

In Europe, Gilbert has led Berlin's Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, Munich's Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de Lyon, and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. He has also conducted frequently in Japan, where he took the NDR Symphony Orchestra on a critically acclaimed tour, and where he enjoys a strong relationship with the NHK Symphony Orchestra. He has also worked with the Tokyo Symphony, Sapporo Symphony Orchestra, and New Japan Philharmonic. In China, he conducted the China Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra in a nationally televised concert from Beijing.

Alan Gilbert's first teachers were his parents, Yoko Takebe and Michael Gilbert, both violinists in the New York Philharmonic (Michael Gilbert is now retired). Born and raised in New York City, Alan Gilbert studied at Harvard, the Curtis Institute, and the Juilliard School, and while at Curtis he was a substitute violinist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He also played second fiddle to his father in 1993, in the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, where Michael Gilbert was concertmaster for several seasons.

Alan Gilbert was the recipient of the 1997 Seaver / National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award, and was named a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, one of the country’s oldest musical institutions. As in the past, he continues to perform chamber music as often as his schedule allows, with cellist Lynn Harrell, pianist Joseph Kalichstein, violinist Cho-Liang Lin, and violinist/violist Pinchas Zukerman among his frequent partners.