Delve into some of this season’s featured themes through these revealing talks, many of them featuring live performance.
Saturday, October 4, 2008, 2:00pm
Dvořák in Search of America
Antonín Dvořák foresaw an American music rooted in African-American spirituals and Native American dances and chants. Trace Dvořák’s influence in a multi-media program featuring music of Dvořák, his African-American assistant Harry Burleigh, and jazz stylist Art Tatum.
Joseph Horowitz, curator and host
Stephen Salters, baritone
Steven Mayer, piano
Tickets: $20
Location: Gilder Lehrman Hall at The Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008, 6:30pm
Bernstein’s Interpretive Logic
How did Leonard Bernstein’s precise and rational approach to score of major repertory translate into performances of such expression and intimacy? Charles Z. Bornstein interprets the conductor’s score marking in works by Sibelius, Mahler, Beethoven, and others.
Charles Zachary Bornstein, speaker
Tickets: $10
Location: Walter Reade Theater
West 65th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam
Sunday, December 7, 2008, 4:00pm
The Genius of the Brandenburgs
Musicians of the New York Philharmonic and The Juilliard School perform Brandenburg Concerto no. 3, in illustrative excerpts and then in its entirety, as a leading scholar illuminates Bach’s astonishing achievements.
Thomas Forrest Kelly, curator and host
Tickets: $20
Location: Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse
West 65th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam
Monday, February 2, 2009, 6:30pm
Felix Mendelssohn and the Leipzig Tradition
On the eve of Mendelssohn’s 200th birthday, join Music Director Emeritus Kurt Masur, James M. Keller, and Mendelssohn scholar R. Larry Todd and trace the distinguished lineage of German musical life in Leipzig.
How has this small city supported such an exceptional musical tradition over so many centuries? From Telemann’s Collegium Musicum to Kurt Masur’s Mendelssohn House, connections between Mendelssohn and Leipzig will be revealed through discussion, slides, and music from the Octet in E-flat major performed by Philharmonic and Juilliard musicians.
James M. Keller, curator and host
Kurt Masur, guest speaker
R. Larry Todd, guest speaker
Tickets: $20
Location: Walter Reade Theater,
West 65th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam
Tuesday, June 2, 2009, 6:30pm
Music in Time of War
Historians and musicologists explore music composed in response to war through the centuries, with special focus on the biographical, cultural, political, literary, and musical perspectives of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem.
James M. Keller, curator and host
Panelists to be announced
Tickets: $10
Location: Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse,
West 65th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam
Luciano Berio's Musical Odyssey
“Music is everything that one listens to with the intention of listening to music.” So said Luciano Berio (1925-2003), one of the 20th century’s most important composers. For more on Berio's life and music, explore our feature, Luciano Berio's Musical Odyssey. Learn more about this path-breaking composer through film, interviews with Philharmonic musicians and others, and music clips.
Mahler in New York
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) is now best known for his compositions. This Web feature, utilizing materials in the Philharmonic's archives, examines the brief period from 1909-11 when Mahler lived in New York and became conductor of the New York Philharmonic. Through photographs, audio interviews with musicians, and dramatizations of reviews and commentary, "Mahler in New York" illuminates the composer's impact on the Orchestra, the people who surrounded him, and the adopted city that he called home for a brief but very important period in his life.
Andre Kostelanetz: A New York Philharmonic Original
Conductor Andre Kostelanetz (1901- 1980), a favorite with Philharmonic audiences, made important contributions to American music through innovative programming, his use of radio and recording technology, and his showcasing of American composers. This multi-media Web feature, drawing on materials in the Philharmonic's archives, explores five aspects of his life and work: his early years; his ground-breaking involvement with radio; his war years; his involvement with American composers and his championing of American music; and his Philharmonic connections.
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