New York Philharmonic

Insights Series

Delve deeply into some of this season's featured themes through these revealing talks by the New York Philharmonic’s Music Director, Artist-in-Residence, guest artists, and scholars.

Artist-in-Residence Thomas HampsonMonday, November 2, 2009, 6:30pm

Listening to Thought: Vienna’s Paradigm Shift

Thomas Hampson, speaker and baritone

Artist-in-Residence Thomas Hampson explores the interplay of verbal and musical languages in vocal music, focusing on experimentation and change in Vienna between the wars.

Tickets: $20
Location: Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, 65th Street at Amsterdam


Walt WhitmanMonday, January 11, 2010, 6:30pm

Annual Erich Leinsdorf Lecture
Listening to Thought: Awakening of the American Voice


Thomas Hampson, speaker and baritone

Walt Whitman’s role in the emergence of American identity paved the way for the democratization of expression and rise of the individual’s voice. Mr. Hampson discusses Whitman’s impact on American song, including John Adams’s setting of Whitman’s The Wound Dresser.

Tickets are FREE and will be available at the Avery Fisher Hall box office beginning December 1, 2009.
Location: Walter Reade Theater, Broadway at 65th Street


Artist-in-Residence Thomas HampsonMonday, April 5, 2010, 6:30pm

Listening to Thought: A Guide to German Romanticism

Thomas Hampson, speaker and baritone
Craig Rutenberg, piano

In this roadmap to German Lieder, Mr. Hampson unearths the richness and meaning of the iconography, metaphor, and imagery of the German Romantic tradition.

Tickets: $20
Location: Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, 65th Street at Amsterdam


Igor StravinskySaturday, May 1, 2010, 11:00am

Stravinsky’s Russian-American Odyssey

Joseph Horowitz, curator and host
Valery Gergiev, guest speaker
Pianists of The Juilliard School
Musicians of the New York Philharmonic

For much of his career, Stravinsky held his native Russia in contempt, turning to a variety of compositional styles associated with the West. But is it possible to examine his musical identity separate from his cultural heritage?

Tickets: $35
Location: Gilder Lehrman Hall at The Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street.


Le Grand MacabreTuesday, May 11, 2010, 6:30pm

Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre

Alan Gilbert, speaker
Douglas Fitch, speaker

Music Director Alan Gilbert and director Douglas Fitch reflect on bringing Gyorgy Ligeti’s fantastical 1975 opera, perhaps the most humorous and ironic examination of mortality ever composed, to New York for the first time.

Tickets: $20
Location: Stanley Kaplan Penthouse


Insights Series Web Features

Luciano Berio

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.

Gustav Mahler

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

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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