ANTONÍN DVORÁK (1841-1904)
Symphony No. 9, From the New World (1893)
At the invitation of the visionary Mrs. Jeanette Thurber, Antonín Dvorák (along with his wife and two of their six children) came to New York in 1892 to become head of the National Conservatory (located at east 17th Street and Irving Place), a school founded by her to encourage the development of American concert music. He composed his famous Ninth Symphony, nicknamed “From the New World” during his first year in America; the following year, the New York Philharmonic premièred Dvorák’s most beloved score at Carnegie Hall. A strong advocate of indigenous music as the inspiration for art music, he felt that America’s composers should look to their native land—not “the old country”—for inspiration he provided this comment about his Ninth Symphony: “Since I have been in this country I have been deeply interested in the national music of the Negroes and the Indians. The character, the very nature of a race, is contained in its national music. For that reason my attention was at once turned in the direction of these native melodies…It is this spirit which I have tried to reproduce in my new Symphony….I have not actually used any of the melodies. I have simply written original themes embodying the peculiarities of the music and, using these themes as subjects, have developed them with all the resources of modern rhythms, harmony, counterpoint and orchestral color.” His explanation notwithstanding, there is still plenty of the Old World in the ”New World” Symphony. As he remarked, the subtitle was intended to convey “impressions and greetings from the New World”… a sort of musical postcard from America. Filled with lovely melodies, bold calls from the horns, and an unforgettable theme that weaves its way throughout the symphony, the Ninth was also an expression of homesickness for his native Bohemia. The premiere was a smashing success, prompting Dvorák to write: “Carnegie Hall was crowded with the best people of New York, and the audience applauded so that, like a king, I had to take my bows repeatedly from the box in which I sat.” This symphony has entered popular culture, too, and many a man or woman on the street can hum the haunting “Goin’ Home” from the slow movement—always a star turn for the solo English horn. It made it into the movie Paradise Road, with Glenn Close organizing and leading a chorus of women prisoners of war in a Japanese POW camp in Sumatra in World War II. Having no instruments to play, their voices become the orchestra.

Marin Alsop was appointed the 12th music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, beginning with the 2007–08 season. She is the first woman to head a major American orchestra, mirroring her ongoing success in the United Kingdom as principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra since 2002. The first artist to win both Gramophone’s “Artist of the Year” award and the Royal Philharmonic Society’s conductor’s award in the same season, Ms. Alsop was named a MacArthur Fellow and won the Classical Brit Award for Best Female Artist that year — the first conductor to receive this prestigious American honor. She has also received the Royal Philharmonic Society’s BBC Radio 3 Listeners Award and European Women of Achievement Award.

Ms. Alsop is a regular guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Los Angeles Philharmonic. She is also one of the few conductors to appear every season with both the London Symphony and the London Philharmonic orchestras, and has appeared as a guest conductor with many other distinguished orchestras worldwide, including Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Zurich Tonhalle, Orchestre de Paris, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Tokyo Philharmonic.

Highlights of Marin Alsop’s recording collaboration with Naxos include a Brahms symphony cycle with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and an ongoing series of Bournemouth Symphony CDs of music by Bartók, Bernstein, Orff, and several living American composers. One of her first projects as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will be a Dvořák symphonic cycle. Ms. Alsop can also be heard regularly as a commentator on NPR’s Weekend Edition segment “Marin on Music,” and on BBC’s Radio 3.

In 2006, Marin Alsop was the only classical musician invited to attend the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, alongside presidents, prime ministers, and CEOs of the world’s most powerful companies. She is a native of New York City, attended Yale University, and received her master’s degree from The Juilliard School. She last appeared with the New York Philharmonic in July 2006 at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival.

Screen and stage actor Alec Baldwin received the 2008 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his starring role in the current television series, 30 Rock; he won the 2007 Golden Globe, SAG, and Television Critics Association awards for the same role. The Long Island native also has starred on Knot’s Landing on CBS and numerous other television shows, including the miniseries Dress Grey and Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial.

On Broadway Mr. Baldwin appeared in The Roundabout Theatre Company’s 2006 revival of Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr. Sloane, directed by Scott Ellis, and with Roundabout’s 2004 revival of Hecht and MacArthur’s The Twentieth Century, directed by Walter Bobbie, co-starring Anne Heche. He was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance in the 1992 revival of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, and for an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe for the television movie of the same production. He won an Obie Award for the 1991 Off-Broadway production of Craig Lucas’s Prelude to a Kiss, and a Theatre World Award in 1986 for his turn on Broadway in Joe Orton’s Loot. He has also performed on Broadway in Caryl Churchill’s Serious Money.

Alec Baldwin’s films include Beetlejuice, Miami Blues, The Hunt for Red October, Malice, The Shadow, Glengarry Glen Ross, Heaven’s Prisoners, Ghosts of Mississippi, The Edge, The Cat in the Hat, The Aviator, The Departed, Running with Scissors, and The Good Shepherd. He received the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor for The Cooler, directed by Wayne Kramer (2003) and was nominated for an Oscar for the same film. Mr. Baldwin is the author of A Promise to Ourselves (St. Martin’s Press). He made his New York Philharmonic debut narrating the Inside the Music program on October 10, 2008.

Joseph Horowitz is the author of eight books. Both his Classical Music in America: A History and Artists in Exile: How Refugees from Twentieth Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts deal extensively with Dvořák in America. As the director of a national education project for the National Endowment for the Humanities, he also created a work of historical fiction for middle and high school readers, Dvorák in America, and commissioned an interactive DVD, From the New World: A Celebrated Composer’s American Odyssey. As an artistic consultant, Mr. Horowitz has created six Dvorák festivals — the first of which was presented by the Brooklyn Philharmonic during his tenure as executive director. Mr. Horowitz is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and a certificate of appreciation from the Czech Parliament for his “exceptional explorations of Dvořák’s historic sojourn in the United States.” He is also co-founder and artistic director of Post-Classical Ensemble of Washington, D.C., and of Post-Classical Productions, which this season and next begins producing thematic, inter-disciplinary concerts in New York City and Chicago.

Find additional upcoming performances with Joseph Horowitz

Kevin Deas has gained international acclaim as one of America’s leading basses. He is perhaps most acclaimed for his signature portrayal of the title role in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, having sung it with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the orchestras of San Francisco, Atlanta, San Diego, Utah, Houston, Baltimore, and Montreal, and at the Ravinia and Saratoga Festivals. During the 2008–09 season, Mr. Deas returns to the Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Atlanta symphony orchestras, Pacific Symphony, National Philharmonic, Boston Baroque, and Winter Park Bach Festival. Over the past two seasons, Mr. Deas performed with the Pittsburgh, Houston, and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, Rochester Philharmonic, National Philharmonic, and Boston Baroque; he made his debut with the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec. He also sang Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony under the baton of Daniel Barenboim with the Filarmonica della Scala in Accra, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of Ghana in April 2007.

Kevin Deas recorded Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Decca/London) with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the late Sir Georg Solti, and Varèse’s Ecuatorial with Holland’s Asko Ensemble under the baton of Ricardo Chailly. Other releases include Bach’s Mass in B minor and Handel’s Acis and Galatea (both on Vox Classics), and Dave Brubeck’s To Hope! with the Cathedral Choral Society (Telarc). Mr. Deas last appeared with the New York Philharmonic in Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges, conducted by Lorin Maazel, in October 2006.