David Hyde Pierce last appeared with the New York Philharmonic in April 2003 as Benedict in Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict, conducted by Sir Colin Davis. He made his professional and Broadway debut in 1982 as the waiter in Christopher Durang’s Beyond Therapy; other Broadway credits include The Heidi Chronicles, Monty Python’s Spamalot, Accent on Youth, and the Kander and Ebb/Rupert Holmes musical, Curtains, for which he won the 2007 Tony Award for Lead Actor in a Musical. He created roles in the Off-Broadway and regional productions of Mark O’Donnell’s That's it Folks!; Richard Greenberg’s The Author’s Voice and The Maderati; Harry Kondoleon’s Zero Positive; Jules Feiffer’s Elliot Loves; and Richard Alfieri’s Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks (with Uta Hagen). In addition to his work in new plays, Mr. Pierce also appeared in Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing at the New York Shakespeare Festival; Holiday and Camille at the Long Wharf Theatre; The Seagull, Tartuffe, Cyrano, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Guthrie Theatre; and Peter Brook’s production of The Cherry Orchard in New York, Moscow, Leningrad, and Tokyo. His film credits include Bright Lights, Big City; Crossing Delancy; Little Man Tate; Sleepless in Seattle; Wolf; Nixon; Isn’t She Great; Wet Hot American Summer; Full Frontal; Down with Love; the recent Sundance Film Festival Selection, The Perfect Host; and the animated films A Bug’s Life, Osmosis Jones, and Treasure Planet. His television credits include a short but happy stint on Norman Lear’s political satire, The Powers That Be, and a long but happy stint on Frasier, for which he received multiple Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Awards. Mr. Pierce recently teamed with Victoria Clark and Rob Fisher in Night and Day, a Cole Porter Evening, for Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Ravinia Festival, and with Michael Feinstein in his Holiday Celebration at Mr. Feinstein’s club at the Regency.

Laura currently can be seen on Broadway in In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) for Lincoln Center Theater. Other Broadway credits include Gypsy (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Awards); The Wedding Singer; Nine (Outer Critics Circle Nomination); Into the Woods (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Nominations; Swing (Tony Nomination); and The Sound of Music (as Maria). Her Off-Broadway credits include Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them at the Public Theatre; Manhattan Theater Club’s Time and Again; Wonderful Town for City Center Encores!; A Little Night Music (directed by Scott Ellis); and The Winter’s Tale (Williamstown Theatre Festival). Her film and television work includes appearances in Take the Lead, Starved, Eli Stone, and Life On Mars. These performances mark her New York Philharmonic debut.

Matt Cavenaugh, a native Arkansan, was seen on Broadway most recently as Tony in the revival of West Side Story. Previous Broadway credits include Grey Gardens as both Joe Kennedy Jr. and Jerry Torre, and A Catered Affair. He made his Broadway debut as Bud in the musical version of the film, Urban Cowboy; has traveled the country in the national tour of Thoroughly Modern Millie; and has worked at numerous regional theaters, including The Old Globe, La Jolla Playhouse, Williamstown Theatre Festival, George Street Playhouse, The Goodspeed Opera House, and The Denver Center. His television credits include As the World Turns and One Life to Live, and he has appeared in the independent films Sexual Dependency and New Brooklyn. He can be heard on the cast recordings of West Side Story, Grey Gardens, and A Catered Affair. Mr. Cavenaugh serves on the advisory board of Early Stages, a not-for-profit organization fostering literacy through the arts in the New York City public school system. He is a regular contributor to Beverly Hills Lifestyle Magazine. This is his New York Philharmonic debut.

Michael Cerveris — actor, musician, singer, and song writer — is scheduled to appear in Lincoln Center Theater’s production of Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room. He appeared in Universal Pictures’ film Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant opposite John C. Reilly and Salma Hayek, and recently completed filming of Meskada and Stakeland. His previous films include The Mexican, opposite Julia Roberts and James Gandolfini; Paul Auster’s Lulu on the Bridge; and Tokyo Pop. His television credits include Fringe, Fame, The American Embassy, CSI, Dr. Vegas, The Equalizer, and The Tracey Ullman Show. Mr. Cerveris was last seen on Broadway in Hedda Gabler, opposite Mary Louise Parker, and Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, opposite Patti LuPone. He received Tony and Outer Critics Circle Awards for his portrayal of John Wilkes Booth in Sondheim’s Assassins. His other Broadway appearances include originating the title role in The Who’s Tommy (Tony nomination, Theater World Award, Original Cast Grammy) and Titanic, the Musical. He starred in Hedwig and the Angry Inch on London’s West End, Off-Broadway, and in Los Angeles (Garland Award, Ovation Award nomination). His other Off-Broadway credits include Wintertime, Fifth of July, Total Eclipse, Abingdon Square, The Games (BAM Next Wave), and The Apple Tree (City Center Encores!). Michael Cerveris appeared in Spring Awakening for Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series, and in Sondheim’s Passion, broadcast on Live From Lincoln Center on PBS. Across the country he has performed at the Goodman Theatre, Old Globe Theatre, Dallas Theater Center, Hartford Stage, Mark Taper Forum, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Kennedy Center, and Ravinia Festival, in plays ranging from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing to Passion and A Little Night Music. These performances mark his New York Philharmonic debut.

Victoria Clark received Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards for her portrayal of Margaret Johnson in the critically acclaimed Craig Lucas-Adam Guettel musical The Light in the Piazza at Lincoln Center Theater. She joined the Broadway company of Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George in 1985, and has been a Broadway regular ever since — in Guys and Dolls; A Grand Night For Singing at the Roundabout; How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; Titanic; Sam Mendes’s revival of Cabaret at the Roundabout; and Urinetown. She has starred in many City Center Encores! productions, most notably Follies and Juno. Last season she starred in two Off-Broadway plays, Prayer for My Enemy by Craig Lucas at Playwrights Horizons, and The Marriage of Bette and Boo by Christopher Durang for the Roundabout, directed by Walter Bobbie. Ms. Clark’s film credits include Cradle Will Rock, directed by Tim Robbins; The Happening by M. Night Shyamalan; Tickling Leo; and two upcoming films, Harvest by Marc Myers, and Main Street by Horton Foote, directed by John Doyle. Her television appearances have included Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, Mercy, and the PBS special, Sweeney Todd in Concert, with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, directed by Lonny Price. Her numerous concert appearances include the Boston Pops, Ravinia Festival, and the Sun Valley Symphony. Ms. Clark also maintains a teaching career in the U.S. and abroad, preparing actors for careers in acting and singing. She is making her New York Philharmonic debut in these concerts.

Jenn Colella has starred on Broadway in High Fidelity and Urban Cowboy (Outer Critics Circle Award nomination, Outstanding Leading Actress). Off-Broadway, she played the title role in Beebo Brinker Chronicles (Lily Tomlin, producer). Other Off-Broadway credits include the improvisation show Don’t Quit Your Night Job, and Slut. Her regional credits include Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun (Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera); Georgie in The Full Monty (Paper Mill Playhouse with Elaine Stritch); the title role in Peter Pan (Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts); and Daisy Hilton in Sideshow (Kennedy Center, directed by Lonny Price). Her television credits include All My Children, The Good Wife, Cashmere Mafia, and Rescue Me. She has appeared in the films Lay It Down for Good and Uncertainty (with Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and has done stand-up comedy at the Laugh Factory and The Comedy Store in Los Angeles. Ms. Colella holds an MFA in acting from the University of California–Irvine. She will play Amelia Earhart in the new musical, Take Flight, at The McCarter Theatre in Princeton, N.J., this summer. This is her New York Philharmonic debut.

Jason Danieley appeared as Lt. Joe Cable in the PBS’s Great Performances broadcast of South Pacific from Carnegie Hall. On Broadway he recently played Aaron Fox in Kander & Ebb’s Curtains (for which he received an Outer Critics Circle Nomination). He made his Broadway debut as the title character in Candide (Theatre World Award and Drama Desk Nomination), was seen in The Full Monty on Broadway and in London’s West End, and is a frequent guest of City Center’s Encores! series, with leading roles in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Strike Up the Band. He has appeared in Off-Broadway productions of The Trojan Women: A Love Story, Dream True, and Floyd Collins, and his regional theater credits include The Highest Yellow (Helen Hayes Award), Beauty, Casino Paradise, 110 in the Shade (Garland Award), and Brigadoon. Mr. Danieley has been a guest artist with many of the country’s leading orchestras including the New York, Boston, and Philly Pops, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the St. Louis, Grant Park, Ravinia Festival, Utah, Minnesota, and Buffalo symphony orchestras. He has starred in the San Francisco Symphony’s fully-staged performances of Candide and Gershwin’s Of Thee I Sing and Let ’Em Eat Cake. At Carnegie Hall he appeared in Carousel, and also on the Boston Pops’ An Evening with the Pops and Pops Goes the Fourth. Opposite You is the title of the concert and album that Jason Danieley and his wife, Marin Mazzie, created for Lincoln Center’s American Songbook Series, which was reprised at a number of the country’s leading venues. He and his band recently released their debut CD, Jason Danieley and The Frontier Heroes (PS Classics). Mr. Danieley is making his New York Philharmonic debut in these concerts.

Joanna Gleason won a Tony Award for her performance in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods. Other Broadway credits include Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Nick and Nora, I Love My Wife, The Real Thing, Social Security, and Joe Egg. Off-Broadway she has starred in Happiness (Lincoln Center Theater), Something You Did (Primary Stages), Eleemosynary, It’s Only a Play (Manhattan Theatre Club), and The Normal Heart (The Public Theatre). Her feature film credits include Boogie Nights, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Hannah and Her Sister, and Mr. Holland’s Opus. She is the author of the forthcoming novels, Lourdes on Five Dollars a Day, and Make Me One with Everything. She is married to actor Chris Sarandon. This is her New York Philharmonic debut.

Baritone Nathan Gunn has appeared in internationally renowned opera houses such as The Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Paris Opéra, Bayerische Staatsoper, and the Aix-en-Provence Festival. His many appearances include the title roles in Britten’s Billy Budd and Thomas’s Hamlet, Figaro in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, and Mozart roles such as Papageno in The Magic Flute, Guglielmo in Cosí fan tutte, and the Count in Le nozze di Figaro. A supporter of new works, he created the roles of Clyde Griffiths in Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy at The Met, Father Delura in Peter Eötvös’s Love and Other Demons at the Glyndebourne Festival, and Alec Harvey in André Previn’s Brief Encounter at the Houston Grand Opera. Mr. Gunn has appeared in concert with many of the leading American and European orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, and the Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and London symphony orchestras. Recently, he has ventured outside the standard opera repertoire with appearances in semi-staged performances of Camelot with the New York Philharmonic (May 2008, broadcast live on PBS’s Great Performances) and Showboat at Carnegie Hall. In recital, he has been presented at New York’s Zankel Hall and Alice Tully Hall, Cal Performances, Schubert Club, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, University of Chicago, Krannert Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, and Brussels’s Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie. Nathan Gunn’s first solo album, Just Before Sunrise, was released on the Sony/BMG Masterworks label. His other recordings include Billy Budd (Virgin Classics), Allegro (Sony Masterworks Broadway), Peter Grimes (LSO Live!), Il Barbiere di Siviglia (SONY Classics), and Kullervo (Telarc). This season’s engagements include returns to The Met, Dallas Opera, and Los Angeles Opera; his debut at the Bilbao Opera in Billy Budd; and the world premiere of Daron Hagen’s Amelia at the Seattle Opera.

George Hearn created the role of Max von Mayerling in the Los Angeles premiere and Broadway production of Sunset Boulevard, for which he received his second Tony Award. He won his first as Albin in La Cage aux Folles, a role he reprised in London, earning him an Olivier Award nomination. He received Tony Award nominations for Putting It Together, A Doll’s Life, and Watch on the Rhine, and won an Emmy Award for his portrayal of the title role in Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street after playing the role on Broadway and the national tour. He reprised the role with the New York Philharmonic (in 2000) and the San Francisco Symphony and Chicago’s Ravinia Festival. Mr. Hearn’s other Broadway appearances include The Diary of Anne Frank (with Natalie Portman), Meet Me in St. Louis, I Remember Mama (Liv Ullmann), Ah, Wilderness! (Colleen Dewhurst and Jason Robards), An Almost Perfect Person (Ms. Dewhurst), The Changing Room, and A Time for Singing. He starred in Follies with the New York Philharmonic, New York City Opera’s Kismet, and South Pacific at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre. He has worked frequently with the New York Shakespeare Festival and the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, and his regional appearances have included Promises, Promises for Ovations in Chicago, and I Do, I Do and Love Letters with Rue McClanahan. George Hearn’s many television appearances include Law & Order; Homicide; Murder, She Wrote; L.A. Law; The Golden Girls; Dear John; Star Trek: The Next Generation; and the television films A Fire in the Dark, False Arrest, Annie: A Royal Adventure, Durango, and Sarah, Plain and Tall: Winter’s End. His motion pictures have included Barney’s Great Adventure, See You in the Morning, The Vanishing, Sneakers, and The Devil’s Own.

Patti LuPone has appeared on stage in Gypsy (for which she received a Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Awards, and Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance of the Season); Sweeney Todd (Tony, Drama Desk Outer Critics Circle nominations); Passion, Candide, Can- Can, Noises Off!, Sweeney Todd (with the New York Philharmonic and others); The Old Neighborhood, Master Class, Patti LuPone on Broadway (Outer Critics Circle Award); Pal Joey, Anything Goes, Oliver!, Accidental Death of An Anarchist, The Woods, Edmond, The Cradle Will Rock, Evita (Tony and Drama Desk Awards); Working, The Water Engine, and The Robber Bridegroom (Tony Award and Drama Desk nominations). In London she appeared in Matters of the Heart, Master Class, Sunset Boulevard (Olivier Award nomination), Les Miserables (RSC world premiere production), and The Cradle Will Rock (Olivier Award for her performances in both productions). Her opera performances include Jake Heggie’s To Hell and Back for San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra; Weill-Brecht’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny for the Los Angeles Opera (debut); and Marc Blitzstein’s Regina (The Kennedy Center). Ms. LuPone has appeared in the films City by the Sea; David Mamet’s Heist and State and Main; Just Looking; Summer of Sam; Driving Miss Daisy; and Witness, and on numerous television shows. Her recordings include Patti LuPone Live, Heatwave, Pal Joey, Matters of the Heart, Sweeney Todd (on the New York Philharmonic’s Special Editions label), the 2006 and 2008 recordings of Sweeney Todd and Gypsy; the Ghostlight Records release of The Lady With The Torch; and Patti LuPone at Les Mouches, a digitally re-mastered live performance CD of her now-legendary 1980 nightclub act. Ms. LuPone is a founding member of the Drama Division of The Juilliard School and of John Houseman’s The Acting Company.

Marin Mazzie performed with the New York Philharmonic in May 2008 in the role of Guenevere in Camelot, a performance broadcast on Live at Lincoln Center on PBS. She most recently played Blanch DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire at Barrington Stage. A three-time Tony Award nominee for her performances in Passion, the original Broadway cast of Ragtime, and Kiss Me, Kate, she also received an Olivier Award nomination in her West End debut. She returned to the West End in Monty Python’s Spamalot following her Broadway appearances in that show. Ms. Mazzie’s other Broadway credits include Man of La Mancha, Into the Woods, Big River, and Kismet, as well as the Encores! presentation of Out of This World. Off-Broadway she has appeared in The Vagina Monologues, The Trojan Women: A Love Story, and The World Goes Round. She has performed at The Goodman Theatre, Arena Stage, The Denver Center, La Jolla Playhouse, Pasadena Playhouse, and Pittsburgh CLO, among other regional theaters. On television, Ms. Mazzie has appeared in Still Standing, Without a Trace, Numb3rs, Jake in Progress, Stacked, Pryor Offenses, and One Life to Live. Her many performances on PBS’s Great Performances series include Passion, My Favorite Broadway: The Leading Ladies, My Favorite Broadway: The Love Songs, and An Evening with the Pops and Pops Goes the Fourth with the Boston Pops. In concert, Marin Mazzie has performed with numerous conductors, including Michael Tilson Thomas, Marvin Hamlisch, Skitch Henderson, Keith Lockhart, Paul Gemignani, Peter Nero, Patrick Summers, John Mauceri, and Doc Severinsen. With her husband, Jason Danieley, she has performed their concert Opposite You nationally, including at Feinstein’s at the Loews Regency, Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series, Joe’s Pub, the Cinegrill. The album of Opposite You was heralded by NPR as “the album of the year.”

Audra McDonald — who earned an unprecedented three Tony Awards before the age of 30 (Carousel, Master Class, and Ragtime), and a fourth in 2004 (A Raisin in the Sun) — blends classically-trained soprano with an incomparable gift for dramatic truth-telling. In addition to her theatrical work, she maintains a major career as a concert and recording artist. She has sung regularly with all the major American orchestras, including the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics; Boston, Chicago, National, and San Francisco symphony orchestras; and the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras — with many of the world’s leading conductors, such as John Adams, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Leonard Slatkin, and Michael Tilson Thomas. In the spring of 2005 she appeared with the New York Philharmonic to “preview” a scene from John Adams’s then not yet premiered opera Doctor Atomic, with the composer conducting. Overseas, she performs at the BBC Proms (where she was only the second American in more than 100 years to solo on the famed “Last Night of the Proms”); with the London Symphony Orchestra and Berlin Philharmonic; and at Paris’s Théâtre du Châtelet. Ms. McDonald also maintains a thriving television career, and currently can be seen as Dr. Naomi Bennett in the third season of the hit ABC television series Private Practice. Her most recent recordings are Kurt Weill’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (winner of two 2009 Grammy Awards) and a new studio recording of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Allegro (on the Sony MasterWorks Broadway label). Born into a musical family, Audra McDonald grew up in Fresno, California, and received her classical vocal training at The Juilliard School. Ms. McDonald last appeared with the New York Philharmonic on December 31, 2006, for a nationally televised New Year’s Eve concert, conducted by Ted Sperling.

John McMartin received Tony Nominations for his performances on Broadway in Into the Woods, High Society, Show Boat, Sweet Charity, and Don Juan (Drama Desk Award). Other Broadway appearances include Is He Dead?; Grey Gardens (Drama Desk nomination); Follies (original company); and The Great God Brown (Drama Desk Award). His Off-Broadway appearances include Saturn Returns, Indian Blood, The Visit (with Chita Rivera), Little Mary Sunshine (Theatre World Award), Julius Caesar, and The Misanthrope (The Public). On film Mr. McMartin has been seen in No Reservations, Kinsey, The Dish, All the President’s Men, Legal Eagles, Sweet Charity, Pennies from Heaven, and Native Son. His television credits include Oz, Tales of the City, Murrow, Separate but Equal, Coach, Law & Order, and Citizen Cohn. Mr. McMartin is being inducted into the 2009 Theater Hall of Fame on January 25, 2010, along with Jim Dale, Lynn Redgrave, and others. He is making his New York Philharmonic debut in these SONDHEIM: The Birthday Concert performances.

Donna Murphy received a Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, and Tony nomination for her performance as Lotte Lenya in Lovemusik. She also received Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Astaire Awards; New York magazine’s Theater Award; the Drama League Award for Outstanding Achievement in Musical Theater; and a Tony nomination for her performance in Wonderful Town. She won Tony, Drama Desk, and Drama League awards for Sondheim and Lapine’s Passion, and Tony and Drama League Awards for The King and I (Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle nominations). Her Broadway appearances have included the title role in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The Human Comedy, and They’re Playing Our Song. She also appeared in Follies for City Center’s Encores! Off-Broadway roles include Helen (New York Shakespeare Festival; Drama League Award); Twelve Dreams and Hello Again (Lincoln Center Theatre; Drama Desk nomination); Song of Singapore (Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle nominations); and Privates on Parade (Roundabout). Her film appearances include Rapunzel (2010), The Nanny Diaries, The Fountain, World Trade Center, Spider-Man 2, The Door in the Floor, Center Stage, Star Trek: Insurrection, The Astronaut’s Wife, and Jade. On television she has been seen in Trust Me, Law & Order, Damages, HBO’s Someone Had to Be Benny (Cable Ace, Emmy Awards), Hack, What About Joan, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Studio 60, CSI, The Last Debate, The Day Lincoln Was Shot, Murder One, Leonard Bernstein’s New York, Liberty!, Passion (Grammy Award), The Kennedy Center Honors, The Practice, and Ally McBeal. Her recordings include Wall to Wall Sondheim, Wonderful Town, The King and I, Hello Again, and Leonard Bernstein’s New York. Ms. Murphy is making her New York Philharmonic debut in these concerts.

Raised in Florence, South Carolina, dancer Gillian Murphy trained primarily at the North Carolina School of the Arts. In 1994, when she was 15, she was a finalist at the Jackson International Ballet Competition. In 1995 she was awarded the Prix de Lausanne Espoir, and in 1998, a Princess Grace Foundation-USA grant. In 2009 the Princess Grace Foundation awarded Ms. Murphy the Statue Award, its highest honor. Ms. Murphy joined American Ballet Theatre (ABT) as a member of the corps de ballet in August 1996 and was promoted to soloist in 1999 and to principal dancer in 2002. Her repertoire with the company includes leading roles Swan Lake, Don Quixote, Manon, La fille mal Gardée, Sylvia, Cinderella, Le Corsaire, Giselle, La Bayadère, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and The Sleeping Beauty. She has been prominently featured in the company’s shorter works by choreographed by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Jiri Kylian, Antony Tudor, William Forsythe, Martha Graham, James Kudelka, Lar Lubovitch, Frederick Ashton, and Agnes de Mille, and she has appeared in world premieres by Benjamin Millepied, Stanton Welch, Jorma Elo, Peter Quanz, Natalie Weir, John Neumeier, and Robert Hill. Ms. Murphy danced the role of Odette-Odile in the ABT telecast of Swan Lake and also appeared in telecasts of ABT’s Le Corsaire, the Washington Opera’s Die Fledermaus, the Balanchine Foundation’s Melissa Hayden Project, and the feature films Center Stage and its sequel, Center Stage: Turn it Up. Ms. Murphy has appeared throughout the United States and worldwide. She made her debut with the Kirov Ballet in St. Petersburg dancing Odette-Odile in March 2008. In December 2009 she appeared in a series of performances of Cinderella with the Kiev Ballet in Athens, Greece.

Laura Osnes is currently starring as Nellie Forbush in Lincoln Center Theater’s production of South Pacific. She recently created the role of Bonnie Parker in the world premiere of Frank Wildhorn’s Bonnie and Clyde at La Jolla Playhouse, for which she received the San Diego Theater Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Lead Female Performance in a Musical. She made her Broadway debut as Sandy in the most recent Broadway revival of Grease, having won the role on NBC’s reality competition, Grease: You’re the One That I Want. Ms. Osnes has performed regionally at The Kennedy Center as Kim McAfee in Broadway: Three Generations. Other regional credits include Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice; Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz; Chava in Fiddler on the Roof; Jasmine in Disney’s Aladdin; and the title role in Peter Pan. This is her New York Philharmonic debut.

Mandy Patinkin was born November 30, 1952, in Chicago, Illinois. Even from an early age he employed his lovely voice to entertain, whether it was singing in temple or just for family and friends. He attended Kenwood High School, the University of Kansas, and The Juilliard School of Drama. His first break into show business came when he played Che in Evita on Broadway in 1979, for which he won a Tony Award. After this initial success in musical theater, Mr. Patinkin moved onto film, playing a number of small parts in movies such as Yentl and Ragtime before returning to Broadway in 1984 to star in Sunday in the Park with George, which earned him another Tony Award nomination. Over the next decade he continued to appear in various movies, such as Dick Tracy and Alien Nation, and on Broadway in The Secret Garden. He released two solo albums titled Mandy Patinkin and Dress Casual. In 1994 he burst onto the small screen playing Dr. Jeffrey Geiger on CBS’s Chicago Hope and promptly won an Emmy Award. Since Chicago Hope he has worked in a number of films, but mostly he has performed as a singer, releasing three more albums. He returned to Broadway in 2000 in the New York Shakespeare Festival’s The Wild Party, which earned him another Tony Award nomination. Recently Mandy Patinkin has been seen in the Showtime comedy-drama Dead Like Me. He starred in the CBS crime drama Criminal Minds as the unconventional Special Agent Jason Gideon, and most recently appeared in Three Rivers for CBS. Mr. Patinkin last appeared with the New York Philharmonic in 1985 in the concert performance of Sondheim’s Follies.

Bernadette Peters has won numerous accolades, including two Tony Awards, a Golden Globe, two Grammy Awards, and three Emmy nominations, as well as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She received both Tony and Drama Desk Awards for her performance in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Song and Dance. She earned her second Tony Award for her performance in Annie Get Your Gun, and received Tony nominations for her performances as Momma Rose in Sam Mendes’s critically acclaimed revival of Gypsy, The Goodbye Girl, Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George, the Jerry Herman/Gower Champion ode to the movies Mack and Mabel, and the Leonard Bernstein/Comden and Green musical On the Town. Her television credits include, most recently, for Living Proof opposite Harry Connick, Jr., for Lifetime; the 2008 season premiere of ABC-TV’s Grey’s Anatomy; and a recurring role in the network’s Ugly Betty. Ms. Peters has appeared in 17 films, among them Pennies from Heaven (Golden Globe), The Jerk, The Longest Yard, Silent Movie, Annie, Pink Cadillac, Slaves of New York, Alice, Impromptu, and It Runs in the Family. In addition to numerous original Broadway cast recordings, Ms. Peters has recorded six solo albums, including the Grammy-nominated Bernadette Peters Loves Rodgers & Hammerstein; Sondheim, Etc., Etc.: Bernadette Peters Live at Carnegie Hall; and I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight. Bernadette Peters devotes her time and talents to numerous events that benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids in addition to Broadway Barks, an animal shelter adoption program in the New York City area. These concerts mark Ms. Peters’s New York Philharmonic debut.

Bobby Steggert, who appeared as Mordred in the New York Philharmonic’s semi-staged production of Camelot in March 2008, has performed on Broadway in Ragtime, 110 in the Shade (Outer Critics Circle nomination), and Master Harold…and the Boys. His Off-Broadway credits include The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island (Drama Desk and Drama League nominations, The Vineyard Theatre); Columbinus (New York Theater Workshop); The Music Teacher (New Group); and Yank! (Gallery Players). His regional appearances include Broadway 3 Generations and Ragtime at the Kennedy Center; Romeo and Juliet and St. Joan at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, The Cripple of Inishmaan at Milwaukee Repertory Theater; Brighton Beach Memoirs and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde at the Pioneer Theater in New York; The Great Game at Theater Previews at Duke University; and The Sound of Music at Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia. His film and television credits include The Namesake, Game Six, Nightswimming, Kinsey, For Richer or Poorer, and a year as Sam Grey on All My Children. Mr. Steggert is a graduate of New York University, and studied Shakespeare at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Dancer Ethan Stiefel started his professional career with the New York City Ballet and was a principal dancer with the Zurich Ballet; he is currently a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre and dean of The School of Dance at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He starred in the feature film Center Stage, and returned to play the role of Cooper Nielsen in its sequel, Center Stage: Turn It Up. His repertoire includes leading roles in all of the full-length classics as well as works by Frederick Ashton, Jiri Kylian, Nils Christe, Paul Taylor, Auguste Bournonville, William Forsythe, Jerome Robbins, Lar Lubovitch, George Balanchine, Bob Fosse, Antony Tudor, and Mark Morris. Numerous choreographers have created works for Mr. Stiefel, including Twyla Tharp and Christopher Wheeldon. Mr. Stiefel’s television credits include The Dream, Le Corsaire, and the documentary, Born to Be Wild. He has made numerous appearances as a guest artist with the Royal Ballet, Kirov Ballet, New York City Ballet, Australian Ballet, and other prestigious companies throughout the world. In December 2009 he staged and choreographed a production of The Nutcracker for the University of the North Carolina School of the Arts. He has been a guest teacher for many institutions including American Ballet Theatre II, American Ballet Theatre’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, and the Royal Ballet School. His Royal Highness Crown Prince Albert of Monaco presented Mr. Stiefel with the Statue Award of the Princess Grace Foundation, the foundation’s highest honor, in October 1999. He received the Dance Magazine Award in December 2008.

Elaine Stritch starred in the New York Philharmonic’s 1985 presentation of Sondheim’s Follies. The Detroit-born actress studied at the New School and began her career in musical comedy on Broadway — from standing by for Ethel Merman in Call Me Madam to her Tony-nominated performance in the revival of Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance. Her other Broadway credits include Angel in the Wings, Pal Joey, On Your Toes, Bus Stop, Goldilocks, Sail Away, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Company, and Show Boat. Other stage credits include Company at Lincoln Center and A.R. Gurney’s Love Letters with Jason Robards. She won a Tony Award for the Broadway production of Elaine Stritch at Liberty, as well as two Drama Desk Awards. Ms. Stritch made her film debut in the 1957 remake of A Farewell to Arms. She co-starred in the 1977 Alain Renais film, Providence, and the award-winning BBC series, Two’s Company. Other film credits include Cocoon: The Return; Woody Allen’s September; Out to Sea with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon; Krippendorf’s Tribe with Richard Dreyfuss; An Unexpected Life with Stockard Channing and Stephen Collins; Woody Allen’s Small Time Crooks; and Autumn in New York with Richard Gere and Winona Ryder. Her television credits include The Cosby Show; Third Rock from the Sun; and Soul Man; and was introduced on 30 Rock as the mother of Alec Baldwin and Nathan Lane. She won an Emmy Award for her recurring role on Law & Order. Ms. Stritch recently ended an engagement at BAM of Beckett’s Endgame with John Turturro, and she is currently performing at Café Carlyle in New York, in Elaine Stritch: Singin’ Sondheim...One Song at a Time, through January 30, 2010.

Jim Walton starred in the New York Philharmonic’s 1985 presentation of Sondheim’s Follies. Among his other credits are Scrambled Feet, Perfectly Frank, Merrily We Roll Along, Stardust, 42nd Street, Sweeney Todd (1989 revival), And the World Goes ’Round, Crazy for You (broadcast on PBS), The Music Man (2000 revival), Guys and Dolls (2009 revival), and Bye, Bye Birdie (2009 revival). He appeared with his brother, Bob Walton, in the City Encores production of The Ziegfeld Follies of 1936. With Bob, Jim Walton has written several musicals, including, Double Trouble and Mid-Life! The Crisis Musical, licensed through the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization. Mr. Walton was raised in Marion, Indiana, and trained at the University of Cincinnati’s Conservatory of Music.

Chip Zien created the central role of the Baker in the Sondheim/Lapine award-winning Into the Woods (Los Angeles Drama Logue Award, Outer Critics nomination) and he also created the role of Mendel in William Finn’s highly acclaimed Falsettos. Most recently he was seen on Broadway in Mike Nichols’s production of The Country Girl and as Thenardier in the revival of Les Misérables. Other Broadway credits include Tommy Tune’s Grand Hotel; The Boys from Syracuse; Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; All Over Town (directed by Dustin Hoffman); and The Suicide with Derek Jacobi. He also starred in the La Jolla Playhouse’s reworking of Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along (Los Angeles Drama-Logue Award). Among his many Off-Broadway credits are Glenn Merzer’s Anonymous; Peter Parnell’s An Imaginary Life; Wendy Wasserstein’s Isn’t It Romantic? (Drama Desk nomination); Michael Weller’s Split and Moonchildren; Lanford Wilson’s Hot L Baltmore (in New York and at L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum); Allen Ginsburg’s Kaddish; and William Finn’s A New Brain (Drama Desk nomination); and the revue Tuscaloosa’s Calling Me. Mr. Zien was a series regular on television on The Caroline Rhea Show; Almost Perfect; Now and Again; Deadline; Shell Game; and Love Sidney. His film roles include the voice of Howard the Duck, and appearances in The Siege, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, United 93, Snake Eyes, Breakfast of Champions, Dorothy Parker and the Vicious Circle, Grace Quigley, and The Rose. Mr. Zien’s one man show, Death in Ashtabula, and a musical revue, Travels with My Discontent, were both developed for and performed at The Barrington Stage. This is his New York Philharmonic debut.

Paul Gemignani (conductor) has been the musical director for more than 40 Broadway and West End shows, including Follies, Pacific Overtures; Candide, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Evita, Dreamgirls, Merrily We Roll Along, Into the Woods, On the Twentieth Century, Sunday in the Park with George, Jerome Robbins’s Broadway, Crazy for You, Passion, High Society, and Kiss Me, Kate. In 2004 he was the musical director for Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, The Frogs, and the Japan National Theatre Company’s Pacific Overtures. Mr. Gemignani has made recordings with the American Theatre Orchestra in addition to many cast albums; appeared as guest conductor with numerous orchestras; and is a regular guest conductor at the New York City Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Royal Opera Company, and the New York City Ballet. His film work includes Sweeney Todd starring Johnny Depp, Kramer vs. Kramer, Reds, and Eyewitness. Mr. Gemignani received the 2001 Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater, and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award (1994), as well as a special Drama Desk Award (1989) for “consistently outstanding musical direction and commitment to the theater.” In 2003 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of musical arts from the Manhattan School of Music, and in 2006 he received a Prime Time Emmy Award for Best Musical Direction for a Great Performances presentation of South Pacific. The Drama League of New York honored him for Outstanding Achievement in the Musical Theatre in 2008. Mr. Gemignani served as the musical director of the New York Philharmonic’s concert performance of Stephen Sondheim’s Follies in September 1985, and in May 2008, as conductor and music supervisor of the Orchestra’s semi-staged performance of Camelot.

Choreographer Josh Rhodes’s credits include Broadway:Three Generations at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; Working at the Old Globe Theatre; Barnum at the Asolo Repertory Theatre (Sarasota Theatre Award); Tintypes at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre; 1776 at the Paper Mill Playhouse; Breaking Up Is Hard to Do at the Ogunquit Playhouse; Chess, The Full Monty, and Dreamgirls at the North Carolina Theatre; Bonnie & Clyde at the New York Musical Theater Festival; High Spirits at the York Theatre Company; Beautiful Girls at the Manhattan School of Music; All Singing, All Dancing, Legends!, and Broadway by the Year-1954 at Town Hall; and numerous opening numbers for Broadway Cares’s Gypsy of the Year, Easter Bonnet Competition, and Broadway Bares. Mr. Rhodes was the assistant choreographer for the Broadway, West End, and national touring productions of The Drowsy Chaperone, and associate choreographer for the workshop of the upcoming Broadway musical, American Idiot. His performance credits on Broadway include Fosse, Bells Are Ringing, Sweet Smell of Success, Urban Cowboy, Man of La Mancha, The Boy from Oz, and Chicago.

Lonny Price (director and co-producer) just finished shooting his first feature film, Master Harold…and the Boys, starring Freddie Highmore and Ving Rhames. He is returning to the New York Philharmonic, where he previously directed the semi-staged production and Live From Lincoln Center broadcast of Camelot, starring Gabriel Byrne in May 2008. Previously, at the Philharmonic, he directed Sweeney Todd, starring Patti LuPone and George Hearn, the recording of which received a Grammy nomination, and later directed the musical again with the San Francisco Symphony (broadcast on Great Performances; Emmy Award). Also at the New York Philharmonic, he directed Candide, starring Kristin Chenowith and Ms. LuPone (broadcast on Great Performances, Emmy nomination). Mr. Price directed the Emmy Award-winning production of Sondheim’s Passion, starring Ms. LuPone, Audra McDonald, and Michael Cerveris (Live From Lincoln Center), and filmed the acclaimed Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Company, for which he received an Emmy nomination. On Broadway, Mr. Price directed Audra McDonald in 110 in the Shade for the Roundabout Theatre Company; Danny Glover in Athol Fugard’s Master Harold…and the Boys; Joan Rivers in Sally Marr and Her Escorts (which he co-wrote with Ms. Rivers and Erin Sanders); Jenn Colella in Urban Cowboy; and himself in A Class Act, for which he also co-wrote the book (with Linda Kline) and was nominated for a Tony Award. His Off-Broadway directorial work includes Visiting Mr. Green, starring Eli Wallach; Jules Feiffer’s Grown Ups; and Mary Pat Gleason’s Stopping Traffic for the Vineyard Theatre. Mr. Price made his opera directing debut at the Houston Grand Opera directing Audra McDonald in Poulenc’s La Vox Humaine and Michael John LaChiusa’s Send. His first association with Mr. Sondheim goes back to 1975, when he worked afternoons during his days at the High School of Performing Arts for Hal Prince on the Prince/Sondheim musical, Pacific Overtures. Several years later, in 1981, he originated the role of Charley Kringas in the Prince/Sondheim show, Merrily We Roll Along, on Broadway.

Matt Cowart (co-producer) served as associate director for the New York Philharmonic’s semi-staged production of Camelot in 2008. He has worked with co-producer Lonny Price on numerous productions during the last three years, including Broadway: Three Generations (Kennedy Center, associate director); My Favorite Things, a Rodgers and Hammerstein revue starring Shirley Jones (for which he was associate director); Beautiful Girls, a Stephen Sondheim revue starring Zoe Caldwell, Patti LuPone, Marin Mazzie, Donna McKechnie, and Jenn Colella (associate director]; the Broadway revival of 110 in the Shade starring Audra McDonald (assistant director); and most recently, All Fall Down, an official selection of the New York Musical Theater Festival (co-director). In the summer of 2009 he co-wrote and co-directed the children’s original musical, Dream Machines, with collaborator Isaac Klein. Other directing credits include Kiki Baby (Eugene O'Neill Music Theater Conference); the world premiere of We Three (Clark Studio Theater, Lincoln Center), and the critically acclaimed Salacious Uncle Baldrick (NYC Fringe). Mr. Cowart is currently the co-artistic director of MUDasMAN productions, and has served as artistic director of the OffBeat Theater Company and as the associate artistic director of the 78th Street Theatre Lab. He was a 2004–05 Kenan Directing Fellow at the Lincoln Center Institute, and is an alumnus of the 2005 Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and a member of the Society for Stage Directors and Choreographers. Mr. Coward is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and is currently developing a new hip-hop musical, Legend of the Word, with Isaac Klein and James Stewart.