Artists

• Jaap van Zweden

  Conductor

  Jaap van Zweden began his tenure as the 26th Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in September 2018. He also serves as Music Director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, a post he has held since 2012, and becomes Music Director of the Seoul Philharmonic in 2024. He has conducted orchestras on three continents, appearing as guest with, in Europe, the Orchestre de Paris, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, and London Symphony Orchestra, and, in the United States, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and other distinguished ensembles.

  In 2023–24, Jaap van Zweden’s New York Philharmonic farewell season will celebrate his connection with the Orchestra’s musicians as he leads performances in which six Principal players appear as concerto soloists. He also revisits the oeuvres of composers he has championed at the Philharmonic, ranging from Steve Reich and Joel Thompson to Mozart, conducting the Requiem, and Mahler, leading the Symphony No. 2, Resurrection. By the conclusion of his Philharmonic tenure, which has included the reopening of the transformed David Geffen Hall, he will have led the Orchestra in World, US, and New York Premieres of 31 works. Among them are pieces commissioned through Project 19 — which marks the centennial of the 19th Amendment with new works by 19 women composers, among them Tania León’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Stride. During the 2021–22 season, when David Geffen Hall was closed for renovation, he conducted the Orchestra at other New York City venues — including his first-ever Philharmonic appearances at Carnegie Hall — and in the residency at the Usedom Music Festival, where the New York Philharmonic was the first American orchestra to perform abroad since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

  Jaap van Zweden and the New York Philharmonic inaugurated the new David Geffen Hall in October 2022 with HOME, a monthlong housewarming for the Orchestra and its audiences. Other 2022–23 season highlights include SPIRIT, a musical expression of the trials and triumphs of the human spirit featuring performances of Messiaen’s Turangalîla-symphonie and J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and EARTH, a response to the climate crisis that includes Julia Wolfe’s unEarth and John Luther Adams’s Become Desert. Over the course of David Geffen Hall’s inaugural season, he is conducting repertoire ranging from Beethoven and Bruckner to premieres by Marcos Balter, Etienne Charles, Caroline Shaw, and Carlos Simon, in addition to the works by Wolfe and Adams.

  Jaap van Zweden’s New York Philharmonic recordings include the World Premiere of David Lang’s prisoner of the state (2020), and Wolfe’s Grammy-nominated Fire in my mouth (2019), both released on the Decca Gold label. He conducted the Hong Kong Philharmonic in first-ever performances in Hong Kong of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, released on the Naxos label. His acclaimed performances of Lohengrin, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal — the last of which earned him the prestigious Edison Award for Best Opera Recording in 2012 — are available on CD and DVD.

  Born in Amsterdam, Jaap van Zweden, at age 19, was appointed the youngest-ever concertmaster of Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and began his conducting career almost 20 years later, in 1996. In April 2023, van Zweden receives the Concertgebouw Prize, for exceptional contributions to that organization’s artistic profile. He remains Conductor Emeritus of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and Honorary Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, where he was Chief Conductor (2005–13); he also served as Chief Conductor of the Royal Flanders Orchestra (2008–11), and as Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (2008–18). Under his leadership, the Hong Kong Philharmonic was named Gramophone’s Orchestra of the Year in 2019. He was named Musical America’s 2012 Conductor of the Year and was the subject of an October 2018 CBS 60 Minutes profile on the occasion of his arrival at the New York Philharmonic.

  In 1997 Jaap van Zweden and his wife, Aaltje, established the Papageno Foundation to support families of children with autism. The Foundation has grown into a multifaceted organization that focuses on the development of children and young adults with autism. The Foundation provides in-home music therapy through a national network of qualified music therapists in the Netherlands; opened the Papageno House in 2015 (with Her Majesty Queen Maxima in attendance) for young adults with autism to live, work, and participate in the community; created a research center at the Papageno House for early diagnosis and treatment of autism and for analyzing the effects of music therapy on autism; develops funding opportunities to support autism programs; and, more recently, launched the app TEAMPapageno, which allows children with autism to communicate with each other through music composition.

  Learn more about Jaap van Zweden

• Daniil Trifonov

  Piano

  Grammy Award-winning pianist Daniil Trifonov (dan-EEL TREE-fon-ov) — Musical America’s 2019 Artist of the Year and a one-time NY Phil Mary and James G. Artist-in-Residence — is a solo artist, champion of the concerto repertoire, chamber and vocal collaborator, and composer whose performances combine consummate technique with rare sensitivity and depth. Transcendental, his Liszt collection that marked his third title as an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist, won the 2018 Grammy for Best Instrumental Solo Album.

  
  Learn more about Daniil Trifonov

• Ryan Roberts

  English Horn

  Ryan Roberts joined the New York Philharmonic as English horn / oboe in September 2019. He has performed with many of the country’s leading orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. A passionate teacher, Ryan serves on the oboe faculty at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, and has been a guest lecturer at The Juilliard School and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. As an oboist, Ryan Roberts received first prize at the International Double Reed Society 2018 Norma Hooks Young Artist Competition and the National Society of Arts and Letters 2018 Woodwind Competition.
  
  Before joining the Philharmonic, Roberts spent one season as a member of the New World Symphony under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. Roberts recently premiered Michael Torke’s South, Concerto for Oboe and Chamber Orchestra, with the Albany Symphony, and recorded the work for release on Albany Records. An avid chamber musician, he performs at the Marlboro Music Festival during the summer under artistic directors Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss, and has collaborated in recitals with the Gamut Bach Ensemble, the Pacifica Quartet, and pianist Emanuel Ax.
  
  As a Kovner Fellow graduate of The Juilliard School, Ryan Roberts studied with Elaine Douvas and appeared frequently as principal oboe of the Juilliard Orchestra, where he was recognized by The New York Times for his “exquisite” performance as the English horn soloist in Sibelius’s The Swan of Tuonela, led by Esa-Pekka Salonen, in 2017. Roberts has been a member of the New York String Orchestra Seminar, and spent three summers as the oboe fellow at the Aspen Music Festival. In 2016 he was featured as a recital soloist aboard the Crystal Symphony cruise line, touring Portugal, Spain, France, and England.
  
  Ryan Roberts is also an accomplished pianist, having made his concerto debut at age 11. When he isn’t busy making reeds, Ryan can be found practicing piano, surfing, or running with his retired racing whippet, Malley.

  
  Learn more about Ryan Roberts

• Christopher Martin

  Trumpet

  Christopher Martin is one of the leading classical trumpet voices on the world stage. He joined the New York Philharmonic as Principal Trumpet, The Paula Levin Chair, in September 2016. He served as principal trumpet of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) for 11 seasons, and enjoyed a distinctive career of more than 20 years in some of America’s finest orchestras, including as principal trumpet of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and associate principal trumpet of The Philadelphia Orchestra. He made his New York Philharmonic solo debut in October 2016, performing Ligeti’s The Mysteries of the Macabre, led by then Music Director Alan Gilbert.
  
  Praised as “brilliant, impeccable” by The New York Times and as a musician of “effortless understated virtuosity” by The Chicago Tribune, Christopher Martin has appeared as soloist multiple times nationally and internationally with the CSO and music director Riccardo Muti. Highlights of Martin’s solo appearances include the 2012 World Premiere of Christopher Rouse’s concerto Heimdall’s Trumpet; Panufnik’s Concerto in modo antico, with Muti; a program of 20th-century French concertos by André Jolivet and Henri Tomasi; and more than a dozen performances of J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2. Other solo engagements have included Martin with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa’s Saito Kinen Festival, Atlanta and Alabama Symphony Orchestras, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico. Christopher Martin’s discography includes a solo performance in John Williams’s score to Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012) and two recordings of a concerto Martin co-commissioned: John Mackey’s Antique Violences.
  
  Dedicated to music education, Martin is a professor of trumpet at The Juilliard School and has given master classes and seminars around the world. He has served on the faculty of Northwestern University and coached the Civic Orchestra of Chicago for 11 years. In 2010 he co-founded the National Brass Symposium with his brother Michael Martin, a trumpeter in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and in 2016 he received the Edwin Franko Goldman Memorial Citation from the American Bandmasters Association for outstanding contributions to the wind band genre.
  
  Christopher Martin is a Yamaha Performing Artist. He and his wife, Margaret — an organist and pianist — have two young children who both prefer the piano over the trumpet.

  
  Learn more about Christopher Martin

• Mahogany L. Browne

  Poet

  Mahogany L. Browne, selected as one of the Kennedy Center’s Next 50, is the executive director of JustMedia, artistic director of Urban Word, and a writer, playwright, organizer, and educator. She has received fellowships from Arts for Justice, Air Serenbe, Cave Canem, Poets House, Mellon Research, and Rauschenberg. She is the author of recent works that include Vinyl Moon, Chlorine Sky, Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice, Woke Baby, and Black Girl Magic. Founder of the diverse lit initiative Woke Baby Book Fair, Browne’s latest poetry collection, Chrome Valley (Norton), due in the spring of 2023, is a promissory note to survival. A Brooklyn resident and Lincoln Center’s first-ever poet-in-residence, she collaborated on NY Phil Bandwagon and appeared on the Orchestra’s subscription series.

  
  Learn more about Mahogany L. Browne