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.

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• Joélle Harvey

  Soprano

  Soprano Joélle Harvey received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in vocal performance from the University of Cincinnati College–Conservatory of Music (CCM). A native of Bolivar, New York, she began her career training at Glimmerglass Opera (now The Glimmerglass Festival) and the Merola Opera Program. Harvey’s 2022–23 season features appearances with a host of internationally acclaimed organizations. She joins the New York Philharmonic in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 conducted by Jaap van Zweden in The Joy, one of the two Gala concerts celebrating the opening of the new David Geffen Hall. She makes debuts with the Bamberg Symphony (in Mahler’s Fourth Symphony and Alma Mahler songs, conducted by Jakub Hrůša), Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (Handel’s Solomon with Robin Ticciati), and Minnesota Orchestra (Haydn’s The Creation with Paul McCreesh). She also returns to The Cleveland Orchestra (Schubert’s Mass in E-flat in Cleveland and at Carnegie Hall), Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Orff’s Carmina burana), Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (Mahler’s Symphony No 2, Resurrection), and The Metropolitan Opera (Pamina in Mozart’s The Magic Flute). Notable chamber performances include a recital with baritone John Moore and pianist Allen Perriello for Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and appearances with the Chamber Music Societies of Lincoln Center and in Palm Beach. Her other debuts this season include Jacksonville Symphony, in Brahms’s A German Requiem, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, in an all-Handel program conducted by Bernard Labadie at Carnegie Hall. During the summer of 2023 she will return to the Glyndebourne Festival as Handel’s Semele in a new production directed by Adele Thomas.

  
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• Kelley O’Connor

  Mezzo-Soprano

  Kelley O’Connor is internationally acclaimed equally in the pillars of the classical music canon — from Beethoven and Mahler to Brahms and Ravel — as she is in works by modern masters, from John Adams and Bruce Dessner to Peter Lieberson and Joby Talbot. Her 2022–23 season includes performances with Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony, Jun Märkl and the Taiwan Philharmonic, Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra, and Xian Zhang with both the San Francisco Symphony and New Jersey Symphony. Sought after by many of the most heralded composers of our day, O’Connor has given the world premieres of Talbot’s A Sheen of Dew on Flowers with the Britten Sinfonia, Dessner’s Voy a Dormir with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar at the Tanglewood Music Festival, and Adams’s The Gospel According to the Other Mary, written for her, which has been performed under the batons of the composer, Gustavo Dudamel, Grant Gershon, Gianandrea Noseda, Simon Rattle, and David Robertson. She is the eminent living interpreter of Lieberson’s Neruda Songs, having performed the cycle with Stéphane Denève and Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Christoph Eschenbach and the National Symphony Orchestra, Bernard Haitink and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Robert Spano and the Minnesota Orchestra, and David Zinman and the Berlin Philharmonic, among others. Kelley O’Connor’s discography includes Mahler’s Third Symphony with Jaap van Zweden and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Lieberson’s Neruda Songs and Golijov’s Ainadamar with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Adams’s The Gospel According to the Other Mary with Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra.

  
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• Issachah Savage

  Tenor

  Dramatic tenor Issachah Savage’s 2022–23 season includes returns to The Metropolitan Opera for Mozart’s Idomeneo (as High Priest) and his debut at Lyric Opera of Chicago in Daniel Bernard Roumain’s Git Here (Curtis Toler), part of the world premiere tetralogy Proximity. He makes debuts with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, with Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder (with Fabio Luisi), San Francisco Symphony (Xian Zhang), Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo (Thierry Fischer), and National Symphony Orchestra (Gianandrea Noseda), and returns to the New York Philharmonic for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. Last season Savage returned to Los Angeles Opera as Wagner’s Tannhäuser. He sang Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (Luisi), Toronto Symphony Orchestra (Gustavo Gimeno), Los Angeles Philharmonic (Gustavo Dudamel), and Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Riccardo Muti), and Cathedral Choral Society for Smyth’s March of the Women. He joined Yannick Nézet-Seguin and the Rotterdam Philharmonic as Froh in concert performances of Wagner’s Das Rheingold in Rotterdam, Paris, Dortmund, and Baden-Baden. Recent performances include Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos (Bacchus) at Toulouse’s Théâtre du Capitole; Wagner’s Die Walküre (Siegmund) with Opéra National de Bordeaux and Paul Daniel as well as with Canadian Opera Company and Johannes Debus; his Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut, with Riccardo Muti, in concert performances of Verdi’s Aida (Messenger); and the Verdi Requiem with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Winner of the Seattle International Wagner Competition, Issachah Savage earned the main prize, audience favorite prize, orchestra favorite prize, and a special honor by Speight Jenkins. He received his bachelor’s degree in vocal performance from Morgan State University and a master’s in opera voice performance from Catholic University of America.

  
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• Davóne Tines

  Bass

  Davóne Tines is a pathbreaking artist whose work encompasses a diverse repertoire, ranging from early music to new commissions by leading composers, and explores the social issues of today. A creator, curator, and performer at the intersection of many histories, cultures, and aesthetics, he is engaged in work that blends opera, art song, contemporary classical, spirituals, gospel, and protest songs as a means to tell a deeply personal story of perseverance connecting to all of humanity. Projects include Recital No. 1: MASS, a program exploring the mass woven through Western European, African American, and 21st-century traditions, performed at Carnegie Hall and elsewhere; Concerto No. 1: SERMON and Concerto No. 2: ANTHEM, programs for voice and orchestra that weave together arias and contemporary song, including arrangements by Tines, with poetry; and Everything Rises, a multimedia musical work exploring artistic journeys and family histories, co-created with violinist Jennifer Koh.

  
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• New York Philharmonic Chorus
      Malcolm J. Merriweather, Director
  

  Chorus

  The New York Philharmonic has established the New York Philharmonic Chorus to mark the opening of the new David Geffen Hall in the 2022–23 season. The ensemble — comprising New York–based, freelance professional vocalists — appears in four of the Orchestra’s programs over the season, each time prepared by Malcom J. Merriweather. The New York Philharmonic Chorus makes its debut in October on the two David Geffen Hall Opening Galas: The Journey, a star-studded evening, and The Joy, performing in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and the World Premiere of Angélica Negrón’s You Are the Prelude, which the NY Phil commissioned for the occasion. Later in the season the Chorus appears in Adolphus Hailstork’s Done Made My Vow, A Ceremony, in March, and in the New York Premiere of John Luther Adams’s Become Desert, a work co-commissioned by the Orchestra, in June. Malcolm J. Merriweather, a Grammy–nominated conductor and baritone, is preparing the New York Philharmonic Chorus for all of its appearances in the Orchestra’s 2022–23 season. He is music director of New York City’s The Dessoff Choirs, an associate professor at Brooklyn College, and on the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music. He has conducted ensembles in venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Madison Square Garden in New York, as well as at Westminster Abbey in London and the Vatican, before Pope Francis. Merriweather's repertoire ranges from J.S. Bach to the world premiere recording of Margaret Bonds’s The Ballad of the Brown King (AVIE Records). As a baritone, Merriweather, who studied with Rita Shane, has appeared as soloist throughout the United States and premiered dozens of contemporary solo works. He was a fellowship recipient at Tanglewood and earned degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, and Syracuse University.

  
  Learn more about New York Philharmonic Chorus
      Malcolm J. Merriweather, Director