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

• Frank Huang

  Violin

  Frank Huang joined the New York Philharmonic as Concertmaster, The Charles E. Culpeper Chair, in September 2015. The First Prize Winner of the 2003 Walter W. Naumburg Foundation’s Violin Competition and the 2000 Hannover International Violin Competition, he has established a major career as a violin virtuoso. Since performing with the Houston Symphony in a nationally broadcast concert at the age of 11 he has appeared with orchestras throughout the world including The Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, NDR Radio Philharmonic Orchestra of Hannover, Amadeus Chamber Orchestra, and the Genoa Orchestra. He has also performed on NPR’s Performance Today, ABC’s Good Morning America, and CNN’s American Morning with Paula Zahn. He has performed at Wigmore Hall (in London), Salle Cortot (Paris), Kennedy Center (Washington, DC), and Herbst Theatre (San Francisco), as well as a second recital in Alice Tully Hall (New York), which featured the World Premiere of Donald Martino’s Sonata for Solo Violin. Following more than 25 additional solo appearances with the Orchestra, in May 2022 he performs Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5, Turkish, conducted by Music Director Jaap van Zweden.

  
  Learn more about Frank Huang

• The Crossing
      Donald Nally, director

  Chorus

  The Crossing is a professional chamber choir conducted by Donald Nally that is dedicated to new music. It is committed to working with creative teams to make and record new, substantial works that explore and expand ways of writing for choir, singing in choir, and listening to music for choir. Many of its more than 70 commissioned premieres address social, environmental, and political issues.

  
  Learn more about The Crossing
      Donald Nally, director

• Young People’s Chorus of New York City
      Francisco J. Núñez, director

  Chorus

  The Young People’s Chorus of New York City (YPC) is a multicultural youth chorus renowned for its virtuosity and showmanship, and as a model for an inclusive society that is being replicated globally. Founded in 1988 by artistic director Francisco J. Núñez, a MacArthur Fellow and Musical America’s 2018 Educator of the Year, the program harnesses the power of music to fulfill the potential of every child, and has established the youth chorus as a significant and often untapped instrument for making music.

  
  Learn more about Young People’s Chorus of New York City
      Francisco J. Núñez, director

• Else Torp

  Soprano (Wolfe)

• Anne Kauffman

  Director (Wolfe)

  Anne Kauffman has directed The Bengsons’s The Lucky Ones (for Ars Nova) and Hundred Days (New York Theatre Workshop, Under the Radar Festival / The Public Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Z Space, Know Theatre); Mary Jane (NYTW, Yale Repertory Theatre); Marvin’s Room (Roundabout Theatre Company); Sondheim’s Assassins (Encores! Off-Center); Sundown, Yellow Moon (Women’s Project Theater / Ars Nova); A Life (Lucille Lortel and Drama League nominations); Marjorie Prime (Lucille Lortel and Drama League nominations); Detroit, Your Mother’s Copy of the Kama Sutra, and Maple and Vine (Playwrights Horizons); The Nether and Smokefall (MCC Theater); Buzzer (The Public); Belleville (Lucille Lortel nomination, NYTW, Yale Repertory Theatre, Steppenwolf); You Got Older (Drama Desk nomination, P73 Productions); The Muscles in Our Toes (Labyrinth Theater Company); Somewhere Fun and God’s Ear (New Georges and Vineyard Theater); and Stunning, Slowgirl (LCT3). Ms. Kauffman is the artistic director of Encores! Off-Center, resident director at Roundabout Theatre Company, and artistic associate and founding member of The Civilians. She is also a Sundance Program associate, a Clubbed Thumb associate artist and co-creator of the CT Directing Fellowship, a New Georges associate artist, an executive board member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, and trustee of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation. Her honors include three Obie Awards, the Joan and Joseph Cullman Award for Exceptional Creativity from Lincoln Center, the Alan Schneider Director Award, two Barrymore Awards, a Lucille Lortel Award, and a 2018 Joe A. Callaway Award.

  
  Learn more about Anne Kauffman

• Lucy MacKinnon

  Projection Designer (Wolfe)

• Ben Stanton

  Lighting Designer (Wolfe)

• Jody Elff

  Sound Designer (Wolfe)

• Kenny Savelson

  Production Consultant (Wolfe)