VIENNA: CITY OF DREAMS Concerts to Begin 2/25 at Carnegie Hall

From February 21 to March 16, 2014, Carnegie Hall presents Vienna: City of Dreams, a three-week citywide festival featuring more than 90 events at Carnegie Hall and 23 partner cultural organizations throughout New York City, all inviting audiences to discover the extraordinary artistic legacy of Vienna. The festival features symphonic and operatic masterpieces, chamber music, and lieder, as well as new sounds emerging from this historic cultural capital. In addition to music, Vienna: City of Dreams shines a spotlight on Vienna's visual art, film, architecture, politics, science, and history, creating an extensive look at a city that for centuries has drawn artists, dreamers, and innovators from all corners of the world to its dazzling intellectual and artistic life.

The centerpiece of Vienna: City of Dreams is seven concerts to launch and conclude the festival at Carnegie Hall by the renowned Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Vienna State Opera, led by esteemed conductors Franz Welser-Möst, Daniele Gatti, Andris Nelsons, and Zubin Mehta all in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage. Vienna has long been known as a crucible for creativity and great artistic achievements, especially in the area of classical music, and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Vienna State Opera have both been at the center of the city's artistic life since their inception. Concerts presented as part of Vienna: City of Dreams highlight the roles played by these unparalleled cultural institutions as well as Carnegie Hall's longstanding partnership with the orchestra, which has appeared more than 100 times at the Hall since its 1956 debut-more than any other overseas ensemble.

The residency includes concert performances of Alban Berg's Wozzeck and Richard Strauss's Salome, marking only the second time in their history that the Viennese musicians have performed opera in concert at Carnegie Hall. The orchestra also performs such masterpieces as Beethoven's Symphony No. 9; Bruckner's Symphony No. 6; Brahms's Symphony No. 3; Schubert's Symphony No. 8, "Unfinished;" and Mahler's Symphony No. 4, concerts featuring core symphonic repertoire for which the ensemble has long been known. In addition to their concerts at Carnegie Hall, members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Vienna State Opera are featured in festival partner events at Austrian Cultural Forum New York and The Paley Center for Media.

The Vienna: City of Dreams celebration extends throughout New York City with festival events at leading cultural institutions, crossing arts disciplines to include music, film, visual arts, panel discussions, and even a Viennese Opera Ball, which launches the festival on February 21. For a complete list of partners and events, please click here for festival press kit.

Carnegie Hall has launched a special website carnegiehall.org/vienna, which features information on festival events, interviews with artists, videos introducing the music being performed, and other content designed to illuminate Vienna: City of Dreams offerings. Once the festival begins, Carnegie Hall will also capture video of select Vienna: City of Dreams performances to be shared alongside this content on the website.

Festival concerts by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Vienna State Opera at Carnegie Hall are as follows:

Tuesday, February 25 at 8:00 p.m. Conductor Franz Welser-Möst launches the residency, leading musicians and soloists from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Vienna State Opera in a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. Soloists include soprano Ricarda Merbeth, mezzo-soprano Zoryana Kushpler, tenor Peter Seiffert, and bass Günther Groissböck. The New York Choral Artists and chorus director Joseph Flummerfelt are also featured in the symphony and open the concert with the Viennese musicians in a performance of Schoenberg's Friede auf Erden.

Wednesday, February 26 at 8:00 p.m. Maestro Welser-Möst returns the following evening, leading the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in Mozart's Symphony No. 28, Bruckner's Symphony No. 6, and Johannes Maria Staud's On Comparative Meteorology.

The February 26 concert will air on WQXR 105.9 FM in New York and on stations as part of the Carnegie Hall Live broadcast and digital series. Produced by WQXR, New York City's classical music station, and Carnegie Hall, and presented in partnership with American Public Media, the series is hosted by WQXR's Jeff Spurgeon and APM's Fred Child, and will be available for streaming on wqxr.org and carnegiehall.org/wqxr. Select concerts will be archived for on-demand streaming post-broadcast. During each broadcast, WQXR and Carnegie Hall will host live chats featuring behind-the-scenes insights by the broadcast team, color commentary by the hosts, and interaction with the broadcast / webcast listeners, connecting national and international fans to the music and to each other.

Friday, February 28 at 8:00 p.m. The Vienna State Opera, Vienna State Opera Chorus, and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra perform Alban Berg's Wozzeck in a concert conducted by Daniele Gatti, with Matthias Goerne singing the title role, Evelyn Herlitzius as Marie, Monika Bohinec as Margret, Herbert Lippert as Drum Major, Norbert Ernst as Andres, Wolfgang Bankl as Doctor, and Herwig Pecoraro as Captain, with Andreas Hörl and Clemens Unterreiner as First and Second Apprentice, Peter Jelosits as Madman, Franz Gruber as Soldier, and members of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. A pre-concert talk starts at 7:00 p.m. in with Ara Guzelimian, Provost and Dean of The Juilliard School.

Saturday, March 1 at 8:00 p.m. The following night, the Vienna State Opera and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra perform Richard Strauss's Salome conducted by Andris Nelsons, with Gun-Brit Barkmin in the title role, Falk Struckmann as Jochanaan, Gerhard A. Siegel as Herodes, Jane Henschel as Herodias, Carlos Osuna as Narraboth, and Ulrike Helzel as Page, with Norbert Ernst as First Jew, Michael Roider as Second Jew, James Kryshak as Third Jew, Thomas Ebenstein as Fourth Jew, Walter Fink as Fifth Jew, Adam Plachetka as First Nazarene, Marcus Pelz as Second Nazarene, Dan Paul Dumitrescu as First Soldier, Il Hong as Second Soldier, Jens Musger as A Cappadocian, and Gerhard Reiterer as A Slave.

Thursday, March 13 at 8:00 p.m. Andris Nelsons returns with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra for a performance of Haydn's Symphony No. 90 in C Major and two works by Brahms-Symphony No. 3 and Variations on a Theme by Haydn in B-flat Major.

Saturday, March 15 at 8:00 p.m. Daniele Gatti leads the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in performances of Schubert's Symphony No. 8, "Unfinished," and Mahler's Symphony No. 4 with guest soprano Juliane Banse. A pre-concert talk begins at 7:00 p.m. with Walter Frisch, Professor of Music, Columbia University.

Sunday, March 16 at 7:00 p.m. Conductor Zubin Mehta concludes the residency by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna: City of Dreams festival, leading the orchestra in a wide variety of Viennese classics, including songs by Johann Strauss Jr. and Franz Lehár with soprano Diana Damrau, Korngold's Violin Concerto with soloist Gil Shaham, and works for chorus by Mozart and Nicolai with the New York Choral Artists.

Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna State Opera-Festival Partner Presentations
In addition to the seven concerts at Carnegie Hall, musicians, conductors, and administrators of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Vienna State Opera will appear in several Vienna: City of Dreams festival events at partner cultural organizations including chamber music performances and panel discussions. Also, three historic television broadcasts of performances by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Vienna State Opera will receive screenings at The Paley Center for Media.

Vienna State Opera Music Director Franz Welser-Most and Director Dominique Meyer take part in a panel discussion titled Vienna 1860 to 1914: Creativity, Culture, Science and Politics on Monday, February 24 at 6:00 p.m., presented by the Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership. Three nights later, Clemens Hellsberg, longtime president and violinist with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra participates in a second panel presented by the foundation on Thursday, February 27 at 5:30 p.m., exploring the theme Austria: Coming to Terms with a Troubled History, and how Vienna's creative, cultured, and open society deteriorated in the years leading to the 1938 Anchluss and World War II. A third panel, presented by the Chumir Foundation, will take place on Friday, February 28 at 12:00 p.m., examining Lessons from History: The Search for a Global Ethic. All three panels will take place at The Paley Center for Media.

Matthias Schorn, principal clarinetist of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, will perform compositions for solo clarinet written for and dedicated to him by Austrian composers at his concert, Born to be Schorn, presented by the Austrian Cultural Forum New York on Thursday, February 27 at 7:30 p.m. Among the Austrian Cultural Forum New York's other musical programming presented as part of Vienna: City of Dreams, members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra will present a chamber concert-Vienna's Musical Production During the Great War-on Sunday, March 2 at 11:00 a.m., including works by Lehár, Benatzky, Stolz, and Hochreiter, followed by a symposium at 2:00 p.m. All events presented by Austrian Cultural Forum New York are free.

In addition, The Paley Center for Media will offer screenings of three historic television broadcasts: the Vienna Philharmonic's 1961 gala at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, performed on the eve of summit talks between John F. Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, seen in attendance with their wives (Saturday, March 8 at 3:00 p.m.); a 1971 celebration of Beethoven's birthday by the Vienna State Opera, narrated and conducted by Leonard Bernstein (Sunday, March 9 at 3:00 p.m.); and a 1981 film featuring the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Vienna Choir Boys, performing highlights from the Viennese waltz repertoire (Sunday, March 9 at 4:30 p.m.).