Alan Gilbert to Conduct Conduct Young People's Concert 'Dance Transformed,' 5/9

Music Director Alan Gilbert will conduct the season's final New York Philharmonic Young People's Concert (YPC), Saturday, May 9, 2015, at 2:00 p.m. with the program "Dance Transformed," the fourth in this season's series, SUPER SONIC MUSIC BOX, exploring the variety of symphonic music and its interpretation. The concert traces the evolution of the waltz through a variety of works: J. Strauss II's On the Beautiful Blue Danube, selections from Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales, Oscar Lorenzo Fernandez's Batuque from Reisado do pastoreio, Mambo from Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, and selections from R. Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier Suite. Vice President, Education, Theodore Wiprud will host the event, which will be directed and scripted by Tom Dulack and feature dancer Heather Lipson Bell.

This concert will mark Alan Gilbert's first time conducting a Young People's Concert in New York City. Previously, he led the Orchestra in a Young People's Concert in Tokyo on the 2009 Asian Horizons tour, his first tour with the Orchestra as Music Director.

UNIQLO, the global clothing retailer, is sponsoring the Philharmonic's 2014-15 season of YPCs, dressing the Orchestra for all YPCs and YPCs for Schools this season in UNIQLO clothing with colors identifying each orchestral section. Children are invited to come to the concerts dressed in the color of their favorite section: strings will wear red or pink, woodwinds green, brass blue, percussion orange, and harp and keyboards light blue. In addition, UNIQLO and the New York Philharmonic will be conducting a clothing drive at all of this season's YPCs, at which attendees can leave gently used clothes in bins placed around Avery Fisher Hall; the clothing will be distributed directly to people in need living in New York City Homeless Shelters by UNIQLO volunteers.

Attendees are invited to come early to meet Philharmonic musicians and take part in YPC Overtures, pre-concert activities inside the hall, such as live performances by ensembles of Philharmonic musicians of works by Very Young Composers inspired by the YPC's thematic content, and videos projected on screen above the stage, including a tutorial on folding origami while audience members do so from their seats. The youngest audience members are invited to the Helen Huntington Hull Room to hear stories read by members of the New York Philharmonic Volunteer Council.

A special podcast for children is released the week before each YPC; it is available at nyphil.org/ypc, as is TuneUp, the children's concert program that includes activities related to the event.

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