VIENNA: CITY OF DREAMS Festival to Kick Off 2/21

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, Andris Nelsons, Christoph Eschenbach, and Zubin Mehta, including concert versions of the operas Wozzeck and Salome. Other highlights at Carnegie Hall are a Beethoven violin sonata cycle by Leonidas Kavakos and pianist Enrico Pace, a performance of Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin by baritone Matthias Goerne and pianist Christoph Eschenbach, a Discovery Day on Schubert's final years featuring a keynote lecture, performances and a dramatic reading, a fortepiano recital by Kristian Bezuidenhout, chamber works by Haydn, Berg, and Schubert performed by the Hugo Wolf Quartet, and the premiere of Anachronism by Austrian composer Georg Friedrich Haas, commissioned by Carnegie Hall for the festival and performed by Ensemble ACJW along with works by Mozart and Schoenberg. Carnegie Hall also recently announced that it would be displaying for the first time in the US an extraordinary selection of rare musical artifacts from Vienna's Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society of the Friends of Music) in its Rose Museum. Click here for more details on the free exhibit.

In addition to classical music, Carnegie Hall presents a sampling of contemporary sounds to come from Austria, beginning with a concert by guitarist Fennesz, who salutes the universality of fellow Austrian Gustav Mahler in a remixed electronic interpolation of the composer's oeuvre, with visuals by the German digital abstractionist Lillevan. Also, the late, pioneering Viennese jazz artist Josef Erich "Joe" Zawinul-who combined traditional jazz with elements of rock and world music in the Weather Report and the Zawinul Syndicate-is saluted by the Zawinul Legacy Band. And Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute presents three free Neighborhood Concerts, with performances by Ensemble ACJW, baritone Nathaniel Olson and pianist Kevin Murphy, and the Hugo Wolf Quartet.

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. Highlights are a major collaborative film exhibition entitled Vienna Unveiled: A City in Cinema presented by The Museum of Modern Art in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Austrian Film Museum, Vienna; a series of events presented by the Austrian Cultural Forum New York exploring the vibrant, creative fabric of the "city of dreams" in the 21st century with contemporary music, a symposium, films, and a visual art exhibition titled Vienna Complex; three panel discussions presented by the Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership exploring Vienna's history and legacy of the past 150 years; a Viennese art walk at four Manhattan galleries, providing a glimpse into the dynamic visual arts scene of Vienna today; and an exhibition and cabaret concerts at Neue Galerie New York.

Festival partners include the Advent Lutheran Church, (Art) Amalgamated, Austrian Cultural Forum New York, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Architecture, Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership, Czech Center New York, Friedman Benda, Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, The Jewish Museum, The Juilliard School, Keyes Art Projects, (Le) Poisson Rouge, Lehmann Maupin Gallery, Leo Baeck Institute, The Morgan Library & Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, Music at Our Saviour's Atonement, Neue Galerie New York, The New York Art Resources Consortium (with The Frick Collection, Brooklyn Museum, and The Museum of Modern Art), The New York Public Library, The Paley Center for Media, and the Viennese Opera Ball in New York.

See below for details or click here for a 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.

For tickets to Vienna: City of Dreams partner events, please contact the specific venue.

For Carnegie Hall Corporation presentations taking place in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, a limited number of seats, priced at $10, will be available day-of-concert beginning at 11:00 a.m. Monday through Saturday and 12:00 noon on Sunday until one hour before the performance or until supply lasts. The exceptions are Carnegie Hall Family Concerts and gala events. These $10 tickets are available to the general public on a first-come, first-served basis at the Carnegie Hall Box Office only. There is a two-ticket limit per customer.

In addition, for all Carnegie Hall presentations in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage a limited number of partial view (seats with obstructed or limited sight lines or restricted leg room) will be sold for 50% of the full price. For more information on this and other discount ticket programs, including those for students, Notables members, and Bank of America customers, visit carnegiehall.org/discounts. Artists, programs, and prices are subject to change.