Alan Gilbert Leads NY Philharmonic in MAHLER'S 9th at Free Memorial Day Concert, 5/28

Music Director Alan Gilbert, The Yoko Nagae Ceschina Chair, will lead the New York Philharmonic in Mahler's Symphony No. 9 at the Annual Free Memorial Day Concert, Monday, May 28, 2012 at 8:00 p.m. at The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine. This will be the 21st Annual Free Memorial Day Concert offered by the New York Philharmonic, a tradition begun in 1992 as a gift to the people of New York City. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis on the day of the performance. The audio of the performance will be broadcast onto the adjacent Pulpit Green, weather permitting.

Speaking about the program, Mr. Gilbert noted that he selectEd Mahler's Ninth Symphony because of its particular resonance on this occasion. "It ends with a powerful, valedictory moment, which seems like death, or perhaps the attainment of the ultimate spiritual peace. All of Mahler's symphonies all attempt to encapsulate the human experience, but the Ninth probably goes the farthest. It really does say it all, and it seems to give a picture of what it means to be human in every sense, both the joys of living and the difficulty of coming to the end of one's life. Mahler's Ninth Symphony never fails to go straight to the heart."

New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert, The Yoko Nagae Ceschina Chair, began his tenure in September 2009, creating what New York magazine called "a fresh future for the Philharmonic." The first native New Yorker to hold the post, he has sought to make the Orchestra a point of civic pride for both the city and the country.

Mr. Gilbert's creative approach to programming combines works in fresh and innovative ways. He has forged artistic partnerships, introducing the positions of The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence and The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in- Residence, an annual three-week festival, and CONTACT!, the new-music series. In 2011–12 he conducts world premieres, Mahler symphonies, a residency at London's Barbican Centre, tours to Europe and California, and a season-concluding musical exploration of space at the Park Avenue Armory featuring Stockhausen's theatrical immersion, Gruppen. He also made his Philharmonic soloist debut performing J.S. Bach's Concerto for Two Violins alongside Frank Peter Zimmermann in October 2011. Last season's highlights included two tours of European music capitals, Carnegie Hall's 120th Anniversary Concert, and Janá?ek's The Cunning Little Vixen, hailed by The Washington Post as "another victory," building on 2010's wildly successful staging of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre, which The New York Times called "an instant Philharmonic milestone."

In September 2011 Alan Gilbert became Director of Conducting and Orchestral Studies at The Juilliard School, where he is the first to hold the William Schuman Chair in Musical Studies. Conductor Laureate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of Hamburg's NDR Symphony Orchestra, he regularly conducts the world's leading orchestras, such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Berlin Philharmonic.

Alan Gilbert made his acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut in 2008 leading John Adams's Doctor Atomic; the DVD and Blu-ray of this production received a 2011 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording. Earlier releases garnered Grammy Award nominations and top honors from the Chicago Tribune and Gramophone magazine. Mr. Gilbert studied at Harvard University, The Curtis Institute of Music, and Juilliard, and was assistant conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra (1995–97). In May 2010 he received an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from Curtis, and in December 2011 he received Columbia University's Ditson Conductor's Award for his "exceptional commitment to the performance of works by American composers and to contemporary music."

Gustav Mahler began work on his Symphony No. 9in 1909 - the year that also marked his first season as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic - and finished the work in April 1910. Mahler's time with the Orchestra came to an end in 1911, his health deteriorating. The 50-year-old composer died later that year, never having heard a public performance of his last complete symphony. Mahler's Symphony No. 9 reflects his acute awareness of his own mortality - doctors had diagnosed a life-threatening heart condition two years earlier - and its music probes the depths of life and death, themes the composer also explored in two later works, Das Lied von der Erde and the unfinished Symphony No. 10. The Ninth Symphony has often been interpreted as a farewell, both to life and to the 19th-century Romanticism that Mahler's work embodied. In June 1912 Mahler's friend and disciple Bruno Walter conducted the symphony's premiere in Vienna; Walter also conducted the Philharmonic's first performance in December 1945, not long before he began his own tenure as the Orchestra's Music Director (1947–49). Music Director Alan Gilbert led the most recent performance, in February 2012 at the Barbican Centre in London during the Orchestra's EUROPE / WINTER 2012 tour.

The Memorial Day Concert is presented by the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation.

Credit Suisse is the Global Sponsor of the New York Philharmonic.

Programs of the New York Philharmonic are supported, in part, by public funds from the

New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Admission to this performance is free. 

Photo Credit: Michael DiVito