Bernadette Peters To Host NEW YEARS EVE: CELEBRATING SONDHEIM with the New York Philharmonic

Tony Award winner Bernadette Peters will join the New York Philharmonic as host of New Year's Eve: Celebrating Sondheim, December 31, 2019. "Considered by many to be the premier interpreter of [Sondheim's] work" (The New York Times), she starred in the original productions of the Pulitzer, Tony, Oscar, and Grammy winner's Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods as well as the revivals of his Follies, A Little Night Music, and Gypsy. She appeared in the New York Philharmonic's Sondheim: The Birthday Concert in 2010. Sondheim said of her, "Bernadette is flawless as far as I'm concerned."

Tony Award winner Katrina Lenk - who will star in the gender-blind 2020 Broadway revival of Sondheim's Company - will sing Losing My Mind and Could I Leave You from Follies, Alexander Gemignani will conduct, and Lonny Price will direct. The program will also feature selections and suites from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, A Little Night Music, Assassins, Company, Follies, Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

As previously announced, it will be telecast nationally on Live From Lincoln Center on PBS stations at 8:00 p.m. (check local listings).

The New York Philharmonic's extensive list of Sondheim performances includes Follies in Concert (1985), Sondheim: The Birthday Concert (2010), and the critically acclaimed staged productions of Company (2011) and Sweeney Todd (2000 and 2014).

Photo Credit: Andrew Eccles