New Season of Young People's Concerts Begins with Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 Tonight

The 92nd season of the New York Philharmonic Young People's Concerts (YPCs) will be launched tonight, October 12, 2013, at 2:00 p.m. Philharmonic Assistant Conductor Case Scaglione will lead selections from all four movements of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. This is the first program in this season's series, Points of Entry, in which each concert explores facets of music and the orchestra itself through a single, influential score. The performance will feature the Manhattan School of Music Symphonic Chorus, Kent Tritle, director.

Designed for ages 6 to 12, the series is hosted by Philharmonic Vice President, Education, Theodore Wiprud, The Sue B. Mercy Chair, and written and directed by Tom Dulack.

All YPCs are preceded by Kidzone Live!, an interactive music fair at which children meet Philharmonic musicians, create and hear their own music, try out orchestral instruments, and learn new technologies on the Grand Promenade and upper tiers of Avery Fisher Hall at 12:45 p.m. Beginning one week before each YPC a special podcast for children is made available, at nyphil.org/ypc, as is TuneUp, the children's concert program, complete with activities related to the event.

The other YPC programs in the 2013-14 season's Points of Entry series are Mozart's Symphony No. 41, Jupiter (December 7, 2013); Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (February 1, 2014); and Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 1 (April 12, 2014).

Artists

American-born conductor Case Scaglione began his tenure as Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic in September 2011. That same year he was named a Solti Fellow by the Solti Foundation U.S. He has served as music director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra of Los Angeles, and founded 360° Music, which took that orchestra to inner-city schools. His programs spanned works from Beethoven and Wagner to the Los Angeles premiere of John Adams's Doctor Atomic Symphony, which was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He was a student of David Zinman at the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen, where Mr. Scaglione won the James Conlon and Aspen Conducting Prizes, which led to his Cleveland Orchestra debut in July 2010. He then served as assistant conductor of the Aspen Music Festival and School. A frequent guest assistant and cover conductor with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and David Robertson, Mr. Scaglione also assisted at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Baltimore Opera. He also conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl with Bramwell Tovey. In the summer of 2011 Mr. Scaglione was one of three Conducting Fellows at Tanglewood, chosen by James Levine and Stefan Asbury. A native of Texas, Case Scaglione received his bachelor's degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music. He continued in post-graduate work at the Peabody Institute, where he studied with Gustav Meier.

The Manhattan School of Music Symphonic Chorus is made up of students and alumni of the Manhattan School of Music, and is dedicated to performing the masterworks of the choral/orchestral repertoire. The Symphonic Chorus has recently performed Haydn's The Creation, Brahms's A German Requiem, Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, Mozart's Requiem, Schubert's Mass in G major, Poulenc's Gloria, and Mendelssohn's Elijah, and premiered David Briggs's transcription for organ, chorus, and soloists of Mahler's Symphony No. 2, Resurrection. Members of the Symphonic Chorus joined New York City Opera in a performance of Rossini's Moses in Egypt at City Center in April 2013. In the spring of 2014 the Symphonic Chorus will perform Bach's Mass in B minor and Honegger's King David.

Kent Tritle, director of choral activities at the Manhattan School of Music, is also director of cathedral music and organist at The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in New York City. The 2013-14 season marks his ninth as music director of the Oratorio Society of New York and his seventh as music director of Musica Sacra, the longest continuously performing professional chorus in New York City. He is the founder of Sacred Music in a Sacred Space, the concert series at New York's Church of St. Ignatius Loyola; a member of the graduate faculty of The Juilliard School; and the organist of the New York Philharmonic. Mr. Tritle was the host of the weekly radio show The Choral Mix with Kent Tritle and, from 1996 to 2004, music director of the Emmy-nominated Dessoff Choirs; under his direction the group performed with the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and Czech Philharmonic, as well as on a nationally telecast Live From Lincoln Center performance of Mozart's Requiem. Kent Tritle has made more than a dozen recordings on the Telarc, AMDG, Epiphany, Gothic, VAI, and MSR Classics labels.

Theodore Wiprud, Vice President, Education, The Sue B. Mercy Chair, has directed the Education Department of the New York Philharmonic since 2004. The Philharmonic's education programs include the histoRic Young People's Concerts, the Very Young People's Concerts, the School Partnership Program (one of the largest in-school programs among U.S. orchestras), Very Young Composers, adult education programs, and many special projects. Mr. Wiprud has also created innovative programs as director of education and community engagement at the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the American Composers Orchestra; served as associate director of The Commission Project; and assisted the Orchestra of St. Luke's on its education programs. He has worked as a teaching artist and resident composer in a number of New York City schools. From 1990 to 1997, he directed national grant-making programs at Meet the Composer. Prior to that position, he taught at and directed the music department for Walnut Hill School, a pre- professional arts boarding school near Boston. Mr. Wiprud is also an active composer, whose Violin Concerto (Katrina) was recently released on Champs Hill Records. His music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and voice is published by Allemar Music. Theodore Wiprud holds degrees from Harvard and Boston Universities and studied at Cambridge University as a visiting scholar.

Tom Dulack is an award-winning playwright, novelist, and director. His play Incommunicado won a Kennedy Center Prize for New American Drama, and Friends Like These won the Kaufman and Hart Prize for New American Comedy. Among his other plays, which have appeared on and Off-Broadway as well as in leading regional theaters around the country, are Breaking Legs, Diminished Capacity, Francis, York Beach, Just Deserts, Solomon's Child, 1348, Shooting Craps, The Elephant, and Mrs. Rossetti. His novels include The Stigmata of Dr. Constantine and the forthcoming The Misanthropes. He is also the author of the theater memoir In Love With Shakespeare. He has written and directed the scripts for the YPCs since 2005. He is also professor of English Literature at the University of Connecticut.