Paulo Szot, Joyce DiDonato To Join the New York Philharmonic in New Year's Eve Concert, 12/31

Tony Award winner and Metropolitan Opera baritone Paulo Szot will join Music Director Alan Gilbert, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, and the New York Philharmonic for the Orchestra's New Year's Eve celebration, Saturday, December 31, 2016, at 8:00 p.m., an evening of American classics including music by Rodgers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Loewe, and Copland. The concert will be telecast Live Nationally on Live From Lincoln Center on PBS stations.

The program will center on songs and duets from classic Broadway musicals. Ms. DiDonato and Mr. Szot will together sing "The Rain in Spain" from Lerner & Loewe's My Fair Lady. Ms. DiDonato will sing "I Have Confidence" and "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" from Rodgers & Hammerstein's The Sound of Music, "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady, and "Simple Gifts" and "I Bought Me a Cat" from Copland's Old American Songs. Mr. Szot will sing "Billy's Soliloquy" from Rodgers & Hammerstein'sCarousel and "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" from My Fair Lady. The Orchestra will perform Four Dance Episodes from Copland's Rodeo, J. Strauss II's On the Beautiful Blue Danube, Rodgers's Carousel Waltz, and Loewe's Embassy Waltz.

Artists
As Music Director of the New York Philharmonic since 2009, Alan Gilbert has introduced the positions of The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence, The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence, and Artist-in-Association; CONTACT!, the new-music series; the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, an exploration of today's music; and the New York Philharmonic Global Academy, partnerships with cultural institutions to offer training of pre-professional musicians, often alongside performance residencies. The Financial Times called him "the imaginative maestro-impresario in residence."

Alan Gilbert concludes his final season as Music Director with four programs that reflect themes, works, and musicians that hold particular meaning for him, including Beethoven's Ninth Symphony alongside Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw,Wagner's complete Das Rheingold in concert, and an exploration of how music can effect positive change in the world. Other highlights include three World Premieres, Mahler's Fourth Symphony, Ligeti's Mysteries of the Macabre, and Manhattan,performed live to film. He also leads the Orchestra on the EUROPE / SPRING 2017 tour and in performance residencies in Shanghai and Santa Barbara. Past highlights include acclaimed stagings of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre, Janá?ek's The Cunning Little Vixen, Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd starring Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson (2015 Emmy nomination), and Honegger's Joan of Arc at the Stake starring Marion Cotillard; 28 World Premieres; a tribute to Boulez and Stucky during the 2016 NY PHIL BIENNIAL; The Nielsen Project; the Verdi Requiem and Bach's B-minor Mass; the score from 2001: A Space Odyssey,performed live to film; Mahler's Resurrection Symphony on the tenth anniversary of 9/11; performing violin in Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time; and ten tours around the world.

Conductor laureate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and former principal guest conductor of Hamburg's NDR Symphony Orchestra, Alan Gilbert regularly conducts leading orchestras around the world. This season he returns to the foremost European orchestras, including the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Munich Philharmonic, Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw, and Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. He will record Beethoven's complete piano concertos with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and Inon Barnatan, and conduct Gershwin's Porgy and Bess at Milan's Teatro alla Scala, his first time leading a staged opera there. He made his acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut conducting John Adams's Doctor Atomic in 2008, the DVD of which received a Grammy Award, and he conducted Messiaen's Des Canyons aux étoiles on a recent album recorded live at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Mr. Gilbert is Director of Conducting and Orchestral Studies at The Juilliard School, where he holds the William Schuman Chair in Musical Studies. His honors include Honorary Doctor of Music degrees from The Curtis Institute of Music (2010) and Westminster Choir College (2016), Columbia University's Ditson Conductor's Award (2011), election to The American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2014), a Foreign Policy Association Medal for his commitment to cultural diplomacy (2015), Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2015), and New York University's Lewis Rudin Award for Exemplary Service to New York City (2016).

A multiple Grammy Award winner, Kansas-born mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato has earned international prominence in operas by Rossini, Handel, and Mozart, and serves the community as an arts advocate. Ms. DiDonato's 2016-17 plans include a season-opening gala concert with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ludovic Morlot. She also gives concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Riccardo Muti and the Berlin Philharmonic with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, as well as a recital with Philippe Jordan in Paris. On the opera stage, she makes her role debut as Rossini's Semiramide in a new production at the Bavarian Staatsoper conducted by Michele Mariotti; she also appears as Handel's Ariodante on tour with the English Concert and Harry Bicket; Dido in Berlioz's Les Troyens with John Nelsons in Strasbourg; and Sesto in Mozart's La clemenza di Tito with Yannick Nézet-Séguin in Baden-Baden. Ms. DiDonato also makes her Off-Broadway debut in White Rabbit Red Rabbit, the internationally acclaimed play by Nassim Soleimanpour. The mezzo-soprano's most recent recording release is In War & Peace: Harmony Through Music; the November 2016 release is accompanied by a 20-city international tour that poses the question: in the midst of chaos, how do you find peace? Her acclaimed discography also includes the Grammy Award-winning Diva Divo, Drama Queens, ReJoyce!, and Stella di Napoli (Erato/Warner Classics). Other honors include the Gramophone Artist of the Year and Recital of the Year awards, three ECHO Klassik Awards for Female Singer of the Year, induction into the Gramophone Hall of Fame, and Best Female Singer of the Year at the 2016 Premios Líricos Teatro Campoamor. In-demand on the concert and recital circuit, she has recently held residencies at Carnegie Hall and at London's Barbican Centre; toured extensively in South America, Europe, and Asia; and appeared as guest soloist at the BBC's Last Night of the Proms. Joyce DiDonato made her New York Philharmonic debut in January 2006 as part of an all-Mozart program led by then Music Director Lorin Maazel; most recently she sang Ravel's Shéhérazade with the Orchestra on the EUROPE / SPRING 2015 tour, led by Alan Gilbert.

Born in São Paulo, baritone Paulo Szot has appeared with many leading opera companies throughout Europe, the United States, and his native Brazil. In 2008 he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of Emile De Beque in the Broadway revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific at Lincoln Center Theater. In the current season, Mr. Szot sings Don Alfonso in a new production of Mozart's Così fan tutte at Paris Opéra, and performs a solo recital in Madrid as a salute to Antônio Carlos Jobim. He also returns to Feinstein's 54 Below in New York City for a series of solo performances, and creates the roles of Alexander Hamilton, Bill Clinton, and Dick Cheney in the World Premiere of Mohammed Fairouz's The New Prince at Dutch National Opera. Highlights from previous seasons include Mr. Szot's critically acclaimed debut at The Metropolitan Opera as Kovalev in Shostakovich's The Nose, and his returns there as Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen, Lescaut in Massenet's Manon, Dr. Falke in R. Strauss's Die Fledermaus, and the Captain in John Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer. Mr. Szot has also sung the role of Kovalev at Rome Opera, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte for his Paris Opéra debut, Filippov in Alexander Raskatov's A Dog's Heart at Milan's Teatro alla Scala, Escamillo for his San Francisco Opera debut, Sharpless in Puccini's Madama Butterfly at Marseille's Opera Municipal, the title role in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin with Opera Australia, and Almaviva in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. He has also appeared at Carnegie Hall with Deborah Voigt and the Collegiate Chorale, and the New York Pops Orchestra. Paulo Szot made his New York Philharmonic debut alongside Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, and Kelli O'Hara in the April 2009 Spring Gala, New York Moments, conducted by Marvin Hamlisch. Most recently, he appeared with the Philharmonic in An Enchanted Evening with Paulo Szot, the June 2013 Spring Gala directed and conducted by Ted Sperling, and also featuring Megan Hilty, Marin Mazzie, and Billy Stritch.