BREAKING! Alan Gilbert to Step Down as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, 2017

After eight seasons with the New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert will step down as music director in 2017, the orchestra said.

In an interview, Mr. Gilbert said, "It's become clear that the next chapter, logically, has to carry the organization through to the opening of the hall, which is at the earliest 2021. It's a wonderful atmosphere, which of course I will be sorry to leave. But as I've thought about it, the next logical step - it's just longer than I want to stay around. It's actually that simple."

New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert began his tenure in September 2009. The first native New Yorker to hold the post, he has sought to make the Orchestra a point of pride for the city and country. As New York magazine wrote, "The Philharmonic and its music director Alan Gilbert have turned themselves into a force of permanent revolution."

Mr. Gilbert and the Philharmonic have forged artistic partnerships, introducing the positions of The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence and The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence, held in the 2014-15 season by Christopher Rouse and violinist Lisa Batiashvili, respectively, as well as the new position of Artist-in-Association, inaugurated by Inon Barnatan this season; an annual festival, which this season is Dohnányi / Dvo?ák; CONTACT!, the new-music series; and the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, an exploration of today's music by a wide range of contemporary and modern composers inaugurated in spring 2014.

In the 2014-15 season Alan Gilbert conducts the U.S. Premiere of Unsuk Chin's Clarinet Concerto, a Philharmonic co-commission, alongside Mahler's First Symphony; La Dolce Vita: The Music of Italian Cinema with Joshua Bell, Renée Fleming, and Josh Groban; Verdi's Requiem; a staging of Honegger's Joan of Arc at the Stake featuring Oscar winner Marion Cotillard; World Premieres by John Adams, Peter Eötvös, and Christopher Rouse; works by contemporary Nordic composers during CONTACT!; and the Silk Road Ensemble and Yo-Yo Ma's 15th-anniversary celebration. He concludes The Nielsen Project, the multi-year initiative to perform and record the Danish composer's symphonies and concertos, the first release of which was named by The New York Times as among the Best Classical Music Recordings of 2012. The Music Director presides over the EUROPE / SPRING 2015 tour with stops including London, featuring Giants Are Small's theatrical reimagining of Stravinsky's ballet Petrushka as part of the Orchestra's second International Associate residency at the Barbican Centre; Cologne, where he leads the World Premiere of Peter Eötvös'sSenza sangue, a Philharmonic co-commission; and returns to Dublin and Paris.

Last season's highlights included the inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL; Mozart's three final symphonies; the U.S. Premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage's Frieze coupled with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony; World Premieres; an all-Britten program celebrating the composer's centennial; the score from 2001: A Space Odyssey as the film was screened; the ASIA / WINTER 2014 tour; and a staged production of Sondheim's Sweeney Todd starring Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson. High points of Mr. Gilbert's first four Philharmonic seasons included the critically celebrated productions of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre (2010) and Janá?ek's The Cunning Little Vixen (2011) - both cited as the top cultural events of their respective years - as well asPhilharmonic 360 at Park Avenue Armory (2012), the acclaimed spatial music program featuring Stockhausen's Gruppen, andA Dancer's Dream: Two Ballets by Stravinsky (2013, and later presented in movie theaters internationally). Other highlights included World Premieres of works by Magnus Lindberg, John Corigliano, Christopher Rouse, and composers featured onCONTACT!; Mahler's Second Symphony, Resurrection, on A Concert for New York on September 10; Mr. Gilbert's Philharmonic debut as violin soloist in J.S. Bach's Concerto for Two Violins; five concerts at Carnegie Hall; six tours to Europe; and the Asia Horizons tour.

Conductor laureate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and principal guest conductor of Hamburg's NDR Symphony Orchestra, he regularly conducts leading orchestras nationally and internationally, such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestra della Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. He has appeared at The Metropolitan, Los Angeles, Zurich, Royal Swedish, and Santa Fe opera companies. In 2014-15 he conducts the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra's season-opening concerts and on tour in Lucerne, Berlin, and London; Mozart's Don Giovanni at The Metropolitan Opera; and The Philadelphia, Munich Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, and NDR Symphony orchestras.

In September 2011 Alan Gilbert became Director of Conducting and Orchestral Studies at The Juilliard School, where he is also the first holder of Juilliard's William Schuman Chair in Musical Studies. He made his acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut in 2008 leading John Adams's Doctor Atomic; the DVD and Blu-ray of this production received the 2012 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording. Renée Fleming's recent Decca recording Poèmes, on which he conducted, received a 2013 Grammy Award. Earlier releases garnered Grammy Award nominations and top honors from the Chicago Tribune and Gramophonemagazine.

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." In 2014 he was elected to The American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Photo Credit: Chris Lee