FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 27, 1999

New York Philharmonic and Music Director Kurt Masur Announce Details of 1999 Citibank North America Tour

New York — The New York Philharmonic, under the direction of Music Director Kurt Masur, will embark on the second half of a two-part tour of North America, sponsored by Citibank, June 20 through 26, 1999. Tour stops include The John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., The Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, IL, the new Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science in Sioux Falls, SD, and the Bass Performing Arts Center in Fort Worth, TX. Since 1980, Citibank has sponsored 14 of the Orchestra's tours, supporting performances in 87 different cities and 44 countries. The 1999 tour marks the first time Citibank is sponsoring a New York Philharmonic tour of North America. The New York Philharmonic's North America Tour began in January 1999 with critically acclaimed visits to Palm Desert, Costa Mesa, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, CA, Las Vegas, NV, and Chicago, IL.

          "It's our pleasure to bring this series of international tours home to America," said Nathaniel Sutton, Director of Corporate Communications at Citigroup. "As the most global U.S.-based bank, we're proud to have played a part in bringing the musical artistry of the New York Philharmonic to Citibank communities around the world. And now that we have joined with some of America's most respected financial services names to form Citigroup, it's particularly fitting that the tour this year include stops in American cities."

          Music Director Kurt Masur recently observed, "The New York Philharmonic is without question an orchestra of great virtuosity but more importantly, they play with meaning—a kind of playing that is beyond technical perfection. They play Mozart like the Vienna Philharmonic, Tchaikovsky like a Russian orchestra, and Bernstein, well, like the New York Philharmonic." He added, "This, for me, is why I look forward to the June portion of the North America Tour—because we will have the opportunity to showcase the wide range of talent and understanding that is the New York Philharmonic. From the tradition of the Mahler Symphony No. 1 to the great spirituality of Sofia Gubaidulina's Two Paths, written for our own gifted viola soloists Cynthia Phelps and Rebecca Young, audiences will be left with the impression that this orchestra cannot be easily compared with any other orchestra in the world."

          Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic's Executive Director, added, "Bringing live classical music to audiences all over the country is extraordinarily rewarding for the New York Philharmonic—we get to see, in person, the impact great music can have on people's lives. The North America Tour continues to be a particular pleasure in that respect, and we are truly looking forward to visiting cities from Washington, D.C. to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. As always, we're grateful to Citibank for their consistent support of this mission."

          The New York Philharmonic is by far the nation's oldest symphony orchestra and one of the oldest in the world. Its lengthy history of touring began with its 1882 tour of the United States. There was a celebrated visit to Europe in 1930 led by Arturo Toscanini, and the orchestra's first trip to the former Soviet Union under the direction of conductors Leonard Bernstein, Thomas Schippers and Seymour Lipkin came in 1959. On February 18, 1999, the Orchestra performed its 13,000^th concert—a milestone unmatched by any other orchestra. Currently, the orchestra plays some 150 concerts a year, most of them in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, during the 34 weeks of its subscription season.

Repertoire

Prokofiev, Symphony No. 1: In response to critics' charges of "extreme futurism," Sergei Prokofiev composed the Symphony No. 1, "Classical," one of the earliest examples of Neoclassicism in the 20^th century. Prokofiev began his first symphony in 1916, but did most of the work during the summer of 1917, completing it on September 10^th of that year. He conducted the first performance in Petrograd on April 21, 1918. This brilliant and enduring work takes the "Classical" nickname from its modernized Haydn-Mozart idiom, complete with harmonic dissonances and unexpected rhythmic turns.

Two Paths, Music for Two Solo Violas and Symphony Orchestra, was commissioned from Sofia Gubaidulina by Tomoko Masur, the wife of Philharmonic Music Director Kurt Masur. Mrs. Masur is well acquainted with the instrument, having been a violist with the Orquestra Sinfonica Brasileira in Rio de Janeiro. Though she no longer plays the viola, she nurtures her love for music by performing concerts as a singer. The New York Philharmonic presented the world premiere of Two Paths on April 29 of this year, and these concerts mark its Washington premiere.

Since the commission was for two soloists, Ms. Gubaidulina chose to use two distinct voices to contrast two types of love, as embodied by the biblical Mary and Martha: to love taking upon oneself worldly cares, and to love dedicating oneself to the sublime. The composer provided this comment about Two Paths: "In this composition the orchestra plays the role of the initiator; within it, a series of dramatic situations occur, sometimes highly aggressive and savage. Each of these situations poses questions for the soloists which they must answer. The process of formulating such answers provides the premise of the composition, dictating its form. It presents itself as a chain of variations, during the course of which the relationship of the two solo personas—to each other and to the orchestra-changes."

Beethoven, Symphony No. 7: The New York Philharmonic has always been a leading champion of Beethoven's symphonies. At its very first concert, in 1842, the Orchestra performed the Symphony No. 5, which had been heard in New York only once before. The Philharmonic gave the first performance of the Beethoven Symphony 7 in New York City on November 18, 1843, under the direction of the Orchestra's first Music Director, Urelli Corelli Hill. Notable American premieres followed: the Eighth (1844) and the Ninth (1846). In addition, some of the most renowned Beethoven interpreters have led the Philharmonic, among them Theodore Thomas, Anton Seidl, Gustav Mahler, and Arturo Toscanini. These conductors also programmed their own complete Beethoven cycles with the Orchestra. Kurt Masur is the most recent conductor to perform the complete cycle with the New York Philharmonic, at the opening of the 1998-99 season.

Ravel, Piano Concerto in G major was written between 1929 and 1931, well into the composer's artistic maturity, and only a few years before his death. In his ballets and other large-scale programmatic works, Ravel's inspired evocation of the past and an often intensely coloristic approach to orchestration were prominent earmarks. By contrast, in some of the songs with piano accompaniment and the piano compositions, including the concertos, a sparse economy of means prevailed. The work is inventive and picturesque, but inside the boundaries of what historians have called Ravel's "discipline within freedom."

Mahler, Symphony No. 1: Mahler did most of the work on his Symphony No. 1 in February and March 1888, having begun the project three years earlier. No other piece of Mahler's has so complicated a history; about no other did he change his mind so often and over so long a period. He revised the score extensively on several occasions; the last edition published during Mahler's lifetime is dated 1906. These numerous revisions sometimes appeared with accompanying programmatic names and notes—one of the more familiar is Symphonic Poem, Titan. Between the early performances and the revised publication of the score, however, Mahler turned away from verbal explanations, which he originally thought would create wider understanding of his music, and presented the work as a purely symphonic abstraction.

Artists

Kurt Masur is one of the most widely admired and respected musicians of his generation, well known to orchestras and audiences not only as a distinguished conductor, but also as a humanist. His close and intense collaboration with the New York Philharmonic, where he has been Music Director since 1991, has been marked by a return to a consistently high quality of playing and artistic spirit. He has thus left his hallmark on an Orchestra that felt the diverse influences of Mahler, Toscanini, Bernstein, Boulez, and Mehta in this century. In November 1998 the London Philharmonic Orchestra appointed Maestro Masur its principal conductor, a position he will assume in the 2000-01 season. Prior to opening the New York Philharmonic's 1999-2000 concert season, Maestro Masur is scheduled to conduct the 1999-2000 season opening concerts of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, and the London Philharmonic.

Cynthia Phelps, New York Philharmonic Principal Violist has appeared as soloist with orchestras throughout the world; as a recitalist, she has performed in Paris, Rome, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, New York, London, and Cardiff, Wales. She has been heard on NPR's "St. Paul Sunday Morning" and has been featured on the "MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour," "CBS Sunday Morning," and "Live From Lincoln Center." Ms. Phelps has toured with the Zukerman and Friends Ensemble, and has performed with the Guarneri String Quartet and at music festivals worldwide. She has appeared often as a guest artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Bargemusic, Boston Chamber Music Society, and Chicago Chamber Musicians. Ms. Phelps appeared as soloist with the New York Philharmonic in Strauss' Don Quixote, Bartók's Viola Concerto, Berlioz's Harold in Italy, and Lees' Concerto for String Quartet. She has recorded for the Marlboro Recording Society, Polyvideo, Nuova Era, Virgin Classics, Covenant, and Cala Records labels.

Rebecca Young, New York Philharmonic Associate Principal Violist began her musical studies as a violinist. At age sixteen she switched to viola, and four years later she became the youngest member of the New York Philharmonic. As a student, Ms. Young spent three summers at the Tanglewood Music Festival, returning in 1993 as the Principal Violist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. One of the highlights of her tenure with that orchestra was when she joined Yo-Yo Ma, Seiji Ozawa, and the Boston Symphony as the viola soloist in Strauss's Don Quixote. Ms. Young resumed her Associate Principal position with the Philharmonic in September, 1994. Ms. Young has performed with many chamber music groups, including the Boston Chamber Music Society, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, the New York Philharmonic Ensembles, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She can be heard in Schubert's "Trout" Quintet with Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, Pamela Frank, and Edgar Meyer on the Sony Classical label.

Helen Huang, at age 16 can already look back on an impressive list of engagements with such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Saint Louis Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, National Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Israel Chamber Orchestra, among other ensembles. Born in Japan of Chinese parents in October 1982, she moved to the United States with her family in 1985 and began piano lessons two years later. Within a year she had won her first competition, and several other victories soon followed. In May 1995 she became one of the youngest recipients of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. Miss Huang has developed a close association with Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic, appearing with them each season since her subscription debut in 1995. She joined the orchestra on its 1998 Asian tour for several concerts in Japan and will again tour with the Philharmonic during the summer of 1999 in North America.

For more information, visit the New York Philharmonic's Web site at www.newyorkphilharmonic.org.

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