FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 17, 2015 Contact: Katherine E

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 17, 2015
Contact: Katherine E. Johnson
(212) 875-5718; johnsonk@nyphil.org
NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC TO RETURN TO BRAVO! VAIL
FOR 13th-ANNUAL SUMMER RESIDENCY, JULY 24–31, 2015
Music Director Alan Gilbert To Lead Three Programs
Bramwell Tovey and Joshua Weilerstein Also To Conduct
Soloists To Include
Violinist Midori, Cellist Alisa Weilerstein,
Pianists Jon Kimura Parker and Anne-Marie McDermott,
Acting Concertmaster Sheryl Staples, Principal Viola Cynthia Phelps,
Soprano Julia Bullock, and Tenor Ben Bliss
New York Philharmonic Musicians To Perform Chamber Concert
The New York Philharmonic will return to Bravo! Vail in Colorado for the Orchestra’s 13thannual summer residency there, featuring six concerts July 24–31, 2015, as well as a chamber
music concert performed by Philharmonic musicians. Music Director Alan Gilbert will conduct
three programs, July 29–31, including an all-American program and works by Mendelssohn,
Mahler, Mozart, and Shostakovich. The other Philharmonic concerts, conducted by Bramwell
Tovey (July 24 and 26) and former New York Philharmonic Assistant Conductor Joshua
Weilerstein (July 25), will feature works by Grieg, Elgar, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and
Richard Strauss, among others. The soloists appearing during the Orchestra’s residency are
pianists Jon Kimura Parker and Anne-Marie McDermott, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, violinist
Midori, soprano Julia Bullock and tenor Ben Bliss, and Acting Concertmaster Sheryl Staples and
Principal Viola Cynthia Phelps. The New York Philharmonic has performed at Bravo! Vail each
summer since 2003.
Alan Gilbert will lead the concert on Wednesday, July 29, featuring Mendelssohn’s Violin
Concerto, with Midori as soloist, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. On Thursday, July 30, he will
lead an all-American program: Barber’s The School for Scandal Overture; Copland’s
Appalachian Spring Suite; Leroy Anderson’s Fiddle-Faddle; Rodgers’s The Carousel Waltz;
Bernstein’s West Side Story Concert Suite No. 1, performed by soprano Julia Bullock and tenor
Ben Bliss; Gershwin’s Lullaby; and Sousa’s The Liberty Bell. Alan Gilbert will also conduct the
program on Friday, July 31, featuring Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante for Violin and Viola, with
Acting Concertmaster Sheryl Staples and Principal Viola Cynthia Phelps as soloists, and
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10.
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Bramwell Tovey will return for his 12th summer with the New York Philharmonic at Vail to
conduct two programs. The first, which opens the residency on Friday, July 24, will feature
Mendelssohn’s Fingal’s Cave Overture; Grieg’s Piano Concerto, with Jon Kimura Parker; and
Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme, Enigma. He will also conduct the concert on Sunday,
July 26, featuring Berlioz’s Le Corsaire Overture; Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of
Paganini, with Anne-Marie McDermott as soloist; J. Strauss II’s Emperor Waltz; and R.
Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier Suite.
Former Philharmonic Assistant Conductor Joshua Weilerstein returns to the Orchestra to conduct
a concert featuring his sister, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, on Saturday, July 25. The program
features Verdi’s La forza del destino Overture; Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme for
Cello and Orchestra, with Ms. Weilerstein as soloist; and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6,
Pathétique.
In addition, on Tuesday, July 28, Philharmonic violinist Kerry McDermott, Associate Principal
Viola Rebecca Young, Associate Principal Cello Eileen Moon, Principal Clarinet Anthony
McGill, and Principal Horn Philip Myers will join pianist Anne-Marie McDermott in a program
comprising Beethoven’s Sonata for Horn and Piano, Op. 17; Bartók’s Contrasts for Clarinet,
Violin, and Piano; and, in its first Bravo! Vail performance, Dohnányi’s Sextet for Piano,
Strings, and Winds, Op. 37, as part of Bravo! Vail’s chamber music series.
Bravo! Vail was founded by John Giovando and violinist Ida Kavafian; pianist Anne-Marie
McDermott became artistic director in 2011, and John Giovando is currently serving as interim
executive director of the festival. All New York Philharmonic concerts will be performed in the
Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater and will start at 6:00 p.m.; the chamber concert featuring
Musicians from the New York Philharmonic will be held at the Donovan Pavilion and will also
start at 6:00 p.m.
About the Artists
Music Director Alan Gilbert began his New York Philharmonic tenure in September 2009, the
first native New Yorker in the post. He and the Philharmonic have introduced the positions of
The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence, The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-inResidence, and the Artist-in-Association; 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. As New York magazine wrote, “The Philharmonic and its
music director Alan Gilbert have turned themselves into a force of permanent revolution.”
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; Verdi’s Requiem; a staging of Honegger’s Joan of Arc at the Stake
featuring Oscar winner Marion Cotillard; World Premieres; a CONTACT! program; and Yo-Yo
Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. 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 —
and presides over the EUROPE / SPRING 2015 tour. Last season’s highlights included the
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inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL; Mozart’s final three symphonies; the score from 2001: A Space
Odyssey alongside the film; a staging of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd starring Bryn Terfel and
Emma Thompson; and the ASIA / WINTER 2014 tour.
Mr. Gilbert is Director of Conducting and Orchestral Studies and holds the William Schuman
Chair in Musical Studies at The Juilliard School. Conductor laureate of the Royal Stockholm
Philharmonic Orchestra and principal guest conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Symphony Orchestra,
he regularly conducts leading orchestras around the world. He made his acclaimed Metropolitan
Opera debut conducting John Adams’s Doctor Atomic in 2008, the DVD of which received a
Grammy Award. Renée Fleming’s recent Decca recording Poèmes, on which he conducted,
received a 2013 Grammy Award. His recordings have received top honors from the Chicago
Tribune and Gramophone magazine. In May 2010 Mr. Gilbert received an Honorary Doctor of
Music degree from The Curtis Institute of Music and in December 2011, 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.
Grammy and Juno award–winning conductor/composer Bramwell Tovey was appointed music
director of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) in 2000, since conducting complete
symphony cycles of Beethoven, Mahler, and Brahms; establishing an annual festival dedicated to
contemporary music; and touring China, South Korea, Canada, and the United States. Mr. Tovey
is also the artistic adviser of the VSO School of Music, a state-of-the-art facility and recital hall
in downtown Vancouver. In 2018, the VSO’s centenary year, he will become the orchestra’s
music director emeritus. In the 2014–15 season he makes guest appearances with orchestras
across the globe including The Philadelphia Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, and the Kansas City,
Helsingborgs, Melbourne, and Sydney symphony orchestras. Bramwell Tovey won the 2003
Juno Award for Best Classical Composition for his choral and brass work Requiem for a
Charred Skull. He has been commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and Los Angeles
Philharmonic (Urban Runway, 2008), as well as the Toronto Symphony and Calgary Opera, the
latter of which premiered his first full-length opera, The Inventor, in 2011 (a recording featuring
the VSO, UBC Opera, and original cast will be issued by Naxos). His trumpet concerto, Songs of
the Paradise Saloon, was recently performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and soloist
Alison Balsom, who reprised it with The Philadelphia Orchestra in December 2014. As a pianist,
Mr. Tovey has appeared with ensembles including the Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Toronto, and Royal
Scottish National orchestras. In the summer of 2014 he played and conducted Gershwin’s
Rhapsody in Blue at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and in Saratoga
with The Philadelphia Orchestra. He has performed his own Pictures in the Smoke with the
Melbourne and Helsingborg Symphony Orchestras and the Royal Philharmonic. Mr. Tovey was
music director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (1989–2001), where he founded the
organization’s New Music Festival, and of Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg (2002–
06), leading tours of Europe, the U.S., China, and South Korea. A fellow of the Royal Academy
of Music in London and Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, he holds honorary degrees
from the universities of British Columbia, Manitoba, Kwantlen, and Winnipeg. In 2013 he was
appointed an Honorary Officer of the Order of Canada for services to music. Bramwell Tovey
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made his Philharmonic debut in October 2000 and his subscription debut in March 2002; his
many returns has included conducting and hosting the Summertime Classics series and appearing
during the Orchestra’s annual residency at Bravo! Vail.
Joshua Weilerstein, who last year completed a three-year appointment as Assistant Conductor
of the New York Philharmonic, is artistic director designate of the Orchestre de Chambre de
Lausanne, and will begin his tenure in the 2015–16 season. Born into a musical family, his career
was launched when he won the Malko Competition for Young Conductors in 2009. He has
rapidly become one of the most sought-after young conductors in the world; with a repertoire
ranging from Gesualdo to Rouse, he is committed to opening up the traditional classical
repertoire to new audiences, enlivening and broadening concert-going and creating a natural
dialogue between musicians and their public. In the 2014–15 season Mr. Weilerstein makes
debuts with the Mahler Chamber, Deutsches Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin, Orchestre
Philharmonique de Radio France, and the Dallas Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Los Angeles
Chamber, National Arts Center (Ottawa), and NHK Symphony (Tokyo) orchestras. In addition to
returning to the BBC Symphony, Danish Radio, Oslo Philharmonic, Florida, and Vancouver
Symphony orchestras, among others, he takes the Orchestre philharmonique de Luxembourg on
a seven-city concert tour of Germany, including performances in Munich and Cologne. He also
returns to the New England Conservatory of Music, his alma mater, where he received dual
Master of Music degrees in 2011 (in orchestral conducting with Hugh Wolff, and in violin with
Lucy Chapman). Joshua Weilerstein believes in the fundamental importance and value of music
education. During his time as the New York Philharmonic’s Assistant Conductor he was heavily
involved in Young People’s Concerts, and he also served as Concertmaster of Discovery
Ensemble, a Boston-based chamber orchestra dedicated to presenting classical music to innercity schools in Boston. While still in his teens he established a close link with the Orquesta
Sinfónica Simón Bolívar (a product of the famed El Sistema music program in Venezuela) as the
ensemble’s first non-Venezuelan guest violinist, and then as conductor in 2010 and 2012. Joshua
Weilerstein made his Philharmonic debut leading an October 2011 Young People’s Concert; he
most recently conducted a Young People’s Concert in April 2014.
Pianist Jon Kimura Parker has performed with The Philadelphia Orchestra and Wolfgang
Sawallisch in Carnegie Hall, toured Europe with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Andre
Previn, shared the stage with Jessye Norman at Berlin’s Philharmonie, and jammed with Audra
McDonald, Bobby McFerrin, and Doc Severinsen. A Canadian ambassador of music, Mr. Parker
has given command performances for Queen Elizabeth II, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the
Prime Ministers of Canada and Japan. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, his country’s
highest civilian honor. He has toured remote areas including the Canadian Arctic as a member of
the outreach project Piano Plus, and performed in war-torn Sarajevo in 1995 as an AmeriCares
ambassador. He hosted Bravo! Canada’s Whole Notes series and CBC Radio Two’s Up and
Coming, and Concerto Chat, on his YouTube channel, promotes the piano concerto repertoire.
John Kimura Parker studied with Edward Parker and Keiko Parker, Lee Kum-Sing at the
Vancouver Academy of Music and the University of British Columbia, Marek Jablonski at the
Banff Centre, and Adele Marcus at The Juilliard School. Mr. Parker teaches at The Shepherd
School of Music at Houston’s Rice University and has lectured at Juilliard, The Steans Institute,
New York University, and Yale University. This season he debuts his new project Off The Score
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with legendary Police drummer Stewart Copeland; performs with the Knoxville, Memphis,
Houston, Hangzhou, and Taipei symphony orchestra; tours with the Montrose Trio; and appears
with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Mr. Parker’s recent disc, Rite, includes
world premiere recordings of his solo piano transcriptions of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and
Petrushka; he also celebrated the centenary of these works with solo performances and lectures.
His new CD, Fantasy, features Schubert and Schumann fantasies, as well as William Hirtz’s
Wizard of Oz Fantasy. He previously appeared with the Philharmonic in July 2007 for a
Summertime Classics performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue conducted by Bramwell
Tovey.
Cellist Alisa Weilerstein is the recipient of a 2011 MacArthur Fellowship. An exclusive
recording artist for Decca Classics, her label debut, featuring Elgar’s and Elliott Carter’s cello
concertos with Daniel Barenboim and the Berlin Staatskapelle, was named BBC Music
magazine’s Recording of the Year 2013. On her second Decca release Ms. Weilerstein plays
Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, which she reprises with the New York Philharmonic and Christoph
von Dohnányi in these performances. Upcoming orchestral highlights also include Elgar with
Dallas, Milwaukee, Stuttgart, and Tokyo’s NHK symphony orchestras, and The Cleveland
Orchestra, London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, and Netherlands Philharmonic, as well as Haydn
on a German tour with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Shostakovich with England’s
Hallé Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall. In
recitals in Boston and Aspen and at London’s Wigmore Hall she performs repertoire from Solo,
her new Decca compilation of unaccompanied 20th-century cello music. The album’s
centerpiece is Kodály’s Sonata, a signature work that she also performs on the sound track of If I
Stay, a 2014 feature film in which she makes a cameo appearance as herself. Ms. Weilerstein’s
career milestones include Elgar’s Cello Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic under Barenboim
in Oxford, England, and a performance at the White House for the President and Mrs. Obama.
An ardent champion of new music, she has worked with Osvaldo Golijov and Matthias Pintscher
and premiered works by Lera Auerbach and Joseph Hallman. She appears at major music
festivals worldwide, and regularly collaborates with Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar Symphony
Orchestra and the El Sistema education program. Her honors include Lincoln Center’s 2008
Martin E. Segal prize and the 2006 Leonard Bernstein Award. She is a graduate of the Cleveland
Institute of Music and Columbia University. Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, she is a Celebrity
Advocate for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. She made her Philharmonic debut in
the summer of 2002 performing Saint Saëns’s Cello Concerto No. 1 during the Concerts in the
Parks; she most recently appeared in December 2014 performing Dvořák’s Cello Concerto,
conducted by Krzysztof Urbański.
Since her debut at the age of 11 with the New York Philharmonic 32 years ago, violinist Midori
has established a record of achievement which sets her apart as a master musician, innovator, and
champion of the developmental potential of children. In 1992 she founded Midori & Friends, a
non-profit organization in New York which brings music education programs to underserved
New York City schoolchildren in every borough each year. Two other organizations, the Japanbased Music Sharing and the U.S.-based Partners in Performance, also bring music closer to the
lives of people who may not otherwise have involvement with the arts. Her commitment to
community collaboration and outreach is further realized in her Orchestra Residencies Program.
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In performance Midori appears in recital, chamber music, and concerto performances worldwide.
Last season her extensive catalogue of CDs grew with two new recordings — one of which
received a Grammy — and this season she will record Peter Eötvös’s DoReMi, written for her,
with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by the composer. Other notable
events this season include three residencies: at Ravinia, where she served as soloist with the
Chicago Symphony and as faculty member at the Steans Institute; at the Lucerne Festival, where
she was named Artiste Étoile and played the World Premiere of a new violin concerto composed
for her by Johannes Maria Staud; and at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, featuring recitals of new music
and standard repertoire, a special concert for seniors, and a concert featuring four violin
concertos in a single program. Midori continues her position as Distinguished Professor of Violin
and Jascha Heifetz Chair at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music.
Zubin Mehta led Midori in a movement from Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 1 for her
Philharmonic debut — a surprise addition to the December 1982 New Year’s Eve concert; her
most recent appearance was for the New York Premiere of Eötvös’s DoReMi, led by Alan
Gilbert, during the June 2014 NY PHIL BIENNIAL.
For more than 25 years Anne-Marie McDermott has played concertos, recitals, and chamber
music in hundreds of cities throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. She also serves as
artistic director of the Bravo! Vail and Ocean Reef music festivals, and is curator for chamber
music at the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego. In the 2015–16 season she will premiere a
concerto written for her by Poul Ruders. Charles Wuorinen’s most recent solo piano sonata,
written for her and which she recorded, was premiered at New York’s Town Hall. In 2013 she
released a disc of Mozart concertos with the Calder Quartet. Most recently she recorded five
Haydn piano sonatas and two Haydn concertos with Denmark’s Odense Philharmonic, including
two cadenzas written by Wuorinen. In the summer of 2014 Ms. McDermott performed Mozart’s
Concerto No. 27 with The Philadelphia Orchestra led by Donald Runnicles, Bach’s D-minor
concerto with members of The Philadelphia Orchestra, and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5
with the New York City–based Le Train Bleu. In 2014–15 she returns engagement to the
Vancouver and Dallas Symphony Orchestras. In 2013 she toured the West Coast with awardwinning violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and the New Century Chamber Orchestra, and
performed the complete Beethoven piano trios with Ida Kavafian and Peter Wiley as well as the
complete Beethoven cello sonatas with Lynn Harrell. Anne-Marie McDermott has collaborated
with many other leading orchestras, including the Minnesota Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber
Orchestra, and Australian Chamber Orchestra. She is a longtime member of The Chamber Music
Society of Lincoln Center, with whom she performs and tours extensively each season, and tours
as a member of OPUS ONE. Ms. McDermott has previously collaborated with New York
Philharmonic musicians in chamber music nine times, beginning in 1989; she made her concerto
debut with the Orchestra performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9, Jeunehomme, in March
1997, conducted by Christian Thielemann; her most recent solo appearance with the Orchestra
was at Bravo! Vail in July 2012, when she performed Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 2, led
by Bramwell Tovey.
Equally at home with opera and concert repertoire, soprano Julia Bullock won first prizes in the
2012 Young Concert Artists International Auditions and the 2014 Naumburg International Vocal
Competition. This season, she gives recitals at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston;
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National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.; and San Francisco Performances;
and she appears in the New York Festival of Song’s Harlem Renaissance program, the Mondavi
Center’s Rising Stars of Opera, and as soloist with the New World Symphony. She sang the title
role in Purcell’s The Indian Queen, directed by Peter Sellars, at the Teatro Real in Madrid and
the Perm Opera House in Russia, and reprises the role at English National Opera this season. Ms.
Bullock has performed the title roles in the Juilliard Opera productions of Massenet’s Cendrillon
and Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen. She toured South America as Pamina in Peter Brook’s
award-winning production of Mozart’s A Magic Flute, as well as China, singing with the Bard
Music Festival Orchestra. Other opera roles include Susanna in Mozart’s The Marriage of
Figaro, Monica in Menotti’s The Medium, and the title role in Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges.
In 2013 she made her San Francisco Symphony debut in Bernstein’s West Side Story, conducted
by Michael Tilson Thomas; an album of the concert is available on the orchestra’s label. Festival
appearances include at the Ojai, Marlboro, and Caramoor festivals. Ms. Bullock earned her
bachelor’s degree from the Eastman School of Music, and her master’s degree from Bard
College’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program. She is currently pursuing her artist diploma with Edith
Bers at The Juilliard School. She will have made her New York Philharmonic performing
Bernstein’s West Side Story Concert Suite No. 1, led by Alan Gilbert in June 2015 during the
Concerts in the Parks, Presented by Didi and Oscar Schafer.
American tenor Ben Bliss is a recent graduate of The Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young
Artist Development Program. He received the Mozart and Plácido Domingo awards at the 2015
Francisco Viñas International Competition in Barcelona, as well as second place overall. Other
honors include receiving First Prize in the 2014 Gerda Lissner and Licia Albanese-Puccini
Foundation competitions; a Sara Tucker and Sullivan Foundation grant; abd being the 2013
Operalia Don Plácido Domingo Sr. Zarzuela prizewinner. In the 2015–16 season Mr. Bliss
returns to The Metropolitan Opera as Belmonte in Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio,
conducted by James Levine, and will make his European debut in the same role with
Glyndebourne Festival on tour. He also returns as a principal artist to Los Angeles Opera, where
he will appear as Tamino in Mozart’s The Magic Flute and make his Santa Fe Opera debut as
Flamand in Riachard Strauss’s Capriccio. While in the Lindemann program, Ben Bliss made his
Met stage debut as Vogelgesang in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnburg, conducted by
Levine. In May 2014 he was tapped to fill in as Ferrando in the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s
production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte led by Gustavo Dudamel. Other recent engagements
include Haydn’s The Creation at the Cincinnati May Festival, conducted by James Conlon, and
Belmonte in The Abduction from the Seraglio at Des Moines Metro Opera. As a member of Los
Angeles Opera’s Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program, Mr. Bliss appeared in
Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, Barbarigo in Verdi’s I due Foscari, and the Male Chorus in
Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia with the Colburn Orchestra under James Conlon. He has been the
tenor soloist for Bach’s Magnificat with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; J.S. Bach’s St.
Matthew Passion with the La Jolla Symphony; and, in his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut,
Bach’s Cantata No. 60 conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.
Violinist Sheryl Staples joined the New York Philharmonic as Principal Associate
Concertmaster, The Elizabeth G. Beinecke Chair, in September 1998 and currently serves as
Acting Concertmaster, The Charles E. Culpeper Chair. She made her solo debut with the
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Philharmonic in 1999 performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, led by then Music Director
Kurt Masur, and has since been featured in concertos by Mendelssohn, Mozart, Haydn, Bach,
and Vivaldi with conductors including Alan Gilbert, Lorin Maazel, and Colin Davis. She has
performed as soloist with more than 40 other orchestras nationwide, including The Cleveland,
Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Diego and Richmond Symphony, and Louisiana Philharmonic
orchestras. Previously she was the associate concertmaster of The Cleveland Orchestra and
concertmaster of the Pacific Symphony and Santa Barbara Chamber orchestras. Ms. Staples
frequently performs chamber music in the New York area in venues including Avery Fisher Hall,
Merkin Concert Hall, 92nd Street Y, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has performed
chamber music for U.S. Ambassadors in London, Paris, Berlin, Beijing, and Hong Kong, and in
2013 she toured Mexico, Brazil, and Chile. Ms. Staples has participated in the La Jolla, Boston,
Salt Bay, Santa Fe, Mainly Mozart, and Aspen chamber music festivals. She appears on three
Stereophile compact discs with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Currently she is on faculty
at The Juilliard School working with students aspiring toward orchestral careers. Ms. Staples and
her husband, percussionist Barry Centanni, premiered William Kraft’s Concerto a Tre for piano,
violin, and percussion (written for them, at Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society’s
summer festival and recorded for release on the Albany Records label in 2008) and David
Sampson’s Black River Concerto (for solo violin, percussion, and orchestra in April 2011 with
the Montclair State University Symphony). Ms. Staples performs on the “Kartman” Guarneri del
Gesu, c. 1728, previously on loan from private collector Peter Mandell and now in the collection
of the New York Philharmonic. She and Principal Viola Cynthia Phelps performed Mozart’s
Sinfonia concertante for Violin and Viola with the Philharmonic in November 2014, led by
David Zinman.
Cynthia Phelps is the New York Philharmonic’s Principal Viola, The Mr. and Mrs. Frederick P.
Rose Chair. Highlights of her solo appearances with the Orchestra have included performances
on the 2006 Tour of Italy, sponsored by Generali, performances of Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante
in 2010 and 2014, and Sofia Gubaidulina’s Two Paths, which the Orchestra commissioned for
her and Philharmonic Associate Principal Viola Rebecca Young and which they premiered in
1999 and reprised both in New York and on tour, most recently in Avery Fisher Hall
performances in 2011. Other solo engagements have included the Minnesota Orchestra, San
Diego Symphony, Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao, and Hong Kong Philharmonic. Ms. Phelps
performs with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Jupiter Chamber Players, and the
Santa Fe, La Jolla, Seattle, Chamber Music Northwest, and Bridgehampton festivals. She has
appeared with the Guarneri, Tokyo, Orion, American, Brentano, and Prague Quartets, and the
Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. She has given recitals in the major music capitals of Europe
and the U.S. She is also a founding member of the chamber group Les Amies, a flute-harp-viola
group recently formed with Philharmonic Principal Harp Nancy Allen and flutist Carol Wincenc.
Ms. Phelps is a first-prize winner of both the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition and
the Washington International String Competition, and is the recipient of the Pro Musicis
International award. Under the auspices of this philanthropic organization, she has appeared as
soloist in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Rome, and Paris, as well as in jails, hospitals, and
drug rehabilitation centers worldwide. Her most recent recording, Air, for flute, viola, and harp
on Arabesque, was nominated for a Grammy Award. Her television and radio credits include
Live From Lincoln Center on PBS; St. Paul Sunday Morning on NPR; Radio France; Italy’s
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RAI; and WGBH in Boston. Ms. Phelps has served on the faculties at The Juilliard School and
the Manhattan School of Music. She and Acting Concertmaster Sheryl Staples performed
Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante for Violin and Viola with the Philharmonic in November 2014,
led by David Zinman.
About the New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic plays a leading cultural role in New York City, the United States,
and the world. This season’s projects will connect the Philharmonic with up to 50 million music
lovers through live concerts in New York City and on its worldwide tours; digital downloads;
international broadcasts on television, radio, and online; and as a resource through its wide range
of education programs. The Orchestra has commissioned and/or premiered works by leading
composers from every era since its founding in 1842 — including Dvořák’s New World
Symphony, Copland’s Connotations, and John Adams’s Pulitzer Prize–winning On the
Transmigration of Souls, dedicated to the victims of 9/11. Renowned around the globe, the
Philharmonic has appeared in 432 cities in 63 countries — including the groundbreaking 1930
tour of Europe; the unprecedented 1959 tour to the USSR; the historic 2008 visit to Pyongyang,
D.P.R.K., the first there by an American orchestra; and the Orchestra’s debut in Hanoi, Vietnam,
in 2009. The New York Philharmonic serves as a resource for its community and the world. It
complements its annual free concerts across the city with a wide range of education programs —
among them the famed, long-running Young People’s Concerts and Philharmonic Schools, an
immersive classroom program that reaches thousands of New York City students. Committed to
developing tomorrow’s leading orchestral musicians, the Philharmonic has established the New
York Philharmonic Global Academy, partnerships with cultural institutions at home and abroad
to create projects that combine performance with intensive training by Philharmonic musicians.
These include collaborations with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and Shanghai Conservatory
of Music as well as Santa Barbara’s Music Academy of the West. The oldest American
symphony orchestra and one of the oldest in the world, the New York Philharmonic has made
almost 2,000 recordings since 1917, including several Grammy Award winners, and its selfproduced download series continues in the 2014–15 season. Music Director Alan Gilbert began
his tenure in September 2009, succeeding a distinguished line of 20th-century musical giants that
includes Leonard Bernstein, Arturo Toscanini, and Gustav Mahler.
About Bravo! Vail
Bravo! Vail, Colorado’s premier international six-week summer music festival, brings worldrenowned musicians to venues throughout Eagle County each season and draws guests from
around the world. The only festival in North America to host three of the world’s finest
orchestras in a single season, Bravo! Vail celebrates its 28th season July 1–August 6, 2015,
under the direction of artistic director Anne-Marie McDermott and founder and interim executive
director John Giovando. The 2015 season features residencies by the New York Philharmonic,
The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, with popular concerto artists
plus a wide array of stellar chamber music performances.
***
Official lodging for the New York Philharmonic while at Bravo! Vail is provided by Antlers at
Vail, Manor Vail Lodge, and the Vail Marriott Mountain Resort and Spa.
(more)
Bravo! Vail / 2
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Programs are supported, in part, by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural
Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the
New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the
New York State Legislature.
***
Tickets
Packages for Bravo! Vail, on sale beginning February 17, start at $201 for Pavilion seating with
Fixed Packages (six specially curated selections of three orchestral concerts each at special
package pricing). Concertgoers can also purchase a Full Amphitheater Package, which starts at
$1,094 for Pavilion seating to all 17 orchestral concerts.
Green Passes, offering lawn access to all 17 orchestral concerts, will also be on sale beginning
February 17. Early Bird rates for Green Passes are valid through June 2. Early Bird pricing: $170
for adults, $85 for students.
All single tickets for Bravo! Vail will be on sale to the general public starting April 13, with the
exception of the Soirée Series, which is available only to Bravo! Vail Donors of $3,000-plus
prior to May 15. Single tickets start at $29; children 12 and under pay only $5 for lawn
admittance to all orchestral concerts at the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater.
Tickets are available from the Bravo! Vail Box Office at the Bravo! Vail website, bravovail.org,
or (877) 812-5700. Box Office hours are 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (MDT), Monday through Friday.
See attached schedule.
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More information is available at nyphil.org/vail
What’s New — Get the Latest News, Video, Slideshows, and More
Photography is available in the New York Philharmonic’s online newsroom, nyphil.org/newsroom,
or by contacting the Communications Department at (212) 875-5700; PR@nyphil.org.
(more)
2015 New York Philharmonic Residency at Bravo! Vail
Concert Schedule
Date
Location/Artists
Program
Friday,
July 24
6:00 p.m.
Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater
Bramwell Tovey, conductor
Jon Kimura Parker, piano
MENDELSSOHN: Fingal’s Cave Overture
GRIEG: Piano Concerto
ELGAR: Variations on an Original Theme, Enigma
Saturday,
July 25
6:00 p.m.
Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater
Joshua Weilerstein, conductor
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
VERDI: La forza del destino Overture
TCHAIKOVSKY: Variations on a Rococo Theme for
Cello and Orchestra
TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 6, Pathétique
Sunday,
July 26
6:00 p.m.
Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater
BERLIOZ: Le Corsaire Overture
Bramwell Tovey, conductor
RACHMANINOFF: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Anne-Marie McDermott, piano J. STRAUSS II: Emperor Waltz
R. STRAUSS: Der Rosenkavalier Suite
Tuesday,
July 28
6:00 p.m.
Chamber Music Concert
BEETHOVEN: Sonata for Horn and Piano, Op. 17
Donovan Pavilion
BARTÓK: Contrasts for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano
Musicians from the New York DOHNÁNYI: Sextet for Piano, Strings, and Winds,
Philharmonic
Op. 37 (Bravo! Vail Premiere)
Anne-Marie McDermott, piano
Wednesday,
July 29
6:00 p.m.
Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater
Alan Gilbert, conductor
Midori, violin
MENDELSSOHN: Violin Concerto
MAHLER: Symphony No. 5
Thursday,
July 30
6:00 p.m.
Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater
Alan Gilbert, conductor
Julia Bullock, soprano
Ben Bliss, tenor
BARBER: The School for Scandal Overture
COPLAND: Appalachian Spring Suite
ANDERSON: Fiddle-Faddle
RODGERS: The Carousel Waltz
BERNSTEIN: West Side Story Concert Suite No. 1
GERSHWIN: Lullaby
SOUSA: The Liberty Bell
Friday,
July 31
6:00 p.m.
Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater
Alan Gilbert, conductor
Sheryl Staples, violin
Cynthia Phelps, viola
MOZART: Sinfonia concertante for Violin and Viola
SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 10
ALL INFORMATION SUBJECT TO CHANGE