PITTSBURGH—Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Music Director Manfred Honeck returns to Avery Fisher Hall to lead the New York Philharmonic in a program featuring violinist Augustin Hadelich on May 28-30. This will be Honeck’s fourth appearance with the New York Philharmonic.
Honeck will conduct the orchestra in a program including the Die Fledermaus Overture by J. Strauss II, Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5, Turkish, and Brahms Symphony No. 4. Honeck returns to New York following debuts with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In December, at the request of Pope Francis, Honeck performed at the Vatican during the Christmas Eve Mass. The latest CD release from Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Bruckner No. 4, was released in February on the Fresh! Label from Reference Recordings. The previous release, Dvořák 8, was nominated for a Grammy Award. Honeck’s next guest appearances following New York include the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and Verbier Festival Orchestra in July and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Schleswigt-Holstein Musik Festival in August.
Hadelich will rejoin Honeck for his Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra debut on September 25-27, performing Brahms’ Concerto in D major for Violin and Orchestra, in Pittsburgh.
The concerts are 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 28, 2 p.m. on Friday, May 29 and 8 p.m. on Saturday, May 30. An open rehearsal will be held on May 28 at 9:45 a.m. More information about, or tickets for, this concert can be found at nyphil.org.
Manfred Honeck has served as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra since the 2008-2009 season. After two extensions, his contract now runs until the end of the 2019-2020 season. To great acclaim, Honeck and his orchestra perform regularly for European audiences. Since 2010, annual tour performances have led them to numerous European music capitals and major music festivals, including Rheingau Musik Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, Musikfest Berlin, Grafenegg Festival, Lucerne Festival and the BBC Proms. Several recordings, amongst them Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, which won a 2012 International Classical Music Award, are available on Japanese label Exton. Honeck’s successful work with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is now captured by Reference Recordings. The first SACD — of Strauss tone poems — was released in fall 2013 and received rave reviews. The second recording, of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8 and the Symphonic Suite from Janaček’s opera Jenüfa, conceptualized by Honeck himself, followed in summer 2014 and received a Grammy Award nomination. Several additional recordings are completed, and Bruckner No. 4 was released in February 2015 to high critical praise. Born in Austria, Honeck received his musical training at the Academy of Music in Vienna. Many years of experience as a member of the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra and at the helm of the Vienna Jeunesse Orchestra have given his conducting a distinctive stamp. He began his career as assistant to Claudio Abbado in Vienna. Subsequently, he was engaged by the Zurich Opera House, where he was bestowed the prestigious European Conductor’s Award in 1993. Other early stations of his career include Leipzig, where he was one of three main conductors of the MDR Symphony Orchestra and Oslo, where he assumed the post of music director at the Norwegian National Opera on short notice for a year and was engaged as principal guest conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra for several years. From 2000 to 2006, he was music director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm and, from 2008 to 2011, principal guest conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he has resumed for another three years at the beginning of the 2013-2014 season. As a guest conductor, Honeck has worked with leading international orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Staatskapelle Dresden, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Accademia di Santa Cecilia Rome and the Vienna Philharmonic. Orchestras he conducted in the United States include New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra and Boston Symphony Orchestra. He also is a regular guest at the Verbier Festival. In February 2013, he had his successful debut with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the direct result of which was a CD recording together with Anne-Sophie Mutter (works of Dvořák). The current season sees returns to Bamberg, Stuttgart, Rome and New York as well as to the Vienna Symphony (a CD of works by the Strauss family was released in summer 2013) and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. He also will conduct Tonhalleorchester Zürich and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, amongst others. Honeck has received honorary doctorates from St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., and, most recently, from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He has been artistic director of the “International Concerts Wolfegg” in Germany for more than 15 years.
Violinist Augustin Hadelich’s recent debuts include the Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Festival, Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the symphonies of Baltimore, San Francisco, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, New Jersey, St. Louis, Seattle and Toronto, as well as concerts and a tour of China with the San Diego Symphony. Abroad, he has performed with BBC Philharmonic in Manchester and the SWR Orchestra in Stuttgart, among others. A gifted recitalist, Hadelich has appeared at Carnegie Hall, The Frick Collection in New York, the Kennedy Center, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Vancouver Recital Society, the Louvre and Kioi Hall in Tokyo. In June 2013, Hadelich made his first major orchestral CD, recording the violin concertos of Jean Sibelius and Thomas Adès (Concentric Paths) with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu, released in spring 2014 on Avie Records. Hadelich has recorded three previous CDs for Avie, as well as several discs for Naxos. The 2006 Gold Medalist of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, Hadelich is the recipient of Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award (2012), an Avery Fisher Career Grant (2009) and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship in the U.K. (2011). Hadelich plays on the 1723 “Ex-Kiesewetter” Stradivari violin, on loan from Clement and Karen Arrison through the generous efforts of the Stradivari Society.
Editors Please Note:
Thursday, May 28, 7:30 p.m. (Open Rehearsal at 9:45 a.m.)
Friday, May 29, 2 p.m.
Saturday, May 30, 8 p.m.
“MOZART AND BRAHMS”
AVERY FISHER HALL, NEW YORK, NY
NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC
MANFRED HONECK, conductor
AUGUSTIN HADELICH, violin
Strauss II:
Die Fledermaus Overture
Mozart:
Violin Concerto No. 5, Turkish
Brahms:
Symphony No. 4
