Jennifer Koh

The New York Times
By Michael Cooper
October 21, 2015
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New York Philharmonic Announces Next Biennial Program

Alan Gilbert will lead alumni of the Lucerne Festival in works by Ligeti and those he influenced in three concerts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Jennifer Koh will play short new works for solo violin by some 30 composers at National Sawdust in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Ilan Volkov will conduct a chamber orchestra of New York Philharmonic musicians in the United States stage premiere of Gerald Barry’s opera “The Importance of Being Earnest” at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

These are among the offerings of the second NY Phil Biennial, a new-music festival that has become one of Mr. Gilbert’s signature achievements as the Philharmonic‘s music director. The orchestra and its partners will spread out across the city from May 23 through June 11 to present works by 74 composers, including many premieres, in a program planned by Mr. Gilbert and Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Philharmonic’s composer in residence.

“Hopefully without being indiscriminate, I’ve approached these biennial planning processes as under the mantra of more is more,’’ Mr. Gilbert said in an interview, in which he spoke of the importance of the orchestra’s partner institutions. “There’s a limit to that, but the idea is to create a kind of whirlwind and maelstrom of enthusiasm and energy, and we literally could not do it alone.”

Mr. Gilbert will lead the Philharmonic in the premieres of works by William Bolcom, John Corigliano, Per Norgard and Mr. Salonen. Other ensembles performing at the festival include Brooklyn Rider, the Knights, and the JACK Quartet.

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