CARNEGIE HALL OPENS 2010–2011 SEASON
WITH
GALA BENEFIT CONCERT
BY THE VIENNA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA, LED BY
NIKOLAUS HARNONCOURT,

ON WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 AT 7:00 PM

All-Beethoven Program Includes Symphony No. 7
And Piano Concerto No. 1 Featuring Lang Lang as Soloist

Carnegie Hall opens its 2010–2011 season with a gala benefit concert featuring the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra led by Nikolaus Harnoncourt on Wednesday, September 29 at 7:00 p.m. in Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage. The all-Beethoven program includes Symphony No. 7 in A Major as well as the Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, featuring guest soloist Lang Lang.

The Opening Night Gala event is co-chaired by Mr. and Mrs. Sid R. Bass, Mr. and Mrs. Oscar de la Renta, and Dr. and Mrs. Thomas P. Sculco. For the seventh consecutive season, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP is the Opening Night Gala sponsor. The gala benefits Carnegie Hall’s artistic and education programs and includes a gala dinner at The Waldorf=Astoria’s Grand Ballroom following the concert. Gala benefit tickets—priced at $5000, $2500, and $1500—include premiere concert seating and the post-concert dinner at The Waldorf=Astoria. Benefit tickets, priced at $800, include the concert and a pre-concert cocktail reception, which begins at 5:30 p.m. in Carnegie Hall’s Rohatyn Room. All gala benefit tickets are available by calling 212-903-9679.

A limited number of concert-only tickets, priced at $62, $77, $102, $143, $198, and $220 will be available starting August 30 at the Carnegie Hall Box Office, by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800, or online at carnegiehall.org.

Following their Opening Night performance, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra returns to Carnegie Hall for three additional concerts throughout the weekend. On Thursday, September 30 at 8:00 p.m., Mr. Harnoncourt again leads the orchestra, conducting Smetana’s Má Vlast. Maestro Gustavo Dudamel takes to the podium on Saturday, October 2 at 8:00 p.m., leading works by Rossini, Bernstein, and Ravel. Mr. Dudamel and the orchestra wrap up their New York visit with a performance on Sunday, October 3 at 2:00 p.m., featuring Schumann’s Cello Concerto with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was last here in January of this year.

Artist Information
Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt joined the Vienna Symphony Orchestra as a cellist in 1952. A year later, he founded the Concentus Musicus Wien ensemble together with his wife, Alice, to provide a forum for his increasingly intensive work with period instruments and Renaissance and baroque musical performance traditions. From 1972, Mr. Harnoncourt taught performance practice and the study of historical instruments at the Mozarteum University of Music and Dramatic Arts in Salzburg, while at the same time enjoying growing success as an opera conductor. His career as a conductor of both orchestral works and opera encompasses Viennese classicism, the Romantic repertoire and works from the twentieth century. With the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and the Vienna and Berlin philharmonic orchestras, Mr. Harnoncourt constantly reinterprets and rediscovers the grand repertoire of orchestral works: the concertos and symphonies of Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Dvořák and Bruckner, but also the works of Bela Bartók and Alban Berg. Today, he is one of the few true stars among conductors worldwide. Performances like the New Year’s Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra enable him to reach an audience of millions, displaying the characteristic passion and fiery intensity that identify him, first and foremost, as a true servant of his art.

Pianist Lang Lang began playing piano at the age of three and gave his first public recital at the age of five. Since then, he has become an international phenomenon, playing sold out recitals and concerts in cities around the world. He was the first Chinese pianist to perform with the Vienna and Berlin philharmonic orchestras as well as many top American orchestras. In 2008, Lang Lang performed in the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. His influence and status in China has helped to inspire over 35 million Chinese children to learn to play piano—a phenomenon dubbed by NBC’s The Today Show as "the Lang Lang effect." Time magazine included Lang Lang in its 2009 list of the "100 Most Influential People in the World." Last season, performances by Lang Lang were among the featured highlights of Carnegie Hall’s Ancient Paths, Modern Voices: A Festival Celebrating Chinese Culture, including the world premiere of Chinese composer Chen Qigang’s piano concerto, “Er Huang.” In February 2010, Lang Lang joined Sony Music Entertainment as exclusive recording artist; his first album with Sony features a live recording of his 2010 recital at Vienna's legendary Musikverein.

There is perhaps no other musical ensemble more consistently and closely associated with the history and tradition of European classical music than the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. In the course of its over 160-year history, the musicians of this most prominent orchestra of the capital city of music have been an integral part of a musical epoch that must certainly be regarded as unique. Since its inception through Otto Nicolai in 1842, the fascination that the orchestra has exercised upon prominent composers and conductors, as well as on audiences all over the world, is based not only on a homogenous musical style carefully bequeathed from one generation to the next, but also on its unique structure and history. The desire to provide artistically worthy performances of the symphonic works of Mozart and Beethoven in their own city led to the decision on the part of the court opera musicians to present a “Philharmonic” concert series independent of their work at the opera, and upon their own responsibility and risk.

With concerts at home and on tour around the world, today’s Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is much more than Austria’s most coveted “cultural export.” The orchestra’s members are considered ambassadors, expressing through their performances the ideals of peace, humanity, and reconciliation with which music is so inseparably bound, and regularly donating services to create events that promote peace through music. Examples of this include the orchestra’s historic performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Sir Simon Rattle in 2000 at Mauthausen, the former site of Austria’s largest concentration camp during World War II; the 2002 concert in New York City’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral in remembrance of victims of terrorism; annual benefits in New York City benefitting the American Austrian Foundation/Salzburg Cornell (Medical Seminars); and, beginning in 1999, the annual donation of partial proceeds from the VPO’s New Years Concerts to a variety of humanitarian organizations. The Vienna Philharmonic, since 2005, has been a Goodwill Ambassador for the World Health Organization, and, in 2006, became a supporter of the "Hear the World" initiative, a hearing awareness campaign. As of November 2008, Rolex is the worldwide presenting sponsor of the Vienna Philharmonic.


Program Information
Wednesday, September 29 at 7:00 p.m.
Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage
VIENNA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
OPENING NIGHT GALA
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Conductor
Lang Lang, Piano

CARNEGIE HALL’S OPENING NIGHT GALA

ALL-BEETHOVEN PROGRAM
Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15
Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92

Opening Night Gala Sponsor: PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP for the seventh consecutive season

Tickets: $62, $77, $102, $143, $198, $220 (limited availability)
Gala Tickets: $5000, $2500, $1500, $800


Bank of America is the Proud Season Sponsor of Carnegie Hall.