More Information About Soprano Susan Graham and Saint-Saëns' Organ Symphony

Description

Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham began the 2009–10 season performing Ravel’s Shéhérazade at Japan’s Saito Kinen Festival. Other appearances include Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony; a return to The Metropolitan Opera for her signature role of Octavian in R. Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier; Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra led by Nicholas McGegan; and Lyric Opera of Chicago for Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust as Marguerite — a role she performed at The Met last season. She also appears with the Houston Grand Opera in the title role of Handel’s Xerxes.

Ms. Graham is a leading participant in the international Christoph Willibald Gluck opera revival, and has sung the title role of Iphigénie en Tauride in a new production staged for her by The Metropolitan Opera, and at Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. At home and abroad she has sung leading roles from the 17th to 20th centuries. She created the part of Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking for San Francisco Opera, and leading roles in two Metropolitan Opera world premieres: An American Tragedy by Tobias Picker and The Great Gatsby by John Harbison. Her numerous recordings include a survey of a century of French song, titled Un frisson français, with pianist Malcolm Martineau, and La Mort de Cléopatre by Berlioz, recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic and Simon Rattle (EMI Classics). Her disc of Charles Ives songs with pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard won a Grammy Award, and she received both a Grammy nomination and France’s Maria Callas Award for her portrayal of Dido in Dido and Aeneas.

Born in New Mexico and raised in Texas, Susan Graham studied at Texas Tech University and the Manhattan School of Music. She won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and the Schwabacher Award from San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program, as well as a Career Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation. Ms. Graham last appeared with the New York Philharmonic for a nationally televised New Year’s Eve concert on December 31, 2008, conducted by Lorin Maazel.

About the Ticket Supplier: New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic is by far the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, and one of the oldest in the world. Founded in 1842 by a group of local musicians led by American-born Ureli Corelli Hill, the Orchestra currently plays some 180 concerts a year. On December 18, 2004, the Philharmonic gave its 14,000th concert--a milestone unmatched by any other orchestra in the world.

Alan Gilbert began his tenure as Music Director in September 2009, the latest in a distinguished line of musical giants that has included Lorin Maazel (2002-09); Kurt Masur (Music Director from 1991 to the summer of 2002; named Music Director Emeritus in 2002); Zubin Mehta (1978-91); Pierre Boulez (1971-77); and Leonard Bernstein, who was appointed Music Director in 1958 and given the lifetime title of Laureate Conductor in 1969.

Since its inception, the Orchestra has championed the new music of its time, giving the first performances of many important works such as Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, "From the New World"; Rachmaninoff 's Piano Concerto No. 3; Gershwin's Concerto in F; and Copland's Connotations, in addition to the U.S. premieres of works such as Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. 8 and 9, and Brahms's Symphony No. 4. This pioneering tradition has continued to the present day, with works of major contemporary composers regularly scheduled each season. John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls, written in memory of September 11, 2001, and commissioned by the New York Philharmonic with Lincoln Center's Great Performers, received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Music; a CD of the work, performed in concert by the Orchestra in 2002, was released on Nonesuch in August 2004, and garnered three Grammy awards.

The roster of composers and conductors who have led the Philharmonic includes such historic figures as Theodore Thomas, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Antonin Dvork, Gustav Mahler (Music Director, 1909-11), Otto Klemperer, Richard Strauss, Willem Mengelberg (Music Director, 1922-30), Wilhelm Furtwngler, Arturo Toscanini (Music Director, 1928-36), Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Bruno Walter (Music Advisor, 1947-49), Dimitri Mitropoulos (Music Director, 1949-58), Klaus Tennstedt, George Szell (Music Advisor, 1969-70), and Erich Leinsdorf.

The Philharmonic's remarkable achievements in radio, television, and other media have helped shape communications history. In 1922 the Philharmonic became one of the first orchestras to broadcast a live concert, and its coast-to-coast radio broadcast of 1930 was the first of its kind. In addition, the Philharmonic undertakes a diversified touring schedule each season to share its music with new audiences around the world. From its first tour in 1882, through the 2004-05 season, the Orchestra has performed in 416 cities in 57 countries on five continents.

Television and the Internet have further expanded the Philharmonic's audiences. For more than 20 years, the Orchestra regularly telecast its legendary Young People's Concerts, most of them led by Leonard Bernstein; and, since 1976, the frequent annual appearances of the Philharmonic on PBS's Emmy Award-winning Live From Lincoln Center have made it one of the most "watched" orchestras in the world. In 1999 the Philharmonic launched the hugely popular and award-winning Kidzone, an interactive Website for children and educators alike, and in 2002, a unique initiative in the orchestra world began the streaming of live radio broadcasts for a period of two weeks following the performance, bringing the Philharmonic to a worldwide audience through its Website.

Since 1917 the Philharmonic has recorded nearly 2,000 albums; more than 500 recordings are currently available. In February 2003, the Orchestra was honored by The Recording Academy with a Trustees Award in recognition of its outstanding contributions to the industry and American culture. Members of the Philharmonic also performed on the 45th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony, televised internationally from New York's Madison Square Garden--the first time that a major symphony orchestra had performed live on the Grammy Awards.