In the June 16 issue of New York magazine, Justin Davidson reviews the New York Philharmonic’s recent Biennial: “With this first 11-day immersion in new and newish music, the orchestra has done what all orchestras should do, step outside its safe hall and start fomenting some change. By promising to repeat the experiment in 2016, the Philharmonic and its music director Alan Gilbert have turned themselves into a force of permanent revolution.… The festival spread out across Manhattan.… Christopher Rouse, Matthias Pintscher, and Steven Mackey supplied big orchestral blowouts, and Julia Wolfe recalled the lethal sufferings of Pennsylvania coal miners in the agonized rumblings of Anthracite Fields, for the Bang-on-a-Can All-Stars and chorus. Pintscher also conducted ‘Beyond Recall,’ a varied set of sweeping responses to large-scale public sculptures in Salzburg.… The Biennial was [Alan Gilbert’s] baby, and its success suggests that a healthy self-examination is going on backstage at Avery Fisher Hall.… The Philharmonic’s leadership has clearly internalized the fact that an orchestra is not just a crew of musicians assembled to deliver the megaliths of the musical repertoire; it’s an elastic organization whose assets include curiosity and clout.”
Posted June 18, 2014
