This evening, Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin will lead musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra and the choristers of the Philadelphia Singers at a performance being held at the 69th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The orchestra will perform the U.S. premiere of Wang Ning’s “Ode to Humanity,” arranged by Ke-Chia Chen, in collaboration with the Shenzhen International Culture Exchange Association. Pianist Lang Lang, a United Nations Messenger of Peace, will serve as the concert’s emcee. Philadelphia Orchestra musicians performing at the U.N. are Associate Concertmaster Ying Fu; Associate Principal Second Violin Paul Roby; violinists Hirono Oka and Philip Kates; violists Judy Geist and Anna Marie Ahn Petersen; Principal Cello Hai-Ye Ni; Acting Assistant Principal Cello John Koen; Associate Principal Flute David Cramer; oboist Jonathan Blumenfeld; Principal Bassoon Daniel Matsukawa; and horn player Jeffry Kirschen. The 7:15 p.m. performance will be webcast on the United Nations website http://webtv.un.org, and will also be broadcast in New York on UNTV Channel 150 on Time Warner Cable. The Philadelphia Orchestra served as the United States’ first cultural ambassador to China in 1973, and has returned there frequently. The orchestra’s May-June 2014 China tour was its first under Nézet-Séguin’s leadership.
Posted September 22, 2014
