FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 27, 2017
Contact: Katherine E. Johnson
(212) 875-5700; [email protected]
NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC SPRING GALA
BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S
Academy Award®–Winning Score Performed LIVE TO FILM
Led by Assistant Conductor JOSHUA GERSEN
May 11, 2017
Iconic New York City Film Presented as Part of
Philharmonic’s 175th Anniversary Season Celebration
The New York Philharmonic’s annual Spring Gala will feature a complete screening of the New
York–based film Breakfast at Tiffany’s with the Orchestra performing Henry Mancini’s Academy
Award®–winning score live to the film, led by Assistant Conductor Joshua Gersen and featuring
The Symphony Singers, led by Judith Clurman. Mr. Gersen replaces Justin Freer, who has
withdrawn due to unforeseen circumstances. The performance takes place Thursday, May 11, 2017,
at 7:30 p.m.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s director Blake Edwards asked Henry Mancini, a longtime friend, to write the
score following the composer’s Grammy wins for the music for Peter Gunn and Mr. Lucky, two
television shows Edwards created. The Breakfast at Tiffany’s sound track comprises 12 original
compositions, including “The Big Blowout” and “Moon River,” the film’s unofficial theme song.
The film won two Academy Awards®: Best Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture and Best
Original Song for “Moon River,” which the American Film Institute deemed the fourth most
memorable song in Hollywood history. The film’s star, Audrey Hepburn, wrote to Mancini after she
first saw the film with the music: “A movie without music is a little bit like an aeroplane without
fuel. However beautifully the job is done, we are still on the ground and in a world of reality. Your
music has lifted us all up and sent us soaring.”
The New York Philharmonic performed “Moon River” for the first time on its 2006 New Year’s
Eve concert featuring Audra McDonald, led by Ted Sperling; most recently the Orchestra
performed an instrumental arrangement of “Moon River” as an encore during its 2014 Bravo! Vail
summer residency, led by Bramwell Tovey.
Based on Truman Capote’s novella of the same name, Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a romantic comedy
starring Audrey Hepburn as socialite Holly Golightly and George Peppard as her neighbor Nick, a
writer.
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This performance is part of the New York Philharmonic’s 175th anniversary season celebrations, in
which the Philharmonic is showcasing its hometown through full screenings of quintessential New
York films accompanied by live performances of their acclaimed scores. This season’s THE ART
OF THE SCORE: Film Week at the Philharmonic featured West Side Story and Manhattan.
The Spring Gala Co-Chairs are Diane and Paul Guenther, Anna Khoruzhenko and Peter Gross, and
Phoebe and Bobby Tudor. The Honorary Gala Chair is Ginny Mancini. The 175th Anniversary
Chair is Daisy M. Soros. For information about the Gala, which includes a pre-concert reception,
concert, and post-concert seated dinner on the Grand Promenade, please call the Office of Special
Events at (212) 875-5755, or email [email protected].
Artists
Joshua Gersen, music director of the New York Youth Symphony since September 2012, began
his tenure as New York Philharmonic Assistant Conductor in September 2015. A graduate of the
Curtis Institute of Music, he studied conducting with Otto-Werner Mueller and was the John S. and
James L. Knight Foundation Conducting Fellow of the New World Symphony, where he served as
assistant conductor to artistic director Michael Tilson Thomas and led subscription, education, and
family concerts. Mr. Gersen made his conducting debut with the San Francisco Symphony in the
fall of 2013; he has since led that orchestra numerous times, including filling in for Michael Tilson
Thomas on part of a subscription series. Joshua Gersen was the principal conductor of the Ojai
Music Festival in 2013; has conducted the Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and Jacksonville symphony
orchestras; and has served as a cover conductor for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and many other
orchestras throughout the United States. Winner of a Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance
Award, he is also a recipient of the 2010 Robert Harth Prize and 2011 Aspen Conducting Prize from
the Aspen Summer Festival, where he served as assistant conductor in the summer of 2012. Mr.
Gersen is also an avid composer, and his works have been performed by the New Mexico and
Greater Bridgeport Symphony Orchestras as well as the Greater Bridgeport Youth Orchestra and at
New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall. He received his bachelor of music degree in composition
from the New England Conservatory, studying with Michael Gandolfi. Mr. Gersen’s work as a
composer has led to an interest in conducting contemporary music; he has led World Premieres with
the New World Symphony and New York Youth Symphony, and has collaborated with many
composers including John Adams, Christopher Rouse, Steven Mackey, Mason Bates, and Michael
Gandolfi. Since becoming an Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Joshua Gersen
has led the Orchestra in 17 Young People’s Concerts and Young People’s Concerts for Schools.
The Symphony Singers is a newly formed professional chorus made up of singers who perform as
soloists in oratorio, opera, and chamber music. Members of the ensemble have performed with
musical director Judith Clurman in various projects over three decades. Under her direction, they
have presented the choral classics of the European tradition as well as premiered and recorded
music by Milton Babbitt, William Bolcom, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Jennifer Higdon, Aaron
Jay Kernis, David Ludwig, Nico Muhly, Arvo Pärt, Stephen Paulus, Ned Rorem, Virgil Thomson,
and Shulamit Ran. They have also premiered and recorded works by Broadway composers Marvin
Hamlisch, Sheldon Harnick, Joshua Schmidt, and Stephen Schwartz. They have been heard under
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her direction with The New York Concert Singers, as part of Lincoln Center’s Great Performers
series and the Mostly Mozart Festival, on Live From Lincoln Center, with the American
Composer’s Orchestra and Orchestra of St. Luke’s on Carnegie Hall’s subscription series, and on
The Composer Speaks series at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music. In addition, they
collaborated with her and the Sesame Street Muppets in Lincoln Center’s Tree Lighting and the
Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular on NBC. These performances mark the New York
Philharmonic debut of The Symphony Singers. Emmy and Grammy-nominated Judith Clurman is
the musical director for the Symphony Singers and Essential Voices USA, collaborates with The
New York Pops on its Carnegie Hall subscription series, and conducts The Composer Speaks series.
She has worked with the New York Philharmonic and commissioned new works by more than 60
American composers. Ms. Clurman conducted the World Premiere of a newly discovered canon text
by Mozart for Lincoln Center’s Mozart Bicentennial, and a Bernstein arrangement of Gershwin’s
Rhapsody in Blue at Harvard University’s Bernstein Festival. As an educator, she served as director
of choral activities at The Juilliard School from 1989 to 2007, and now teaches on the faculty of the
Manhattan School of Music. She has been a visiting artist / teacher at the University of Cambridge,
Harvard University, Curtis Institute of Music, Princeton University, Janáček Academy of Music and
Performing Arts, and the NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Classical Music and Opera. Her music
and arrangements are published by G. Schirmer and Schott, and she has recorded for New World
and Sono Luminus.
***
Citi. Preferred Card of the New York Philharmonic.
***
Emirates is the Official Airline of the New York Philharmonic.
***
Programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural
Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New
York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York
State Legislature.
Tickets
Single tickets start at $55. Limited availability. Tickets may be purchased online at nyphil.org or by
calling (212) 875-5656, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday; 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Saturday; and noon to 5:00 p.m. Sunday. Tickets may also be purchased at the David Geffen Hall
Box Office. The Box Office opens at 10:00 a.m. Monday through Saturday, and at noon on Sunday.
On performance evenings, the Box Office closes one-half hour after performance time; other
evenings it closes at 6:00 p.m. To determine ticket availability, call the Philharmonic’s Customer
Relations Department at (212) 875-5656. (Ticket prices subject to change.)
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For information about the Spring Gala, which includes a pre-concert reception, concert, and postconcert seated dinner on the Grand Promenade, please call the Office of Special Events at (212)
875-5755, or email [email protected].
For press tickets, call Lanore Carr in the New York Philharmonic Communications Department at
(212) 875-5714, or email her at [email protected].
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SPRING GALA: BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S
New York Philharmonic
David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center
Thursday, May 11, 2017, 7:30 p.m.
Joshua Gersen, conductor
The Symphony Singers*, chorus
Judith Clurman, director
MANCINI
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (score performed live to complete film)
* denotes New York Philharmonic debut
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ALL PROGRAMS SUBJECT TO CHANGE
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