Alan Gilbert - New York Philharmonic, Conductor and Music Director Designate

Photo Credit: Chris Lee

In the 2009–10 season Alan Gilbert will become Music Director of the New York Philharmonic as well as the first to hold the William Schuman Chair in Musical Studies at The Juilliard School, in which he will coach, conduct, and give master classes. Highlights of his 2008–09 New York Philharmonic season included two concerts as part of the citywide Bernstein festival, spearheaded by the Philharmonic and Carnegie Hall — the November 14, Bernstein anniversary concert at Carnegie Hall, and a performance with the Juilliard Orchestra, presented by the Philharmonic, featuring Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3, Kaddish; Peter Lieberson’s The World in Flower, a World Premiere–New York Philharmonic Commission; and returns to the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic.

In June 2008 Mr. Gilbert was named conductor laureate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, following his eight-and-a-half-year tenure as its chief conductor and artistic advisor. He has been principal guest conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Symphony Orchestra since 2004, and regularly conducts other leading orchestras around the world. In 2003 he was named the first music director of Santa Fe Opera. Born and raised in New York City, Mr. Gilbert studied at Harvard University, The Curtis Institute, and The Juilliard School, and was an assistant conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra (1995–97). In November 2008 he made his acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut conducting John Adams’s Dr. Atomic. His recording of Prokofiev’s Scythian Suite with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance.