Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: Who was the first conductor of the New York Philharmonic?
The New York Philharmonic was founded in 1842 by the American conductor Ureli Corelli Hill, with the aid of the Irish composer William Vincent Wallace. The orchestra was then called the Philharmonic Society of New York.[9][10] It was the third Philharmonic on American soil since 1799,[11] and had as its intended purpose, "the advancement of instrumental music." The first concert of the Philharmonic Society took place on December 7, 1842 in the Apollo Rooms on lower Broadway before an audience of 600. The concert opened with Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, led by Hill himself. Two other conductors, German-born Henry Christian Timm and French-born Denis Etienne, led parts of the eclectic, three-hour program, which included chamber music and several operatic selections with a leading singer of the day, as was the custom. The musicians operated as a cooperative society, deciding by a majority vote such issues as who would become a member, which music would be performed and who among them would conduct. At the end of the season, the players would divide any proceeds among themselves.
Gilbert built much of his reputation conducting contemporary and American music, and his appointment by the Philharmonic marked somewhat of a shift by the orchestra away from his more conservative predecessors Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, and Zubin Mehta. He is the first New York City-born conductor to be named music director of the New York Philharmonic. For his inaugural 2009/10 Philharmonic season, Gilbert introduced a number of new initiatives, including the presence of Composer-in-Residence Magnus Lindberg and Artist-in-Residence Thomas Hampson. The festivals and tours he has introduced include CONTACT – the Philharmonic's new-music series; and a major tour of Asia and the Middle East in October 2009, with debuts in Hanoi and Abu Dhabi. In February 2015, the orchestra announced the scheduled conclusion of Gilbert's tenure as music director at the end of the 2016-2017 season.
In 1909, to ensure the financial stability of the Philharmonic, a group of wealthy New Yorkers led by two women, Mary Seney Sheldon and Minnie Untermyer, formed the Guarantors Committee and changed the Orchestra's organization from a musician-operated cooperative to a corporate management structure. The Guarantors were responsible for bringing Gustav Mahler to the Philharmonic as principal conductor and expanding the season from 18 concerts to 54, which included a tour of New England. The Philharmonic was the only symphonic orchestra where Mahler worked as music director without any opera responsibilities, freeing him to explore the symphonic literature more deeply. In New York, he conducted several works for the first time in his career and introduced audiences to his own compositions. Under Mahler, a controversial figure both as a composer and conductor, the season expanded, musicians' salaries were guaranteed, the scope of operations broadened, and the 20th-century orchestra was created.
EXPO is an orchestral composition by the Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg. It was the first work commissioned by the New York Philharmonic under the conductor Alan Gilbert, and was Lindberg's first commission as the orchestra's composer-in-residence. The piece was first performed on September 16, 2009 at Avery Fisher Hall, New York City, during Alan Gilbert's inaugural concert with the New York Philharmonic. "EXPO" was the first newly commissioned work to open the New York Philharmonic's concert season since the premiere of Aaron Copland's "Connotations" under Leonard Bernstein on September 23, 1962.
Hans-Werner Janssen (1 June 1899 – 19 September 1990) was an American conductor of classical music, and composer of classical music and film scores. He was the first New York born conductor to lead the New York Philharmonic.
Zhang moved to the United States in 1998. She studied for her doctorate in music at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and also served for four years as music director of the university's Concert Orchestra. In 2002, she shared in the first prize of the first Maazel/Vilar Conductors' Competition. She served as a cover conductor with the New York Philharmonic from 2002 to 2004. She became an assistant conductor with the New York Philharmonic in 2004, and her conducting debut with the orchestra was in a Young People's Concert that year. In January 2005, she made her Philharmonic subscription debut in January 2005 on a program shared with Lorin Maazel. Maazel subsequently appointed Xian Zhang as the orchestra's associate conductor in 2005, a post she held for several years.
Another celebrated conductor, Anton Seidl, followed Thomas on the Philharmonic podium, serving until 1898. Seidl, who had served as Wagner's assistant, was a renowned conductor of the composer's works; Seidl's romantic interpretations inspired both adulation and controversy. During his tenure, the Philharmonic enjoyed a period of unprecedented success and prosperity and performed its first world premiere written by a world-renowned composer in the United States – Antonín Dvořák's Ninth Symphony "From the New World". Seidl's sudden death in 1898 from food poisoning at the age of 47 was widely mourned. Twelve thousand people applied for tickets to his funeral at the Metropolitan Opera House at 39th Street and Broadway and the streets were jammed for blocks with a "surging mass" of his admirers.
Bernstein was one of the major figures in orchestral conducting in the second half of the 20th century. He was held in high regard amongst many musicians, including the members of the Vienna Philharmonic, evidenced by his honorary membership; the London Symphony Orchestra, of which he was president; and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, with which he appeared regularly as guest conductor. He was probably the main conductor from the 1960s onwards who acquired a sort of superstar status similar to that of Herbert von Karajan, although unlike Karajan he conducted relatively little opera and part of Bernstein's fame was based on his role as a composer. As the first American-born music director of the New York Philharmonic, his rise to prominence was a factor in overcoming the perception of the time that the top conductors were necessarily trained in Europe.
Gradually, Toscanini's reputation as an operatic conductor of unusual authority and skill supplanted his cello career. In the following decade, he consolidated his career in Italy, entrusted with the world premieres of Puccini's "La bohème" and Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci". In 1896, Toscanini conducted his first symphonic concert (in Turin, with works by Schubert, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner). He exhibited a considerable capacity for hard work, conducting 43 concerts in Turin in 1898. By 1898, Toscanini was Principal Conductor at La Scala, where he remained until 1908, returning as Music Director, from 1921–1929. During this time he collaborated with Alfredo Antonini – a young pianist and organist in La Scala Orchestra.
He brought the La Scala Orchestra to the United States on a concert tour in 1920/21, during which he made his first recordings (for the Victor Talking Machine Company).
Outside Europe, Toscanini conducted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York (1908–1915) as well as the New York Philharmonic (1926–1936). At the end of his season with the Metropolitan Opera in May 1915 Toscanini was set to return to Europe aboard the doomed RMS "Lusitania", but instead cut his concert schedule short and left a week early, apparently aboard the Italian liner "Duca degli Abruzzi". He toured Europe with the New York Philharmonic in 1930. At each performance, he and the orchestra were acclaimed by critics and audiences. Toscanini was the first non-German conductor to appear at Bayreuth (1930–1931), and the New York Philharmonic was the first non-German orchestra to play there. In the 1930s, he conducted at the Salzburg Festival (1934–1937), as well as the 1936 inaugural concert of the Palestine Orchestra (later renamed the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra) in Tel Aviv, later conducting them in Jerusalem, Haifa, Cairo and Alexandria. During his engagement with the New York Philharmonic, Hans Lange, the son of the last Master of the Sultan's Music in Istanbul, who, later, became conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the founder of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra as a professional ensemble, was his concert master.
He was the assistant conductor of the Chicago Civic Orchestra (1933–34) and was both the flute section leader and assistant conductor the Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra from 1943 to 1947. He served as the conductor of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra from 1947 until 1972. He also appeared as guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the orchestras of Rio de Janeiro and Santiago, Chile.
At the request of the New York Philharmonic's then-conductor, Leonard Bernstein, Mensch returned to the Philharmonic in 1966. He remained until 1975, playing under Bernstein and Pierre Boulez. After leaving the Philharmonic, he served as principal bass of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, the New York Chamber Symphony, the New York Choral Society, Little Orchestra Society, and the New York Pops.
From 1983 to 1993, Davis was chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, with whom he developed his concert hall repertoire, including symphonies by Bruckner and Mahler. He was offered but declined the music directorships of the Cleveland Orchestra in succession to Maazel and the New York Philharmonic in succession to Zubin Mehta. As a principal guest conductor he was associated with the Dresden Staatskapelle, which appointed him honorary conductor ("Ehrendirigent") in 1990, the first in the orchestra's 460-year-history, and whose musicians referred to Davis with the nickname "Der Sir". From 1998 to 2003, he was principal guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic.
There were some musicians Judson did not represent. One was the conductor Artur Rodziński. Judson attempted to stop Rodzinski from taking over the Cleveland Orchestra in 1933 (an attempt that failed). Judson succeeded in stopping Rodzinski from taking over the New York Philharmonic in 1936. In 1947, Rodzinski who had finally become the conductor of the New York Philharmonic with Judson's short-term assistance battled with Judson over hiring and programming. Addressing the board, he called Judson (who was present) "a dictator who made musical progress impossible". Rodzinski requested that the orchestra board then choose between himself and Judson The board sided with Judson. Rodzinski also lost his next job as conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra over programming disputes, purportedly due to the influence of Judson.
[[Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts]] is the largest performing arts center in the world. The center is home to twelve resident organizations, including the [[Metropolitan Opera]], [[New York Philharmonic]], [[New York City Ballet]], [[Chamber Music Society]], [[New York City Opera]], [[Juilliard School]], [[Lincoln Center Theater]], and [[Jazz at Lincoln Center]]. The [[New York Philharmonic]], which performs at [[Avery Fisher Hall]], is the oldest orchestra in the United States, founded in 1842. , [[Lorin Maazel]] is the [[conducting|conductor]]. The Philharmonic has made more than 500 recordings since 1917, and was one of the first to broadcast live performances, beginning in 1922. The New York Philharmonic produced celebrated composers such as [[George Frederick Bristow|George Bristow]] and [[Theodore Thomas (conductor)|Theodore Thomas]]. Bristow was a fiercely nationalistic composer who left the Philharmonic because he felt it did not glorify American music adequately, a situation he, and later Thomas, attempted to rectify.
During the Philharmonic's first seven seasons, seven musicians alternated the conducting duties. In addition to Hill, Timm and Étienne, these were William Alpers, George Loder, Louis Wiegers and Alfred Boucher.[12] This changed in 1849 when Theodore Eisfeld was installed as sole conductor for the season.[12] Eisfeld, later along with Carl Bergmann, would be the conductor until 1865. That year, Eisfeld conducted the Orchestra's memorial concert for the recently assassinated Abraham Lincoln, but in a peculiar turn of events which were criticized in the New York press, the Philharmonic omitted the last movement, "Ode to Joy", as being inappropriate for the occasion.[13] That year Eisfeld returned to Europe, and Bergmann continued to conduct the Society until his death in 1876.
The Trombone Concerto is a concerto for trombone and orchestra by the American composer Christopher Rouse. The work was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for its principal trombonist Joseph Alessi. It was completed on April 5, 1991, and was first performed by Alessi and the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Slatkin on December 30, 1992, in Avery Fisher Hall, New York City. The concerto is dedicated to the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, who died suddenly October 14, 1990. In 1993, the work was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Almost a decade after the sports injury, Ozawa won the first prize at the International Competition of Orchestra Conductors in Besançon, France. His success there led to an invitation by Charles Münch, then the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, to attend the Berkshire Music Center (now the Tanglewood Music Center), where he studied with Munch and Pierre Monteux. In 1960, shortly after his arrival, Ozawa won the Koussevitzky Prize for outstanding student conductor, Tanglewood's highest honor. Receiving a scholarship to study conducting with famous Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan, Ozawa moved to West Berlin. Under the tutelage of von Karajan, Ozawa caught the attention of prominent conductor Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein then appointed him as assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic where he served during the 1961–1962 and 1964–1965 seasons. While with the New York Philharmonic, he made his first professional concert appearance with the San Francisco Symphony in 1962.
In 1921 the Philharmonic merged with New York's National Symphony Orchestra (no relation to the present Washington, D.C. ensemble). With this merger it also acquired the imposing Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg. For the 1922/23 season Stránský and Mengelberg shared the conducting duties, but Stránský left after the one shared season. For nine years Mengelberg dominated the scene, although other conductors, among them Bruno Walter, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Igor Stravinsky, and Arturo Toscanini, led about half of each season's concerts. During this period, the Philharmonic became one of the first American orchestras to boast an outdoor symphony series when it began playing low-priced summer concerts at Lewisohn Stadium in upper Manhattan. In 1920 the orchestra hired Henry Hadley as "associate conductor" given specific responsibility for the "Americanization" of the orchestra: each of Hadley's concerts featured at least one work by an American-born composer.[17]
Split is a fantasy for solo piano and orchestra by the American composer Andrew Norman. The work was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for the pianist Jeffrey Kahane. It was first performed in David Geffen Hall, New York City on December 10, 2015, by the New York Philharmonic and Jeffrey Kahane under the conductor James Gaffigan.
He was Concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Principal Concertmaster and Associate Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and Concertmaster and Assistant Conductor of the Louisville Orchestra. 
An acclaimed conductor, Harth was during his career Principal Conductor of the Natal Philharmonic Orchestra in South Africa, and Musical Director of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Northwest Chamber Orchestra of Seattle and the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra.
Thomas was also music director of the New York Philharmonic in 1877-78 and from 1879 to 1891; of the short-lived American Opera Company in New York in 1886; and of the Brooklyn Philharmonic Society 1862 to 1891. He was director of the Cincinnati College of Music from 1878 to 1879, and from 1873 to 1904 the conductor of the biennial May festivals at Cincinnati.
To Theodore Thomas is largely due the popularization of Richard Wagner's works in America, and it was he who founded the Wagner union in 1872.
Leopold Damrosch, Franz Liszt's former concertmaster at Weimar, served as conductor of the Philharmonic for the 1876/77 season. But failing to win support from the Philharmonic's public, he left to create the rival Symphony Society of New York in 1878. Upon his death in 1885, his 23-year-old son Walter took over and continued the competition with the old Philharmonic. It was Walter who would convince Andrew Carnegie that New York needed a first-class concert hall and on May 5, 1891, both Walter and Russian composer Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky conducted at the inaugural concert of the city's new Music Hall, which in a few years would be renamed for its primary benefactor, Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie Hall would remain the orchestra's home until 1962.
The composition was commissioned by Phynea Paroufakis and Peter Paroufakis from Australia for the pianist Roger Woodward, the New York Philharmonic, and conductor Zubin Mehta, who gave it a first performance on 13 November 1986 at the Lincoln Center in New York. The composition was published by Éditions Salabert in 1987.
A former concertmaster of the Philharmonia Virtuosi of New York, a chamber orchestra consisting of leading New York Philharmonic musicians, which he helped to organize, Mr. Ravina was a long time a member of the New York Philharmonic and an active member of the New York Philharmonic Ensembles.
As founder of the Ravina String Quartet, he concertized and recorded in both the United States and Canada and developed special programs for young audiences. Since 1976, he was concertmaster of the Masterwork Orchestra, Masterwork Chamber Orchestra, and St. Cecilia Orchestra.
He also taught chamber music at Dartmouth College and the Waterloo Music Festival, and has performed under almost every major conductor of the last three decades. His solo performances include concerts with the National Orchestral Association of New York, Brooklyn Philharmonia, Westchester Philharmonic, Symphony of the Air, New Philharmonia of New York, and Philharmonia Virtuosi.
For more than eleven seasons, Mr. Ravina was music director and conductor of the Montclair Chamber Ensemble.
A Symphony of Three Orchestras is an orchestra composition by the American composer Elliott Carter. The work was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. It was composed from June through December 1976 and was first performed in New York City on February 17, 1977 by the New York Philharmonic under the conductor Pierre Boulez. The composition is dedicated to Boulez and the New York Philharmonic.