THE NY PHIL STORY: MADE IN NEW YORK

EPISODE 3: From the New World

CONCERT HALL AMBI 

Jamie Bernstein: Sometimes, hearing a new piece of music for the very first time can be a thrilling experience. I remember being fourteen years old and lying on the floor with my friend Lucy as we listened on her grandmother’s stereo to “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” We absolutely knew we were listening to musical history being made.

I’m Jamie Bernstein and this is the NY Phil Story: Made in New York.

It’s not always that clear how new music will be received – especially in a concert hall. Will it be a hit? Or will people throw tomatoes and leave in the middle of the performance? Not even the most celebrated composer can be sure. In those minutes before the conductor raises the baton, that composer may be having shaky thoughts: “Will this be a career-ending embarrassment? Or am I making history? Or worst of all, will everyone go home and just forget about me entirely?” 

Markus Rhoten: We can't really know yet what this piece that we don't understand yet, what it's gonna have in terms of an impact 20, 30 years down the line. Are we playing something that's historic? Is this a historical moment or not? We don't really know.

Jamie Bernstein: Let’s go back to one of those historic moments in the making. It’s in the 1890’s, the so-called Gilded Age.

Greg Young: The Gilded age was this period of unbelievable wealth.

Jamie Bernstein: And so much of that wealth was concentrated in New York City, which in turn attracted artists and musicians from all over – just like today, in fact.

Doug Shadle: So New York City was really one of the most vibrant artistic and musical cities in the world at this time. The sheer variety of music making and artistry of all kinds was very diverse. 

 Jamie Bernstein: But ironically, even as the music was expanding the audience was constricting. It hadn’t always been that way.

Greg Young: When they had shows at the Park Theater, like in whenever pick a year, 1800, it would be divided by class, but the point was, everyone was there to see it. Everyone likes classical music, instrumental music, opera.

My name is Greg Young, the co-host of the Bowery Boys New York City History podcast. 

Greg Young: During the Gilded Age they are in a city which was stratifying its entertainment options. And using those entertainment options basically as a way to show social status, right? 

Greg Young: Kind of a symbol for the wealthy to basically say, look how classy and wealthy and so much like the Europeans we are. Because this is how we surround ourselves. And oh, by the way, look, we are wearing beautiful tuxedos and gorgeous gowns and look how much money we have. So there's just all of this class stuff that gets tied up into, what's basically just an appreciation for music and the fine arts.

Jamie Bernstein: The moneyed classes in New York’s Gilded Age found some notable new ways to express their cultural enthusiasms. For example: In 1887, an alto named Louise happened to marry the biggest steel magnate in the world. During their honeymoon, on a transatlantic trip to Britain, Louise introduced her new husband to Leopold and Walter Damrosch—friends and prominent leaders in the New York musical scene. They convinced him to build a concert venue in the heart of Manhattan, at 57th street and 7th avenue. Andrew Carnegie consented – and named the place after himself. 

From its inception in 1891 and continuing to this very day, Carnegie Hall attracted the music world’s brightest stars. For opening week, the celebrity lineup included Russian composer Tchaikovsky, who was paid nearly a year’s salary for the trouble of conducting[MP1] [GS2] [EN3] . 

And while the Hall attracted big names, the New York Philharmonic remained loyal to their home, the Metropolitan Opera House — even though the acoustics were pretty terrible. They remained, largely, because the Opera House had more boxes for their wealthy patrons than the fledgling Carnegie Hall. However, just one year after Carnegie opened, the old Met Opera experienced a karmic spasm: in the words of the late conductor and composer Howard Shanet, “it obligingly burned down.” 

At which point, the New York Philharmonic made Carnegie Hall their new home–and they stayed all the way till the 1960’s.

But Andrew Carnegie wasn’t the only philanthropist building the classical music scene in New York. 

Doug Shadle: In the mid 1880s a relatively new conservatory of music was founded by a great artistic philanthropist named Jeanette Thurber. 

My name is Douglas Shadle and I’m Associate Professor of Musicology at the Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music.

There were a few conservatories in the United States at this time, but Thurber decided that we really needed one that had international stature. 

And so she set up a conservatory that partnered with an opera company. And the idea was that the conservatory students would then populate the opera company, and it was kind of a one stop shop for culture creation.

Jamie Bernstein: Thurber’s conservatory was called the National Conservatory of Music of America. Founded as a public institution, the Conservatory offered scholarships and opened its doors to students from a wide array of backgrounds. But like all young arts organizations, Thurber’s school struggled early on.

Doug Shadle: Now, the conservatory was in a real lull in the early 1890s and Thurber decided that to juice it up, she could really benefit from having a significant European figure. And so she negotiated with Dvorak, in 1891 to try to pull him, from his home base in Prague and really be a leading light for this version of the conservatory.

Jamie Bernstein: To lure the Czech composer, Thurber offered Antonin Dvorak quite a nice paycheck to sweeten the deal—which he took in 1892. But Thurber didn’t just want him to teach, she also wanted him to compose! And in doing so, to help define what a distinctly American style of classical music would sound like. He would wade into a conversation that had already been going on for a generation.

Doug Shadle: There are several composers who were thinking about, what does it mean for the United States or for Americans to write a classical music that is distinctively American? 

This begins really with a generation before Dvorak with the pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk who was from New Orleans and was thinking about Creole folk songs and how to integrate them into classical music.

Doug Shadle: And of course, again, from a 21st century perspective, it's a really problematic issue because who, who do you include as American? Who do you exclude? And at this time, of course, there were Americans, including American citizens, including people whose families had been here for generations, who were excluded.

Jamie Bernstein: Given the not-so-small task of defining an American style for classical music, he not only drew from earlier composers who had wrestled with this question, he also was introduced to other sources of musical inspiration, including music that would inspire a little something he was working on—his Symphony No. 9 in E minor—a piece that would come to be known as the New World Symphony. 

Doug Shadle: [He] had encountered music by African Americans and not just, whatever popular music was going on, but the repertoire of spirituals and other types of folk music developed by African Americans, both enslaved and free. Dvorak was also acutely aware of Creole folk music, which, has kind of a multiethnic, multiracial origin, in the Caribbean and in New Orleans and that region of the United States. 

Doug Shadle: One of the beauties of composing is that the moment of inspiration can never be demystified because it's hard to say what exactly causes the mind to latch onto something. [But] Dvorak was thinking about all of these types of inspiration and how they might be manifested in a work of his own imagination and creation. He wanted to be inspired by it to breathe the interior of this music so that he could then exhale it, for listeners.

Jamie Bernstein: As Dvorak searched for inspiration, he became the unexpected focus of a hot media debate.

Doug Shadle: In May of 1893, the New York Herald publishes an interview [with Dvorak].

Doug Shadle: So Dvorak says that he believes the foundation of an American classical style should be derived from African American or African derived folk music... period. 

Doug Shadle: This is the dawn of the Jim Crow era where, we see the introduction of all kinds of things like the segregated railcar bills, voter suppression, all of the things that we associate with Jim Crow are finally becoming ensconced in the law around the country, not just in the South, but in other places too.

Doug Shadle: For him to say, with really no equivocation, that black music is American music and will be the foundation of national musical expression, struck many people as an extraordinarily, kind of outside the box expression.

Jamie Bernstein: And newspapers really stoked the fire of this debate, including the New York Herald which was a pretty sensationalist newspaper at the time.

Doug Shadle: I mean, these people would, would be super successful in a social media era, let me tell you. Because they orchestrated a campaign to get people's responses from all over the country, really within a matter of days. And then sort of feed these in very rapid succession to generate further and further discussion about Dvorak's ideas. And this goes on literally to the day of the premiere of the symphony where Dvorak is still giving interviews.

Doug Shadle: The press plays a really central role in giving the public dribs and drabs and droplets of information about what Dvorak is doing.

Doug Shadle: And there is this seven month build to this moment that has appeared in newspapers from New York City to little news briefs in just the tiniest towns in the Western part of the country, or some areas that are not even states yet. Everybody was there, everybody wanted to be there. And so it truly was an event of epic proportions that the press had fed, because of the implications for politics beyond classical music. 

Jamie Bernstein: When the New World Symphony finally premiered in December of 1893, audiences wanted to be there so badly that they stood for hours in the cold, pouring rain just to get a chance to hear what all of the hubbub was about.

MUSIC STARTS

Jamie Bernstein: You hear that crackle?! This recording is from 1917–one of the earliest recordings of the Philharmonic. And playing are some of the very musicians who were THERE, 24 years earlier, at the premiere of the New World Symphony in Carnegie Hall. 

Doug Shadle: The second movement is the most famous, and this is the one that has the English horn theme. 

Doug Shadle: This movement Is really inspired by the voice.

Ryan Roberts: So the moment in the new world symphony for the English horn player, at least, is the famous melody in the second movement.

My name is Ryan Roberts. I play English Horn and oboe with the New York Philharmonic.

Doug Shadle: some people have even speculated that Dvorak chose the English horn for this melody. to imitate the timbre of his student, Harry Burleigh’s voice. Burleigh, for a long time, was his assistant and secretary for the orchestra and frequently sang spirituals for Dvorak.

Jamie Bernstein: Assistant, copyist, and librarian by day, Burleigh sang to Dvorak at night. A brilliant vocalist and composer who would go on to help develop art song in the US, he was an African-American in a predominantly white classical music scene. But Dvorak felt that Burleigh’s expertise, and even his actual voice, were an essential part of the budding American art music tradition.  

[good musical interlude]

This is the NY Phil Story. We’ll be back in a moment.

BREAK

Hey did you miss me? Well, let’s get back to the 1890’s in New York City.

Jamie Bernstein: The New York Philharmonic would eventually premiere Dvorak’s New World Symphony, but it took a little convincing. The Philharmonic administration sent a note requesting that their orchestra premiere the new work. For some reason, Dvorak promptly [ignored it—for months. But that wasn’t the Phil’s only option—their conductor Anton Seidl knew Dvorak because they were both on the faculty of Thurber’s National Conservatory. They regularly lunched together at a German restaurant on 14th street in the East Village—Lüchows. In November of 1893, just a month before the premiere, Seidl pressed his colleague about giving that first performance to the Phil. And while the composer was surly at first—by dessert they had agreed that the New York Philharmonic would premiere Dvorak’s New World Symphony. As for Dvorak, he made good on that agreement… but just in the nick of time.

Ryan Roberts: [When] the Philharmonic premiered the new world symphony, um, Dvorak was actively working on this piece. 

[But] back in the day, they didn't have midi or any way to conceptualize what a piece would sound like. And even the best composers would make a lot of changes. 

Jamie Bernstein: During the rehearsals for the premiere, Dvorak and Seidl both suggested changes. While conducting the second movement, Dvorak commented that Seidl had “pretty much drawn out” the music. But the composer must have liked what he heard, pulling out his manuscript and marking a different tempo for the English horn solo.

Ryan Roberts: And so Dvorak changed the tempo of the second movement from andante to larghetto to largo.

Ryan Roberts: He wanted it heavier and heavier. [And] as the player in the orchestra that has the responsibility of bringing the solo to life, knowing that he really wanted it to feel slow and heavy and, and weighty, was illuminating in a lot of ways .

Doug Shadle: This melody is not itself a spiritual. It has many of the melodic properties of a spiritual, and even the, what we call timbral qualities of the voice: the, the tone color, the sound of the melody, the kind of grittiness of it reflects a singing voice. 

Doug Shadle: And so, in addition to this idea of Harry Burleigh singing a Spiritual, the second movement is very much a love story and one that is about a human encounter. 

Doug Shadle: Dvorak really shows us a kind of transformation over time that ends on a really a transcendent note as everything sort of rises, in the strings to the atmosphere. And then we're sort of brought out of our mystical state by the brass, which both opens and closes the movement.

Jamie Bernstein: On December 16, 1893, it had finally arrived: the event that newspapers around the country had been writing about for months. The premiere of the New World Symphony! Dvorak was very much there, but he wasn’t conducting. Instead he sat in a box in the second tier of Carnegie Hall. I wonder if he was sitting there with clammy hands, thinking of all the ways his new piece could fail. But as we know, it did not fail. Dvorak would write later, “The newspapers say that no composer has ever before had such a triumph. The hall was filled with the best New York Public, and people applauded so much that I had to thank them from the box, like a king.”  While he might have been treated like a king by an adoring audience, the players of the New York Philharmonic had a bit more of a familiar relationship with the composer.

Doug Shadle: On one of the double bass parts there's a little caricature of Dvorak's face that one of the bass players drew on there.

Jamie Bernstein: It’s nothing much: just a circle with eyes and a beard scribbled on. But it’s so fun to imagine a restless bass player amusing himself during a lengthy rehearsal!

Doug Shadle: I think, that for me reminds us that these are all people. They've got lives, they've got sensitive humor, they've got stuff they hate, they've got stuff they love. And, while you can over romanticize this idea of everybody coming together to play this piece, there's still the fact that, after the rehearsal or after the show, they go home, they drink a beer. And that music is a--we’ll call it a supremely human endeavor. 

MUSIC FADES AND WE WAIT A BEAT

Jamie Bernstein: When Dvorak premiered his 9th symphony, influenced by African American music, to the largely white New York elite, it became a political   statement as much as a musical one. And an instant success, both for the composer and the orchestra—so much so that the Philharmonic would make Dvorak an honorary member in 1894. But that was not the only time his symphony made political headlines. 115 years after the world premiere, the New York Philharmonic put Dvorak’s New World Symphony to a whole new political purpose by taking it to one of the most isolated concert halls on the planet.

RADIO AMBI FADES IN

JOEL MEYER: All systems are. Go for the New York Philharmonic’s Historic concert from North Korea tomorrow. This is soundcheck. I'm Joel Meyer. 

The New York Philharmonic arrived in Pyeong Yong yesterday, and it is making final preparations on a concert that will include works by Gershwin, Wagner, and Dvorak, which you're hearing a little bit of in the background, right now. The Philharmonic’s visit, of course, comes as the US and North Korea struggle to resolve a standoff over that country's nuclear weapons program.

Soundcheck host John Schaefer is there. 

John, uh, you've been following classical music for over 25 years here at WNYC. Uh, what are your expectations for, for this concert, uh, tomorrow? 

John Schaefer: You know, my expectations for the concert are, are that it, it will probably be a really fun event finally, when all the hoopla has died down and the musicians finally get out there and do what they do best. 

Having said that, you know, I think there is, Something other than just the music going on here, but I think it really is kind of unfair to heap the burden of history waiting on these 105 musicians who are just basically here to do their job. 

JOEL MEYER: John Schaefer is the host of this program, soundcheck and also new sounds here on WNYC. He comes to us from Pyeong Yong.

Jamie Bernstein: You heard that right - The New York Phil had gone to North Korea. And it was all broadcast live on the radio .

John Schaefer: I'm John Schaefer, and this might well be the last place on earth I expected to be broadcasting from. But on 93.9 FM WNYC and wnyc.org, we bring you this historic concert by the New York Phil Harmonic at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater.

CONTINUE RADIO AMBI

John Deak: I mean, we, we don't, we can't have great expectations of, of knocking down all the walls immediately. 

John Schaefer: That's Jon Deak, composer and associate principal bassist of the New York Phil Harmonic. We recorded him just after landing.  

John Deak: [But] you know, if we can do anything here, uh, to reach out to the people, I'll be, I'll be happy. 

John Schaefer: This is the first major visit by an American organization since North Korea was, uh, set up by the Russians after the partition of the peninsula in 1948.   uh, a musical event to be sure, but unavoidably, it has attracted a lot of wider attention. 

Rebecca Young: It was 2008. We were on tour in Beijing just before we went into North Korea. We had a big meeting in a ballroom where they told us what to expect. They're gonna take our cell phones away. 

We had a big meeting in a ballroom where they told us what to expect. They're gonna take our cell phones away. 

Rebecca Young: And people are going to come up very friendly. People who live there and they're gonna be near you.

Rebecca Young: And they're going to all of a sudden show up at different times and different places. They're assigned to you, but not officially. 

I’m Rebecca Young, I’m the Associate Principal Violist with the New York Philharmonic.

We all went in on one giant aircraft, all the Philharmonic, all of our handlers, all of the press, we all went in on one airplane.

John Schaefer: In fact, when we all landed on the tarmac of Pyongyang airport, having flown in from Beijing, the--the deplaning process was, uh, as memorable, I think as anything else that has happened in the two days here.

Carter Brey: We landed at the airport there. And it immediately was obvious that it was a very different scene. 

My name is Carter Brey and I’m the Principal Cellist of the New York Philharmonic.

We touched down, it was a February afternoon, as I recall, bitterly cold and looking out the window, You didn't see the usual panoply of various airlines from around the world.

Carter Brey: There were just a few of the local North Korean Air Corio, aircraft and looking into the terminal. It was basically dark, but you could see a few silhouette figures looking out at us. When we came out of course there were guards standing at the top of the stair and they took our passports but allowed us amazingly to keep our cameras and our phones, which also had cameras.

Carter Brey: We were herded onto buses and we were driven to town and it was a fairly long drive. 

Carter Brey: Occasionally you would pass a billboard that just had pictures of floral bouquets on them. And our Korean colleagues told us very probably these were propaganda billboards that had been papered over for the occasion. And there was one that we passed that had not been papered over and sure enough, it showed an enormous fist coming down on a helmeted American soldier.

Rebecca Young: I was on the last bus and the lights were on and there were signs everywhere. And there were people kind of lining the streets. And as our caravan of buses went by, you look out the window and the lights were going off and the people were going away. They were told to come out. It was like, everything was a big show.

Carter Brey: We came to the city and we drove through the main, political gathering spaces, the big plazas in the center of town, all of which were empty.

Rebecca Young: We stayed in one hotel on an island. 

Carter Brey: So it was obviously built there to provide controlled access because you had to go through a guard gate to get off of the island. 

Rebecca Young: You look out the window at night and there are no lights anywhere, so there's no electricity around you.

Rebecca Young: The place we were in was broiling.

JUDY LECLAIR: You were in a government hotel and they had the heat cranked up to 90 in all the rooms.

I’m Judith LeClair. I’m principal bassoonist of the New York Philharmonic.

Carter Brey: I tried to open my window to let some cold air in, but I, I remember I couldn't do that. And I remember looking out on a wintery city scape that seemed very still, there wasn't the usual kind of activity that you're used to seeing as a New Yorker, for example. 

Rebecca Young: You couldn't go to a restaurant. So they feed you all in the ballroom and they had big coolers of drinks. And the Philharmonic was asked, what do Americans eat for breakfast or for lunch or for dinner. And they gave them different options and they brought in everything. Not just a few of what they told them. They brought in everything. 

JUDY LECLAIR: We went to see  a concert that they put on of young children doing all their things. There was a little girl playing a wooden flute. That I think we all just burst into tears. She was amazing.

Carter Brey: We were asked to read through the first movement of the Mendelsohn Octet with four members of the local symphony. 

Carter Brey: So four of us principals from the Philharmonic met these gentlemen, and we sat down to start playing and they were fantastic. I mean, they, they knew this piece really well and they played it with a beautiful sense of style.

Carter Brey: And we got to the end of the first movement, and we just looked at each other and we said, let's keep going. And this is in front of an invited audience with TV cameras, and we just played at the very end of the piece. And by the end we were smiling at each other and, uh, you know, shuffling our feet and clapping to each other.

Carter Brey: And, uh, unfortunately at the end, of course, they had to leave and we didn't have a chance really, to socialize. And I think probably it was frowned upon. I had that impression.

FADE IN RADIO AMBI

John Schaefer: The New York Philharmonic actually had two main conditions for accepting the, uh, ministry of Culture's invitation to play here in North Korea. One, of course was the press. To, to allow an international press corps here. The other though was to reach out to people who would not be able to get a ticket to this event. And so a live telecast was set up and only a few days ago we learned that there would be a live radio broadcast, which is much more important since almost everyone in North Korea has a radio and televisions are actually quite scarce.

John Schaefer: Um, but in a state where the media are either tightly controlled or banned altogether. No cell phones, no blackberries, for example. Uh, this is an unprecedented event.

Carter Brey: And the two main pieces were the, Gershwin American in Paris. And the Dvorak New World Symphony. And it, it doesn't take a, a genius to divine from those titles that they were meant to deliver a message. That here we were foreigners in their country, but we wanted to put our best foot forward.

Carter Brey: And it was interesting looking out on the audience. 

John Schaefer: And we have a full house here at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater for tonight's event. Difficult to say exactly who's in the house. There are several rows that have been reserved for diplomats. The Swedish Embassy handles all American affairs in North Korea, and were responsible for the diplomatic guest list.

John Schaefer: We know that some of the senior officials of the Ministry of Culture are here as well. And at a press conference earlier today, Zarin Mehta, the president of the New York Philharmonic, told us that, uh, he had been told that they could have sold out several additional evenings of concerts here at this 1400 seat theater.

John Schaefer: And that applause greets the, uh, the appearance on stage of the members of the New York Philharmonic filing into this, uh, great space. Uh, this will in fact be the second time that they've played here. Earlier today, uh, the Philharmonic did a full on dress rehearsal with Conductor Lorin Maazel. And with every single one of these 1400 seats filled, a very enthusiastic reception this afternoon when, uh, the dress rehearsal turned into a second concert, basically.

John Schaefer: It's a remarkable space, a huge theater that has both, uh, an orchestral hall and an opera house. Uh, speaking to another of the members of the orchestra, the violist Katherine Green, she told me that, uh, this might just be the best hall that the orchestra has played in. The, uh, orchestra has been on a tour of East Asia, spending two and a half weeks in China before coming here to North Korea.

KEEP RADIO AMBI

Rebecca Young: Everyone was sitting very still. You know, you go to a concert in New York and people are—there are candy wrappers, or they're whispering to each other or they're falling asleep or whatever it is.

Rebecca Young: Everyone was sitting completely upright in their chairs, not talking to each other. The women were all dressed in the formal wear and the--and everybody had a picture of the, you know, a button of the dear leader on their lapels and things like that. And it was a little bit strange and sterile. 

 Carter Brey: they watched us rather, I passively through the entire program that we were playing like our lives depended on it. We really wanted to make a good impression. 

MUSIC FADES IN TOWARDS END OF LAST MOVEMENT AND PLAYS UNTIL APPLAUSE

Carter Brey: We got to the very end and we played our encore, which is a transcription for orchestra of the most famous folk melody in both Koreas, which is called Ari Rang

John Schaefer: The final piece is actually a work that, um, is beloved on both sides of the demilitarized zone.

John Schaefer: It is a traditional Korean folk song called Ari Rang, and here it is, the New York Philharmonic live in Pyongyang.

Carter Brey: It describes separated lovers. So it uh, obviously strikes a chord for Koreans on both sides of the demilitarized zone. 

Carter Brey: And as soon as we started playing this pentatonic melody. 

Rebecca Young: There was different feeling that welled up, not just with us, but with them.

Carter Brey: I saw tears start rolling down the cheeks of some of these very solid party officials.

Carter Brey: We got to the end of the piece and there was an eruption of applause. 

Judy  LeClair: They were screaming. The, the audience went nuts.

Carter Brey: And then finally we had to stand up and leave. And a couple of us decided to wave to them as we stood up and started to leave the stage and they started waving back.

Judy LeClair: They lowered the curtain and the people were putting their arms at hands under the curtain so that they could touch us and try to get to us. 

Carter Brey: It was an incredible thing to see from the stage. 

Judy LeClair: That was that's in, my head, by my, in my mind indelible memory.

APPLAUSE INTO RADIO AMBI

John Schaefer: Katherine Green violist, um, how's it feel? 

Katherine Green: Well, I've, I've stopped crying now and um, this was maybe one of my proudest days in, in my career as far as I'm concerned.

Katherine Green: That's what, why I've always done what I do and that's why musicians do what they do to make a difference in the world. it really was beyond my wildest dreams. 

Katherine Green: It seemed like the audience suddenly opened their hearts and when they started waving and us, and we were waving at them and there were, I saw people crying out there and I was crying and I was thinking, I get to go. I get to leave now and go home and, uh, I don't have to say anything more about that. It's extremely moving and I feel so grateful to have been a part of this. 

John Schaefer: It's a good place to leave it. And so we will leave you with, uh, with the music of the New York Phil Harmonic in Pyong Yang North. I'm John Schaefer. Thanks for being with us. This is 93.9 FM WNYC and wnyc.org. 

MUSIC PLAYS OUT (END OF NWS)

Jamie Bernstein: Next week on The NY Phil Story: A close look at how the Philharmonic, together with my dad, Leonard Bernstein, brought music to the young people of New York, and beyond.

Rebecca Young: When I was two and a half years old, my mother and father took me to see Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic in the Young People's Concerts … 

This is the NY Phil Story: Made in New York, produced by WQXR in partnership with The New York Philharmonic … and hosted by me, Jamie Bernstein!

Our production team includes: Lauren Purcell-Joiner, Helena de Groot, Sapir Rosenblatt, Laura Boyman, Elizabeth Nonemaker, Eileen Delahunty, Christine Herskovits, Natalia Ramirez, and Ed Yim.

Our engineering team includes: George Wellington and Ed Haber.

Production assistance from: Ben James, and Jac Phillimore and Mary Mathis. 

Special thanks to Monica Parks, Adam Crane, Gabe Smith, and the New York Public Radio Archives. 

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.