Eating Ice Cream with the Devil

In "Pizzazz on the Podium," from the March-April 2011 issue, Richard Dyer writes that New York Philharmonic conductor Alan Gilbert ’89 "has shaken things up at an orchestra that had grown a bit stodgy" under previous conductors.

One example: a set of three lighthearted YouTube videos promoting Ligeti's avant-garde opera Le Grand Macabre, which turned out to be the unexpected hit of Gilbert's first season with the Philharmonic. View the videos:

Watch an interview in which Gilbert discusses Le Grand Macabre:

See video of Gilbert conducting Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in Tokyo:

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