Attended this morning an Open Rehearsal at Avery Fisher Hall of the New York Philharmonic. The featured soloist was Emauel Ax - world renowned pianist - who played Beethoven's Piano Concerto #4. A new work by their resident composer - Lindberg - Expo ( and very listenable and tonal - for contemporary music) and a couple of works by Charles Ives. Conducted by their new conductor Alan Gilbert. Altogether - a superb concert. Admission for these rehearsals is $16 and you sit in the highest priced seats in the house - I prefer the First Tier center where you can look down on the entire orchestra - these seats go for @$90 a pop for the evening concert. Where can you beat that? And if you'd like to complete a morning with lunch at another world class site - just down Broadway - try Nougatine at Jean George - $26. Total $42 - about half of the cost of one ticket for that night's concert.
You can get the schedule of the Open Rehearsals on the NYPhilharmonic website - or even easier - google Open Rehearsal NY Philharmonic and you don't have to wrestle with the website.

Great tip! Thanks!!!

Did you give Gilbert your suggestions?

Isn't NY fantastic!?!?

Adu - truth is I just did not get the chance to give him some advice. But: he already is adopting some ideas I have had for some time. I have always thought that instead of just walking out onto the stage,stepping up onto the podium and starting the music, a conducter might turn to the audience and tell something about the music they are about to hear - especially contemporary music. Well - at the last concert we attended (not that rehearsal) - he did speak to the audience before a piece by Schoenberg and gave some good comments about the music, its meaning, and illustrated some of it with snippets by the orchestra. And this was well received by the audience. Way to go.

Going back to Mehta, they would occasionally address the audience, but never on a regular basis.