Park Avenue Chamber Symphony Announces its 2024-2025 25th Anniversary Season

Park Avenue Chamber Symphony Announces its 2024-2025 25th Anniversary Season

Features music across Four Centuries, brilliant soloists and Patented InsideOut® experiences

The Park Avenue Chamber Symphony has announced its 2024-2025 season, including five programs led by music director David Bernard.  The season includes fully immersive classical music events presented in conjunction with InsideOut Concerts, Inc., embedding audience members with the musicians of the orchestra using a patented approach invented by David Bernard.  Audience Members in InsideOut events experience the program from the perspective of the musicians.  The Park Avenue Chamber Symphony’s 2024-2025 season includes the music of Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Ravel and Rimsky Korsakov, including a holiday InsideOut Nutcracker with a holiday reception and Happy Birthday Wolfgang, celebrating Mozart’s Birthday featuring soloists Sheryl Staples, Principal Associate Concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, and Katherina Kang Litton, Principal Viola of the New York City Ballet Orchestra.

Tickets are available online through Eventbrite using this link: https://bit.ly/PACS20242025EVENTS

Park Avenue Chamber Symphony events are presented using the InsideOut Concerts immersive approach, invented by PACS Music Director David Bernard (US Patent No. 11,673,070).  Audience members are seated inside the orchestra, among the musicians, in an approach that maximizes immersion in the music making experience.

"A live performance by a full symphony orchestra is an absolutely incredible event with 100 musicians creating art right before your very eyes and ears,” says David Bernard).  “Audiences sitting in traditional concert hall seats are privy to only small amount of the experience of music and the music making.  Audience members who will attend InsideOut Concerts receive a full and unforgettable experience that creates classical music enthusiasts just from one event.  It is extraordinary.”

Comments from attendees of PACS InsideOut events include:

"Absolutely and positively one of the best experiences ever! This is a smart investment in the future growth of symphony audiences."

"We've become musical 'converts' solely due to your InsideOut concert experience and thoroughly anticipate the next one."

"I have been to many concerts at the world's great concert halls, but none were close to as memorable as the InsideOut concert I experienced on Sunday. I have never in my life engaged with music as holistically or dramatically--as ecstatically--as I did while sitting on stage among those musicians. Indeed, I have never been so fully enveloped like that in such magnificent sound. It was a thrill of a lifetime!"

The 2024-2025 Park Avenue Chamber Symphony Season includes:

• Mahler’s Farewell on Sunday, November 24, 2024.  This program features Mahler’s final complete symphony, his Symphony No. 9, a journey through love, loss, elation and acceptance. 

• InsideOut Nutcracker on Saturday, December 14, 2024, at 2 PM (one show only).  A New York City holiday favorite—the Nutcracker from your seat inside the orchestra plus a holiday party.

• Happy Birthday Wolfgang! on Saturday, February 8, 2025.  An all-Mozart program featuring Sheryl Staples, Principal Associate Concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic (5PM Full Event Only), and Katharina Kang Litton, Principal Violist of the New York City Ballet Orchestra as soloists.

• Symphonic Storytelling on Saturday November 17, 2025.  We will explore the magic of storytelling through music with a program of Ravel and Rimsky Korsakov.

Park Avenue Chamber Symphony events are held at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, 450 West 37^th Street between 9^th and 10^th Avenues.  Each event is offered in two formats:

• A 2PM Family Version, featuring a shortened program followed by an instrument zoo provided by New York City’s Lucy Moses School. 
• A 5PM Full Version, featuring the complete program followed by a post-concert reception.

Tickets are available online through Eventbrite using this link: https://bit.ly/PACS20242025EVENTS

 
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
David Bernard serves as Music Director of the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, Massapequa Philharmonic and the Eglevsky Ballet. He is an active guest conductor, appearing with the Brooklyn Symphony, the Dubuque (IA) Symphony, the Greenwich (CT) Symphony, Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Island Symphony, the Litha Symphony, the South Shore Symphony and ensembles from the Manhattan School of Music. Called “the Johnny Appleseed of Classical Music” by Long Island Weekly, Maestro Bernard has helped the arts thrive through his innovative approaches to audience and orchestra building as music director and guest conductor.

David Bernard is the founder and Director of InsideOut Concerts, Inc., a pioneer and innovator in the design, development and production of immersive classical music events, and is inventor of US Patent No. 11,673,070 entitled “Methods and Systems for Arranging Seats for Audience Members and Musicians.” Bernard’s work using these methods in concerts and events resulted in not only increased tickets sales, but also increased organic new audience acquisition.

Bernard is the First Prize winner of The American Prize Orchestral Conducting Competition (professional division) 2019. In presenting this award, the panel of judges commented:

“Conducting from memory, David Bernard exhibits remarkable skill and considerable elan in a vibrant reading of Stravinsky "Rite of Spring." Not content with a cool, furrowed-brow approach to this music, his interpretation is alive to the nuances of color and, indeed, the dramatic arc, of this legendary masterwork. His is a considerable achievement by any standard.” —The American Prize Competition Panel

David Bernard’s critically acclaimed performances and recordings include Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at Carnegie Hall (“ taught and dramatic” -Superconductor) , Stravinsky’s "The Rite of Spring" at Lincoln Center (“transcendent...vivid...expertly choreographed” -LucidCulture), a complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies praised for its “intensity, spontaneity, propulsive rhythm, textural clarity, dynamic control, and well-judged phrasing” by Fanfare magazine, Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony (“parts emerge like newly scrubbed details in a restored painting. Bernard and his musicians frequently shed new and valuable light on a thrice-familiar standard” -Gramophone) and an album of Dvorák’s Late Symphonies (“David Bernard treats each of the symphonies with alert and respectful acuity. He trusts Dvorák’s metronome markings, often to surprising and exciting effect, and makes sure the narratives unfold with seamless assurance. Bernard shapes the score with fine control, savouring its tender and invigorating material minus mannerism or bluster.” -Gramophone)

Devoted to the music of our own time, he has presented world premières of scores by Bruce Adolphe, Chris Caswell, John Mackey, Ted Rosenthal and Jake Runestad, and distinguished concert collaborators have included Anna Lee, Jeffrey Biegel, Carter Brey, David Chan, Catherine Cho, Adrian Daurov, Pedro Díaz, Edith Dowd, Stanley Drucker, Bart Feller, Zlatomir Fung, Ryu Goto, Whoopi Goldberg, Sirena Huang, Judith Ingolfsson, Yevgeny Kutik, Anna Lee, Jessica Lee, Kristin Lee, Maxim Lando, Daniela Liebman, Jon Manasse, Christopher Martin, Anthony McGill, Spencer Myer, Todd Phillips and Inbal Segev.