"I'm sure that Nielsen's time is coming, and I'm looking forward to sharing this wonderful music with the audience." - Alan Gilbert 2011 "Mr. Gilbert drew colorful, glittering and full-bodied playing from the musicians." - the New York Times, concert review of Nielsen's Symphony No. 3, June 2012 "Music is life, and like it inextinguishable," said the Danish composer Carl Nielsen (1865-1931). with indomitable courage and infinite curiosity Nielsen developed into one of the 20th century's greatest symphonists, after being raised in the Danish countryside as the son of a poor folk musician. With this new series of recordings, Nielsen crosses the Atlantic as the New York Philharmonic and their Music Director Alan Gilbert shed new light on the composer's uniquely Nordic symphonic sound. This is the first volume of the new recording series of Denmark's national composer Carl Nielsen's complete symphonies and concertos by the New York Philharmonic and their chief conductor Alan Gilbert. All works are recorded live during the New York Philharmonic's concert series in Avery Fisher Hall which has already impressed critics and audiences alike. In this interpretation, Maestro Gilbert's personal passion for the music of Carl Nielsen shines through every note, and the series will shed exciting new light on the indomitable Danish symphonist, leading up to the celebrations of his 150th birthday in 2015. The New York Philharmonic has an old connection with Carl Nielsen's music. It was with this orchestra that Leonard Bernstein recorded some of Nielsen's symphonies and solo concertos back in the 1960s. At that time his work was followed with great interest by the Danish Queen Margrethe II's father, King Frederik IX. The present Nielsen Project was presented to the Danish Queen at a press conference in New York in June 2011.