Christian Thielemann, Principal Conductor of the Dresden Staatskapelle and Artistic Director of the Salzburg Easter Festival, has since 2000 been a musical partner of the Vienna Philharmonic. The New Year's Concert 2019 represents Thielemann's first time to conduct this prestigious international concert event. The New Year’s Concert live from Vienna is one of the world’s most famous and spectacular classical music events. It will be broadcast on TV and radio and reaches over 90 countries around the world with more than 50 million viewers. The annual New Year's Day Concert in Vienna has been a major event for more than eight decades, since 1939. Repertoire includes never or rarely heard before works as well as favorites such as two fix points: the Blue Danube Waltz and the Radetzky March. Conducted by world-famous maestros such as Herbert von Karajan, Lorin Maazel, Claudio Abbado, Carlos Kleiber, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Seiji Ozawa, Mariss Jansons, Franz Welser-M?st and Gustavo Dudamel. The Vienna Philharmonic, as musical ambassadors of Austria, send people all over the world a New Year's greeting in the spirit of hope, friendship and peace with the lively and light-hearted and at the same time nostalgic and profound music from the vast repertoire of the family of Johann Strauss and its contemporaries.
