NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC

the oldest orchestra in the US, established in 1842. It has more than 100 musicians and performs in the Avery Fisher Hall, completed in 1962 as part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts . The orchestra’s free concert given in Central Park in 1986 had an audience of about 800 000, the largest ever in the world for a concert of classical music. Musical directors of the Philharmonic have included Gustav Mahler (1909–11), Arturo Toscanini (1928–36), Leonard Bernstein (1958–69), Zubin Mehta (1978–91), Kurt Masur (1991–2002) and Lorin Maazel (2002– ).