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For Immediate Release

SEASON 3 OF EMBRACE EVERYTHING - THE WORLD OF GUSTAV MAHLER WINS GOLD AWARD AT 

2024 NEW YORK FESTIVALS RADIO AWARDS


Mahler & the Maestro, a special episode of Embrace Everything, 

receives the Silver Award

NEW YORK, NY (April 16, 2024) — The 2024 New York Festivals Radio Awards today announced that Season 3 of Embrace Everything - The World of Gustav Mahler — the chart-topping podcast series exploring each of Mahler’s symphonies — has received a Gold Award in the Music Podcast category. Series producer and host Aaron Cohen also took the Silver Award in the same category for Mahler & the Maestro, a special episode of Embrace Everything focused on the connection between Mahler and Leonard Bernstein. Season 2 of Embrace Everything won the Gold Award in this same category in 2022; the series has won a total of seven major awards since it launched in 2020.


Season 3 of Embrace Everything, titled “My Joyful Science,” focuses on Mahler’s Symphony No. 3. Its six episodes use interviews with leading Mahler interpreters and scholars, readings from the letters of Mahler and his contemporaries, commentary from Cohen, and symphonic excerpts to guide listeners through this landmark work in the orchestral repertoire. Interviewees for Season 3 include conductors Kent Nagano and Michael Tilson Thomas; musicians from orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; and scholars from Columbia University (New York), Washington University (St. Louis), Oxford University (England), and the University of Athens (Greece). Actors including James Lurie as Gustav Mahler, Paul Hecht as philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and Laura Gragtmans as Natalie Bauer-Lechner (Mahler’s friend and confidante), among others, round out the huge cast for this season. Season 3 was made possible by a generous grant from the Kaplan Foundation.


The New Yorker wrote that the series “...deftly combin[es] music, close observation, stories, and readings of Mahler’s letters in a buoyant style…” while Musical America claimed, “Embrace Everything remains a must-hear for concertgoers and homebodies alike.”


Mahler & the Maestro was released in January 2024, following in the wake of Maestro, the Oscar-nominated biopic of Leonard Bernstein directed by and starring Bradley Cooper. Through this special episode, Cohen delves into the similarities between Mahler and Bernstein and explains how Bernstein brought Mahler’s music back into the spotlight in the 1960s. Interviewees include Bernstein’s daughter Jamie and New York Philharmonic Director of Archives and Exhibitions Gabryel Smith. A video version of the episode is also available.


Season 4 of Embrace Everything is currently in production. Comprising four episodes on Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, Season 4 boasts the largest cast yet for the series, with over 30 voices. The podcast explores how the entire symphony — Mahler’s shortest — grew out of his exquisite song for soprano and orchestra, “The Heavenly Life.” The trailer for Season 4 will drop on July 7 (Mahler’s birthday), with an anticipated Fall 2024 release date for the complete season.

ABOUT EMBRACE EVERYTHING - THE WORLD OF GUSTAV MAHLER


The Embrace Everything podcast series is an exploration and celebration of the music of Gustav Mahler. Throughout his life Mahler insisted that music had to, literally, embrace everything. This makes his compositions unusually rich in what they offer both audience and musicians. It’s often delightfully quirky one moment and then deeply tragic the next. Mahler did not shy away from introducing the most low-brow, commonplace musical tune alongside the most radiantly sublime words in all of spiritual literature. Gustav Mahler meant what he said: music has to embrace everything.


Each season of the series explores a different Mahler symphony. Once completed, the series will include more than 100 interviews with leading conductors, music scholars, and orchestral musicians—all of whom have extensive first-hand experience with the music, offering an abundance of insights into just what makes Mahler’s music so unique. Additionally, comments from Mahler and his contemporaries are read by actors throughout the programs. Each episode explores how Mahler drew not just from the world of music but from the other arts, from the world of nature, and from life itself. Anything that attracted Mahler’s attention was liable to find its way into the music. How did he do this? That’s something each episode investigates.


Interviews thus far include members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the London Symphony Orchestra.


Season 1 launched in July 2020, Season 2 premiered in July 2021, and Season 3 rolled out across December 2022 and January 2023. All three seasons have also been formatted as radio programs and were broadcast on radio stations across the United States. In January 2024 the first Embrace Everything video premiered, entitled Mahler & the Maestro.


Embrace Everything has topped podcast charts around the world. The series reached #1 on the Apple Music Commentary, Music History, or Music charts in the United States, Belgium, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovenia, and Sweden.


ABOUT NEW YORK FESTIVALS (NYF)


New York Festivals (NYF) Radio Awards honors storytellers from around the globe. Since 1957, NYF has celebrated excellence and innovation across all genres and platforms, keeping pace with industry-wide developments and global trends. The mission of the competition is to honor the achievements of the men and women who make up the global audio storytelling community. Learn more at Radio.NewYorkFestivals.com.

Shuman Public Relations

Constance Shuman | connie@shuman-pr.com 

Lisa Jaehnig | lisa@shuman-pr.com 

Christina Bianco | christina@shuman-pr.com

Harrison Hicks | harrison@shuman-pr.com


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