Spoken Word

Alec Baldwin, The Master of All

The best Baldwin brother will host The New York Philharmonic This Week beginning Sept. 27

by Josh Kurp   |   Aug 23, 2010

Alec Baldwin, The Master of All

Photo: fordhamlawandculture, via Flickr

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The seventh season of the concert broadcast series The New York Philharmonic This Week will begin the week of September 27. For the second straight season, Alec Baldwin will host the two-hour radio program, which is broadcast and syndicated 52 weeks a year by the WFMT Radio Network. In New York, you can hear it on Classical 105.9 FM WQXR, Thursdays at 9 p.m.

Highlights of the 2010-11 season that will be aired as part of This Week, according to a press release, include the “Opening Night Gala Concert, with Music Director Alan Gilbert and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra; the U.S. Premiere of Kraft, by the Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence Magnus Lindberg; Mendelssohn’s Elijah, with bass-baritone Gerald Finley; concerts with violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, the Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence; selections from Hungarian Echoes: A Philharmonic Festival conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen; the World Premiere of Aaron Jay Kernis’s a Voice, a Messenger, with Principal Trumpet Philip Smith; the New York Premiere of Thomas Adès’s In Seven Days; works by Mahler as part of the Philharmonic’s season-long focus on the composer; pianist Emanuel Ax’s 100th New York Philharmonic performance; and Alan Gilbert conducting Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen.”

But most importantly: Baldwin! Hosting This Week for a second season is just another awesome accomplishment in an amazing career. Here are some of my favorite moments:

-The Glengarry Glenn Ross speech

-Therapy session with Tracy Jordan on 30 Rock

-His Boston accent in The Departed

-Appearing on The Simpsons not once, but twice

-Beetlejuice

-“Schwetty Balls”

-The narration of The Royal Tenenbaums

-The time I said “hello” to him in Central Park, and he responded, “Top of the morning to ya.”