From the first downbeat, the three-time Grammy Award-winning vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant was ready to bring some joy to a crowd of classical music aficionados.
“We all need a little music right now,” Ms. Salvant, 36, said before taking the stage — in metallic green clogs — at the season-opening gala for the New York Philharmonic, held at David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center on Thursday night.
For about 80 minutes, she and the approximately 100 musicians of the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Anthony Parnther, treated more than 2,000 concertgoers to an eclectic lineup. The performance included the 17th-century English composer Henry Purcell’s “Dido’s Lament,” the closing aria from the opera “Dido and Aeneas,” and musical theater standards like Stephen Sondheim’s “Being Alive” from the musical “Company.”
Ms. Salvant’s act was accompanied by performances of George Gershwin’s “Strike Up the Band” overture and Duke Ellington’s classic jazz symphony “Black, Brown and Beige.” (His granddaughter, Mercedes Ellington, was in attendance.)
The event — whose guest list included Alec Baldwin, a member of the orchestra’s board of directors, as well as Jamie Bernstein and Nina Bernstein Simmons, the daughters of the conductor Leonard Bernstein — began with a cocktail reception in the hall’s grand promenade, where guests ate pigs in a blanket and sipped martinis.
Anticipation was in the air: Gustavo Dudamel, the 44-year-old superstar conductor who has spent the last 16 years leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic, was set to take over as music and artistic director next fall.
“I’m very excited for him to come here because he’s the closest we’ve come to recreating the Bernstein era,” said Mr. Baldwin, giving voice to the impatient enthusiasm many New Yorkers have felt since Mr. Dudamel’s appointment was first announced in 2023. “Dudamel is our Bernstein.”
The night, which raised $3.3 million for the orchestra, according to a spokeswoman, honored the philanthropist Vera Blinken and her late husband, the ambassador Donald Blinken, who was a longtime board member of the Philharmonic.
Mr. Baldwin said that hearing a Gustav Mahler symphony on the radio in Los Angeles in the 1980s led him to become a “classical music devotee.”
“It’s really been the joy of my life,” he said, referring to classical music. “I don’t take drugs. I don’t drink alcohol. I’ve got seven kids. I need something to soothe my fevered brow.”
Sarah Bahr writes about culture and style for The Times.
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