21C MEDIA GROUP’S CLASSICAL MUSIC PREVIEW 2024/2025 CONCERTS, SPECIAL EVENTS & RECORDINGS

SEPTEMBER 2024

Sep 1–8; Oct 3, 4
“Without question the most astounding pianist of our age” (The Times of London), Grammy winner DANIIL TRIFONOV appears with two great German orchestras in the early fall. In September, he performs Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and kapellmeister Andris Nelsons, first on tour in Essen, Cologne, and at the Lucerne Festival, and then in the annual “Democracy Concerts” that launch the orchestra’s new season. Trifonov returns to Germany a month later, this time playing Ravel’s G-major Concerto with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and ALAN GILBERT. [Sep 1: Essen, Germany; Sep 2: Cologne, Germany; Sep 4: Lucerne, Switzerland; Sep 6, 8: Leipzig, Germany; Oct 3, 4: Hamburg]

Sep 7; Oct 18; Dec 13
Violinist DANIEL HOPE, Artistic Director of Dresden’s Frauenkirche, where he curates more than 50 concerts per year, participates in a night of Bach performances in locations throughout the church, featuring Frauenkirche Kantor Matthias Grünert, the church’s ensembles, and many other Dresden musicians (Sep 7). Also in his ninth season as Music Director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Hope performs a program of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Vivaldi with that orchestra at the Frauenkirche the following month (Oct 18). In December, he visits the same venue with his “Irish Roots” program (Dec 13), following the summer release of the program by Deutsche Grammophon. The album follows the 2022 documentary Celtic Dreams: Daniel Hope’s Hidden Irish History, which aired on PBS stations throughout the United States. [Dresden]

Sep 11, 13
As Chief Conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Grammy-winning conductor ALAN GILBERT launches the orchestra’s new season with star-studded accounts of Schoenberg’s mighty Gurre-Lieder, featuring narrator Thomas Quasthoff and vocal soloists Christina Nilsson, Jamie Barton, Stuart Skelton, Michael Schade, and Michael Nagy, with the NDR Vocal Ensemble, MDR Radio Choir, and Berlin Radio Choir. Timed to celebrate this year’s Schoenberg sesquicentennial, the second performance takes place exactly 150 years after the great Austrian American composer’s birth. As Susan Hall reports for Slipped Disc: “Gilbert has always been daring. In Hamburg, he has come into his own. Here he is appreciated for his adventurous ways and his spot-on conducting.” [Hamburg]

Sep 12–15
“A cellist of depth, fire, and sinew” (New Yorker), MacArthur Fellow ALISA WEILERSTEIN performs Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in season-opening concerts with the Kansas City Symphony, after an evening of chamber music with members of the orchestra. The orchestral concerts inaugurate the tenure of incoming Music Director Matthias Pintscher, the composer-conductor whose cello concerto Weilerstein previously premiered with the Boston Symphony, and who is now a contributor to her ongoing “FRAGMENTS” project. [Sep 12 (chamber), Sep 13, 14, 15 (concerto): Kansas City, MO]

Sep 14–May 18
Multiple Grammy Award-winning vocal ensemble CHANTICLEER – lauded by the Boston Globe as “breathtaking in its accuracy of intonation, purity of blend, of color and swagger of style” – kicks off its new season at home in the Bay Area and on tour across the U.S. with its new “Without a Song” program, which explores music’s power throughout the ages. Repertoire includes Medieval and Renaissance motets by Francesco Landini and Orlando di Lasso, a new work by Grammy-nominated composer Ayanna Woods (formerly the group’s composer-in-residence), and a new version of the jazz standard “Without a Song,” arranged by Stacey V. Gibbs. [Sep 14: San Francisco, CA; Sep 15: Sacramento, CA; Sep 17: Berkeley, CA; Sep 19: Santa Clara, CA; Sep 20: Mill Valley, CA; Sep 24: Cleveland, OH; Sep 25 & 26: State College, PA; Sep 28: Birmingham, MI; Sep 29: Toledo, OH; Oct 1: Green Bay, WI; Oct 2: Madison, WI; Oct 4: Indianapolis, IN; Oct 9: Concordia, KS; Oct 11: Pittsburg, KS; Oct 22: Belton, TX; Oct 24, 25: Dallas, TX; Oct 26: Ardmore, OK; Jan 17: Clemson, SC; Jan 19: Savannah, GA; Jan 20: Jacksonville, FL; Jan 21: Orlando, FL; Jan 23: Columbus, GA; Jan 25: Huntsville, AL; Jan 26: Clarksville, TN; Jan 31: Asheville, NC; Feb 20: Seattle, WA; Feb 21, 22: Portland, OR; Feb 25: Logan, UT; April 4: Wheaton, IL; April 5: Charleston, IL; April 8: Hanover, NH; April 9: Storrs, CT; April 10: NYC/Kaufman; April 23: Kennett Square, PA; April 25: Baltimore, MD; April 26: Glassboro, NJ; April 27, 28: Southport, CT; May 10: Santa Monica, CA; May 11: La Jolla, CA; May 18: Washington, D.C.]

Sep 14; Dec 13
Long venerated as a “pianist’s pianist” whose interpretations combine “quiet beauty and emotional fire” (The Times of London), SERGEI BABAYAN is a recognized master of the Russian concerto repertoire. This fall, he performs Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto with orchestras including the National Philharmonic in Bethesda, MD, and Belgium’s Antwerp Symphony, led by its Chief Conductor, Elim Chan. After an account of the same concerto last fall, the Boston Musical Intelligencer reported: “Babayan delivered a sensitive, utterly thrilling performance,” in which “his magisterial technique [was] almost as thrilling as his tender musicality.” [Sep 14: Bethesda, MD; Dec 13: Antwerp, Belgium]

Sep 17
DANIEL HOPE and his Zurich Chamber Orchestra perform a program of Gluck, Handel, Mozart, and many others in Merano, at Italy’s Südtirol Festival. [Merano, Italy]

Sep 18–Oct 6
THE ATLANTA OPERA’s Discoveries series, now in its eleventh year, has been widely recognized for presenting new works, new ideas, and fresh perspectives, as well as for performances in alternative venues that bring opera to new audiences across the Atlanta metro area. Following last season’s traditional production of Puccini’s La bohème, the Discoveries series continues in September with two immersive productions at Pullman Yards. Produced by General and Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun with Ukrainian-Israeli American designer, director, and multimedia artist Vita Tzykun, the Discoveries series’ “Bohème Project” comprises repertory performances of a modern-day La bohème – with the COVID-19 pandemic in place of tuberculosis – in tandem with the Broadway show it inspired, Jonathan Larson’s Rent, which updated Puccini’s story of friendship, passion, and art by setting it in the midst of the 1990s HIV/AIDS crisis. Both performed on the same set, with the action taking place in and around the seated audience, the productions will feature different casts and musical forces and will alternate nights for most of the run. On September 22 and 29, the two works will be performed back-to-back. [Bohème: Sep 18, 20, 22m, 25, 27, 29m; Oct 1, 3, 5; Rent: Sep 19, 21, 22, 26, 28, 29; Oct 2, 4, 6m: Atlanta]

Sep 25–Oct 4
Grammy-winning American classical singer JULIA BULLOCK – known for “communicat[ing] intense, authentic feeling, as if she were singing right from her soul” (Opera News) – tours California with the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC), of which she is a founding core member, for the first American performances of Harawi. Directed by Zack Winokur and choreographed by featured dancers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, Harawi realizes Olivier Messiaen’s deeply affecting, hour-long song cycle for voice and piano in new physical and dramatic dimensions. Written in the composer’s own distinctive tonal language, the twelve-part song cycle was inspired by original Harawi music from a diverse range of Andean cultures, in which the genre’s soulful melodies and lyrics encompassed intersecting themes of love, loss, death, life, nature and the cosmos. [Sep 25: San Diego, CA; Sep 27: Berkeley, CA; Oct 1: Los Angeles; Oct 4: Santa Barbara, CA]

Sep 25–Dec 7
In a new appointment as 2024-25 Artist-in-Residence of the Czech Philharmonic, DANIIL TRIFONOV joins the orchestra and chief conductor Semyon Bychkov for accounts of Dvořák’s Piano Concerto on both sides of the Atlantic, with season-opening concerts in Prague and Bratislava followed by December dates at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory and New York’s Carnegie Hall. Dvořák’s concerto is also the vehicle for the pianist’s upcoming Austrian tour with Jakub Hrůša and the Bamberg Symphony. [Sep 25, 26: Prague; Sep 27: Bratislava, Slovakia; Oct 21, 22: Graz, Austria; Oct 24: Vienna; Nov 5: Linz, Austria; Dec 5: NYC/CH; Dec 7: Toronto]

Sep 26, 27, 28
Over the coming season, Grammy-winning French pianist PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD undertakes many engagements to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Schoenberg’s birth. The first sees him join Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and David Robertson for the composer’s sole Piano Concerto, of which Aimard’s interpretation has been called “outstanding, … probably the best I have heard live – and a match for the best on record” (Seen and Heard International). [Hamburg]

Sep 26, 27, 28
“A conductor for the future” with “a flourishing career” (New York Times), ANTHONY PARNTHER leads the New York Philharmonic’s New York premiere of “Jaws in Concert,” celebrating the 50th anniversary of the picture’s cinematic release with three live-to-film concert performances of John Williams’s Academy Award-winning score. As “Hollywood’s go-to conductor for epic projects” (Billboard), Parnther also led the orchestra’s sold-out run of “Black Panther in Concert” last winter. [NYC/DGH]

Sep 26, 28; Feb 22–28
American soprano KATHRYN LEWEK makes role debuts in two classic operas. Singing opposite her husband, tenor Zach Borichevsky, in both productions, she gives her first performances as Micaëla in Nashville Opera’s season-opening staging of Bizet’s Carmen, before making her house and role debuts as Puccini’s Musetta in Opera Colorado’s La bohème early next year. The New York Times affirms, “Singing like Lewek’s is what the magic of opera is all about.” [Sept 26, 28: Nashville, TN; Feb 22, 25, 27, 28: Englewood, CO]

Sep 28
Venezuelan conductor RAFAEL PAYARE launches his sixth season as Music Director of California’s SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY (SDS) with a star-studded concert to celebrate the reopening of the Jacobs Music Center, their newly modernized indoor home. Their Opening Night program showcases the world premiere of Welcome Home!, a festive new fanfare commissioned from award-winning Korean American composer Texu Kim, alongside works by Rossini, Tchaikovsky, Ravel, Rachmaninoff, and Villa-Lobos, with solo appearances from concertmaster Jeff Thayer, soprano Hera Hyesang Park, pianist Inon Barnatan, and the conductor’s wife, cellist ALISA WEILERSTEIN. Payare’s SDS tenure has already proven transformative, prompting the Los Angeles Times to marvel: “He is electrifying in front of an orchestra. … San Diego is suddenly a symphonic destination.” [San Diego, CA]

Sep 28, 29; Oct 13; Feb 6
“One of the most prominent composers in the country,” MICHAEL HERSCH “writes masterly modernist music of implacable seriousness” (New Yorker). Following his first three operas – On the Threshold of Winter, Medea, and Poppaea, an Austrian Music Theater Prize nominee – the American composer’s fourth, and we, each, receives its world premiere from Baltimore’s Mind on Fire, followed by performances at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C., and a New York premiere at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust. Set to texts by Whiting Award-winning American poet Shane McCrae, the two-act opera offers, Hersch says, “an exploration of the treacherous territories of relationships – between individuals, within societies and, ultimately, the collapse of both.” Marking the second opera he has written for Ah Young Hong in a primary role, its upcoming performances will feature the soprano and baritone Jesse Blumberg under Tito Muñoz’s leadership, in a production directed by James Matthew Daniel. [Sep 28, 29: Baltimore, MD; Oct 13: Washington, D.C.; Feb 6: NYC/NatSaw]

OCTOBER 2024

Oct 3, 4
DANIIL TRIFONOV performs Ravel’s G-major Concerto with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and ALAN GILBERT (see Sep 1). [Hamburg]

Oct 3–19
ALISA WEILERSTEIN joins Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic for concerts at L.A.’s Walt Disney Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall, and Bogotá’s Teatro Mayor, at which they give the world, New York, and Colombian premieres of a new cello concerto by Mexico’s Gabriela Ortiz. An LA Philharmonic and Carnegie Hall co-commission, this marks the first of three new concertos written for Weilerstein to premiere over the coming season. She is already the dedicatee of concertos by Joan Tower, Matthias Pintscher, and Pascal Dusapin, to whose Outscape she gave “the kind of debut most composers can only dream of” (Chicago Tribune). [Oct 3, 4: Los Angeles; Oct 9: NYC/CH; Oct 19: Bogotá, Colombia]

Oct 4
Deutsche Grammophon releases My American Story by DANIIL TRIFONOV. Celebrating music from the country he now calls home, the pianist’s new double album pairs concertos by Gershwin and Mason Bates with solo pieces by composers ranging from Copland and Carter to Art Tatum and Thomas Newman. Bates’s concerto is dedicated to Trifonov and both orchestral works were captured live with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra, who previously partnered with the pianist on his award-winning Destination Rachmaninov series. [Deutsche Grammophon]

Oct 4, 5, 6
The SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY (SDS) and Music Director RAFAEL PAYARE perform Mahler’s monumental “Resurrection” Symphony with the San Diego Symphony Festival Chorus and vocal soloists Angela Meade and Anna Larsson, after a reprise of Thomas Larcher’s Time, a recent SDS co-commission. It was in Mahler that the San Diego Symphony first “elevated itself to a new plateau” (San Diego Union-Tribune) under Payare’s leadership. [San Diego, CA]

Oct 5–20
Following concert performances of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre in spring 2024, the DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (DSO) and Music Director FABIO LUISI present Siegfried and Götterdämmerung in the fall (Oct 5 & 8), before giving concert accounts over the course of a week of the entire Ring cycle, becoming the first U.S. orchestra in recent history to do so (Oct 13, 15, 17, 20). This enormous endeavor is the culmination of many years of planning by DSO artistic staff and leadership and features a huge orchestra of more than 100 players and a cast of more than 30 vocalists on stage at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center. The star-studded cast list includes soprano Lise Lindstrom (Brünnhilde), soprano Sara Jakubiak (Sieglinde), mezzo-soprano Deniz Uzun (Fricka), tenor Daniel Johansson (Siegfried), bass-baritone Mark Delavan (Wotan), and baritone Tómas Tómasson (Alberich). The staging director for the production is Alberto Triola, who also produced the DSO’s opera-in-concert performances of Richard Strauss’s Salome in 2020 and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin in 2022. [Oct 5: Siegfried; Oct 8: Götterdämmerung; Oct 13: Das Rheingold; Oct 15: Die Walküre; Oct 17: Siegfried; Oct 20: Götterdämmerung; Dallas]

Oct 6–April 27
Highlights of CARAMOOR’s fall/spring season, with performances in the intimate surroundings of the Rosen House Music Room, include Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin combining Haydn and Beethoven sonatas with works by Rachmaninoff and his younger contemporary Nikolai Medtner (Oct 6); a Baroque program from prize-winning young French chamber ensemble Le Consort (Oct 20); distinguished South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim (Nov 8); early music ensemble Twelfth Night, performing Handel’s pastoral cantata Aminta e Fillide with soprano Nola Richardson and mezzo-soprano Xenia Puskarz Thomas (April 6); and the Brentano String Quartet in the New York premiere of a new work by Lei Liang, along with music by Haydn and Brahms (April 27). [Oct 6, 20; Nov 8; April 6, 27: Katonah, NY]

Oct 10, 11
“A formidable musician and a powerful communicator” (New York Times), MacArthur award-winning conductor MARIN ALSOP leads the CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA in accounts of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony; James Lee III’s Harriet Tubman tribute, Chuphshah! Harriet’s Drive to Canaan; and Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto, with Lukáš Vondráček as soloist. Alsop has been Chief Conductor of the Chicago Symphony’s annual Ravinia residencies since 2020. [Chicago]

Oct 10, 11, 13
“One of the finest musicians working today” (Washington Post), celebrated Norwegian pianist LEIF OVE ANDSNES performs Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra and music director Gianandrea Noseda. As heard on The Beethoven Journey, Andsnes’s acclaimed recording series for Sony Classical, his interpretation of the “Emperor” has been praised for its “arresting maturity, stylistic acumen and utter delight” (The Telegraph, UK). [Washington, D.C.]

Oct 10–20
Chief Conductor ALAN GILBERT conducts the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in a coupling of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony and Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, with powerhouse pianist Yefim Bronfman. Following two performances at the orchestra’s Hamburg home, this program takes them on a six-city European tour. After a previous NDR performance of the same symphony, Bachtrack observed: “Gilbert responds instinctively to Russian music and he was in his element.” [Oct 10, 11: Hamburg; Oct 12: Cologne, Germany; Oct 13: Friedrichshafen, Germany; Oct 14: Freiburg, Germany; Oct 16: Basel, Switzerland; Oct 18, Turin, Italy; Oct 20: Munich]

Oct 11
In RAFAEL PAYARE’s third season as Music Director of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (Montreal Symphony/OSM), Pentatone releases their third recording together, an all-Schoenberg album to mark the composer’s anniversary. This follows the success of the conductor’s previous OSM recordings for the label, which include “a reading of Mahler’s Fifth of intensity and rich orchestral exploration, a real marker in their ongoing partnership” (Gramophone). [Pentatone]

Oct 13
MICHAEL HERSCH’s new opera, and we, each, travels to the Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C., where it will star Ah Young Hong and Jesse Blumberg under Tito Muñoz’s leadership, in a production directed by James Matthew Daniel (see Sep 28). [Washington, D.C]

Oct 14–18
Recently praised for its “transformative power” (New York Times), GATEWAYS MUSIC FESTIVAL launches the new season with the Gateways Fall Festival at Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. Highlights include a Young Musicians Institute, as well as masterclasses and panels for Eastman students and local community members by the Gateways Brass Collective, which concludes the residency with a performance in the “Eastman Presents” series in Kilbourn Hall (Oct 18). Bringing together professional classical musicians of African descent, Gateways was recently recognized with the 2024 Classical Next Innovation Award. [Oct 14, 15, 16, 17, 18: Rochester, NY]

Oct 16–Nov 17; March 26, 27
Seven-time Grammy Award and MacArthur Fellowship-winning double bassist EDGAR MEYER is joined by genre-crossing violinist Tessa Lark and eclectic cellist Joshua Roman for a U.S. tour of music by J.S. Bach and Meyer himself. Included are the world premiere performances of a new work by Meyer, composed expressly for these musicians and co-commissioned by Cal Performances, the Aspen Music Festival, the Gogue Performing Arts Center, and the Lied Center of Kansas. Beginning in Seattle, the tour passes through Oregon, California, Kansas, Virginia, Florida, New York, Wisconsin, and Michigan. [Oct 16: Seattle, WA; Oct 18: Eugene, OR; Oct 20: Berkeley, CA; Oct 22: San Luis Obispo, CA; Oct 23: Northridge, CA; Oct 26: Aliso Viejo, CA; Nov 3: Lawrence, KS; Nov 8: Richmond, VA; Nov 10: Winter Park, FL; Nov 17: Purchase, NY; March 26: South Milwaukee, WI; March 27: Holland, MI]

Oct 17; Nov 17; Feb 26
DANIIL TRIFONOV gives solo recitals at three top U.S. venues over the coming season. This fall, he performs programs of Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and Bartók at New York’s Carnegie Hall and of Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and Barber at Chicago’s Symphony Hall, where the appearance marks his first as 2024–25 Artist-in-Residence of the CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA. He returns early next year to Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, with a solo program to be announced. “What makes him such a phenomenon is the ecstatic quality he brings to his performances,” writes the Financial Times. “Small wonder every western capital is in thrall to him.” [Oct 17: NYC/CH; Nov 17: Chicago; Feb 26: Philadelphia]

Oct 18
DANIEL HOPE performs a program of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Vivaldi with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra at Dresden’s Frauenkirche (see Sep 7). [Dresden]

Oct 20
Prize-winning young French chamber ensemble Le Consort plays an all-Baroque program at CARAMOOR with music of Matteis, Purcell, Eccles, and more (see Oct 6). [Katonah, NY]

Oct 21–Nov 5
DANIIL TRIFONOV performs Dvořák’s Piano Concerto on an Austrian tour with Jakub Hrůša and the Bamberg Symphony (see Sep 25). [Oct 21, 22: Graz, Austria; Oct 24: Vienna; Nov 5: Linz, Austria]

Oct 23, 24, 25
After his 2022 debut with the orchestra, RAFAEL PAYARE returns to the New York Philharmonic for a program of Sofia Gubaidulina’s Fairytale Poem; Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, with Principal Clarinet Anthony McGill as soloist; and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony (“Pathétique”), of which the conductor’s interpretation serves as “a reminder of why its popularity has endured” (Broadway World). [NYC/DGH]

Oct 24
In the second season of her four-year appointment as Principal Guest Conductor of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, MARIN ALSOP leads a program of music by the Mahlers. Grammy-winning mezzo Sasha Cooke is the soloist in orchestral arrangements of songs by Alma Mahler, bookended by Alsop’s interpretations of Gustav Mahler’s Blumine and beloved Fifth Symphony. There will be an open rehearsal on the morning of the concert. It was after one of the conductor’s previous Philharmonia appearances that The Times of London declared: “Alsop whipped up the excitement right to the end.” [London]

Oct 30
Cellist INBAL SEGEV, an established driving force in the creation of new cello repertoire for the 21st century, joins the American Composers Orchestra in Carnegie’s Zankel Hall for the New York premiere of Ukrainian composer Victoria Vita Poleva’s The Bell. Segev premiered the piece in 2023 with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, a co-commissioner along with the London Philharmonic and American Composers Orchestra. [NYC/CH]

NOVEMBER 2024

Nov 3
Émigré (2023), an oratorio by Emmy-winning American composer AARON ZIGMAN, receives its European premiere from the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Set to words by Grammy winner Mark Campbell, with additional lyrics by Brock Walsh, Zigman’s 90-minute work tells the story of Jewish refugees who fled to Shanghai to escape the Holocaust. A binational co-commission of the New York Philharmonic with the Shanghai Symphony and its conductor, Long Yu, Émigré will feature an international cast led by Long Yu, as at its first performances in China, where it was pronounced “a clear winner” (Interlude, Hong Kong). [Berlin]

Nov 8
Distinguished South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim performs in CARAMOOR’s Rosen House Music Room (see Oct 6). [Katonah, NY]

Nov 14–April 10 
ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S (OSL) – celebrated for its “exceptionally fine and committed music-making” (New York Times) – gives four mainstage performances in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage during the orchestra’s 50th-anniversary season in 2024–25. Conductor Louis Langrée makes his Carnegie Hall debut leading OSL and cellist Sterling Elliott in Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 2 in D, along with Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and Valerie Coleman’s Fanfare for Uncommon Times (Nov 14). In January, the orchestra returns to Carnegie Hall for the New York debut of conductor Raphaël Pichon, who leads baritone Christian Gerhaher, soprano Ying Fang, and the Ensemble Altera chamber choir in the U.S. premiere of the conductor’s curated evening-length concert, Mein Traum (Jan 23). Juxtaposing Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony with music from his operas, Weber arias, and Liszt’s orchestrations of songs by Robert Schumann, Mein Traum was released to international acclaim on the Harmonia Mundi label in 2022. In Bernard Labadie’s final season as OSL Principal Conductor, he leads the orchestra in two Carnegie mainstage programs. He collaborates with pianist Marc-André Hamelin in Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto, alongside works by Mozart and Haydn (Feb 13), then conducts Bach’s St. John Passion with his own La Chapelle de Québec and an all-star roster of soloists that includes Andrew Haji, Philippe Sly, Joélle Harvey, and Hugh Cutting (April 10). [Nov 14; Jan 23; Feb 13; April 10: NYC/CH]

Nov 14–21; Dec 12–28; March 23–April 26
As today’s reigning Queen of the Night, KATHRYN LEWEK sings the Mozart role in three productions of The Magic Flute. At the Berlin State Opera, she stars alongside René Pape in August Everding’s staging of the opera, which reconstructs the 1816 set design featuring the Queen’s iconic starry sky. Then, at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, where she has performed the part a record-breaking 64 times, Lewek reprises her star turns in both Julie Taymor’s abridged, family-friendly, holiday treatment of the opera and Simon McBurney’s uproarious full-length production. As the New Yorker’s Alex Ross notes, Lewek “executes this stratospherically difficult role better than anyone alive.” [Nov 14, 16, 21: Berlin; Dec 12, 13, 15, 18, 21, 27, 28: NYC/Met; March 23, 28; April 1, 4, 7, 9, 12, 16, 19, 23, 26: NYC/Met]

Nov 15, 16
Grammy winners TEDDY ABRAMS and the LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA (LO) give the world premiere performance of Valerie Coleman’s Concerto for Orchestra, on a program featuring Barber’s Violin Concerto with internationally renowned violinist Ray Chen as soloist. The program is rounded out with debut works from Brittany Green, Oswald Huỳnh, and Baldwin Giang, the three members of LO’s 2024-25 Creators Corps. [Louisville]

Nov 16, 17
MARIN ALSOP returns to the Cincinnati Symphony for a pairing of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, “Leningrad,” with Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. A former protégé of the American composer’s, Alsop is one of the foremost exponents of his music, and her recordings of Bernstein’s complete orchestral works feature a number of “definitive performances” (New York Times), “some of which seem better than the composer’s own” (San Francisco Classical Voice). [Cincinnati]

Nov 16–Dec 14
At the Royal Swedish Opera, where ALAN GILBERT has been Music Director since spring 2021, he conducts Berg’s Wozzeck, starring Peter Mattei and Malin Byström in Richard Brunel’s production. This reunites Gilbert and Mattei after their acclaimed collaboration on Parsifal at the Stockholm house this past spring, of which Opera magazine reports: “Musically, the performance was outstanding. This was Gilbert’s first Parsifal, but he guided the orchestra, soloists and chorus through the work as if he’s been doing it for years, superbly, balanced throughout.” [Nov 16, 19, 22, 25, 28; Dec 10, 14: Stockholm]

Nov 17
DANIIL TRIFONOV gives a solo recital of Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and Barber at Chicago’s Symphony Hall, where the appearance marks his first as 2024–25 Artist-in-Residence of the CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (see Oct 17). [Chicago]

Nov 19–30
RAFAEL PAYARE and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal embark on their second major European tour together. With programs featuring Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, Richard Strauss’s Alpine Symphony, and Beethoven and Schumann concertos with pianist DANIIL TRIFONOV, this takes them to London’s Barbican Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and the Luxembourg Philharmonie, Paris Philharmonie, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Berlin Philharmonie, Munich Isarphilharmonie, and Vienna Konzerthaus. It was two years ago, after Payare’s first high-profile European tour with OSM, that The Times of London concluded: “The Canadians have made a cracking appointment.” [Nov 19: London; Nov 20: Luxembourg; Nov 22: Paris; Nov 24: Hamburg; Nov 25: Berlin; Nov 27: Amsterdam; Nov 28: Munich; Nov 30: Vienna]

From Nov 21; opening Dec 19
AUDRA MCDONALD has won a record-breaking six Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards, and an Emmy Award; she was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2015 and received the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama. Starting this November, she will star as Rose in a new Broadway production of Gypsy, taking on what is widely regarded as the greatest role in musical theater. The upcoming revival will be directed by legendary five-time Tony Award-winning director George C. Wolfe and choreographed by four-time Tony Award nominee Camille A. Brown. Gypsy features a book by Tony Award winner Arthur Laurents, music by Tony and Academy Award winner Jule Styne, and lyrics by Tony, Grammy, Academy Award, and Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Sondheim. Producers are Tom Kirdahy, Mara Isaacs, Kevin Ryan, Diane Scott Carter, Peter May, and Thomas M. Neff. Performances will begin November 21 at Broadway’s newly renovated Majestic Theatre, with an opening date of December 19. [NYC/Majestic]

Nov 27–30
The Gateways Brass Collective, a resident ensemble of GATEWAYS MUSIC FESTIVAL, makes its Walt Disney World debut in the resort’s Thanksgiving Day parade. [Nov 27-30: Orlando, FL]

DECEMBER 2024

Dec 1–Dec 23
CHANTICLEER performs its beloved holiday program, “A Chanticleer Christmas,” throughout the month of December. Featured on a PBS special and multiple appearances on NBC’s Today show, the program – from its opening candlelit chant procession to its triumphant gospel conclusion – hearkens back to some of the group’s most cherished traditions and the original vision of its founder, Louis Botto. Tour highlights include performances at New York City’s Church of St. Ignatius Loyola (Dec 6 & 8), Chicago’s Symphony Center (Dec 10), and Los Angeles’s Walt Disney Concert Hall (Dec 17), as well as concerts throughout the choir’s Bay Area home. In 2020, the group released the Christmas program on the album Chanticleer Sings Christmas, which was lauded by Classics Today for “the beauty and sumptuous blend the choir achieves … and the seasoned performance style that brings each selection to its fullest expression.” [Dec 1: Manassas, VA; Dec 3: Sarasota, FL; Dec 4: Palm Beach, FL; Dec 6, 8: NYC/St. Ignatius; Dec 7: Princeton, NJ; Dec 10: Chicago; Dec 12: Stanford, CA; Dec 13: Petaluma, CA; Dec 15: Oakland, CA; Dec 16: Sacramento, CA; Dec 17: Los Angeles; Dec 19: Mill Valley, CA; Dec 20: Santa Clara, CA; Dec 21: Berkeley, CA; Dec 22: San Francisco; Dec 23: Carmel, CA]

Dec 5, 7
In a new appointment as 2024-25 Artist-in-Residence of the Czech Philharmonic, DANIIL TRIFONOV joins the orchestra and chief conductor Semyon Bychkov for accounts of Dvořák’s Piano Concerto at New York’s Carnegie Hall and Toronto’s Royal Conservatory (see Sep 25). [Dec 5: NYC/CH; Dec 7: Toronto]

Dec 11–17
Cellist INBAL SEGEV joins the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for its yearly tradition of presenting all six of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos in one program. Following a performance at Chicago’s Harris Theater, the group moves to New York’s Alice Tully Hall for a five-day run. [Dec 11: Chicago; Dec 13, 14, 15, 16, 17: NYC/ATH]

Dec 12–28
As today’s reigning Queen of the Night, KATHRYN LEWEK reprises her star turn in the Mozart role in Julie Taymor’s abridged, family-friendly, holiday treatment of The Magic Flute at New York’s Metropolitan Opera (see Nov 14). [Dec 12, 13, 15, 18, 21, 27, 28: NYC/Met]

Dec 13
DANIEL HOPE performs his “Irish Roots” program at Dresden’s Frauenkirche following the summer release of the program by Deutsche Grammophon (see Sep 7). [Dresden]

Dec 13, 14
SERGEI BABAYAN performs Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto with Belgium’s Antwerp Symphony, led by its Chief Conductor, Elim Chan (see Sep 14). [Antwerp, Belgium]

Dec 19
“One of today’s smartest, most arresting vocalists in any genre” (NPR), JULIA BULLOCK made her Metropolitan Opera debut this past April, headlining the company premiere of John Adams’s opera-oratorio El Niño. This coming December, she gives a chamber performance of the same work with her husband, conductor and pianist Christian Reif – who also created the arrangement – in New York. [Dec 19: NYC/St. John]

Dec 19
A new production of Gypsy opens at Broadway’s Majestic Theatre, starring AUDRA MCDONALD (see Nov 21). [NYC/Majestic]

Dec 25, 26
DANIEL HOPE joins conductor Daniel Geiss, German actress Katharina Thalbach, trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin Vary, and the Belgrade Chamber Orchestra at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie for four performances of “A Winter’s Tale: Stories and Songs at Christmas Time,” which has been performed on the Elbphilharmonie stage since 2017, the year after the venue first opened its doors. [Hamburg]

JANUARY 2025

Jan 9–23
JULIA BULLOCK joins the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment for a tour of the UK and U.S., with an all-Baroque program including vocal music by  Handel, Lully, Purcell, Rameau, and Strozzi. Venues include London’s Southbank Centre and New York’s 92NY. [Jan 9: London; Jan 11: Saffron Walden, UK; Jan 19: Berkeley, CA; Jan 21: Santa Barbara, CA; Jan 23: NYC/92NY]

Jan 17, 18
TEDDY ABRAMS and the LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA are joined by violinist Midori for performances of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in D minor, sharing the bill with Strauss’s monumental An Alpine Symphony. [Louisville]

Jan 21; May 20
ALISA WEILERSTEIN returns to Carnegie’s Zankel Hall for the New York premieres of FRAGMENTS 2 (Jan 21) and FRAGMENTS 3 (May 20), the second and third programs in her solo cello performance series, “FRAGMENTS.” Designed to rethink the concert experience, the series sees her weave together the 36 movements of Bach’s solo cello suites with 27 new commissions to make six programs, each an hour long, for performance in multisensory productions by Elkhanah Pulitzer. When Weilerstein debuted FRAGMENTS 1 at Zankel Hall, the New York Times called her “a cellist of explosive emotional energy.” As the Financial Times concludes, “A project like this, humble yet bursting with human creativity and imagination, makes us … think: all is not lost.” [NYC/CH]

Jan 23
ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S (OSL) returns to Carnegie Hall for the New York debut of conductor Raphaël Pichon, who leads baritone Christian Gerhaher, soprano Ying Fang, and the Ensemble Altera chamber choir in the U.S. premiere of the conductor’s curated evening-length concert, Mein Traum (see Nov 14). [NYC/CH]

Jan 23, 25, 26
RAFAEL PAYARE reprises his celebrated interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony (“Pathétique”) for his return to the Philadelphia Orchestra, alongside the Second Suite from Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe and the late Kaija Saariaho’s violin concerto Graal théâtre, with Carolin Widmann as soloist. “Payare is electric,” declared the Philadelphia Inquirer of the conductor’s debut with the orchestra; “he seems to hit the jackpot wherever he goes.” [Philadelphia]

Jan 30–Feb 2
For his first DSO performances in 2025, DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (DSO) Music Director FABIO LUISI is joined by Grammy-winning violinist Augustin Hadelich, who performs Brahms’s Violin Concerto in D. Also on the program is Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony. [Jan 30, 31; Feb 1, 2: Dallas]

Jan 31; Feb 1
Music Director RAFAEL PAYARE leads the SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY (SDS) in the world premiere of Concerto for Orchestra, a new SDS commission from Grammy winner Billy Childs. Also on their program are Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony and Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto, featuring Alexander Malofeev, whose “artistry is truly remarkable for a young pianist” (Boston Classical Review). [San Diego, CA]

FEBRUARY 2025

Feb 3
The GATEWAYS MUSIC FESTIVAL presents a performance by the Gateways Brass Collective at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where Gateways also looks forward to working with students in masterclasses and recitals. [Cleveland, OH]

Feb 5, 6, 7
With the Czech Philharmonic and Tomáš Netopil, ALISA WEILERSTEIN gives the world premiere of a new cello concerto by Richard Blackford. Inspired by a recent instance of compassion and resilience shown in the face of a Californian wildfire, the British composer’s work marks the second of three new concertos written for Weilerstein to premiere over the coming season. Her previous Czech Philharmonic collaborations include a recording praised for the “take-no-prisoners emotional investment that is evident in every bar” (New York Times). [Prague]

Feb 6
MICHAEL HERSCH’s fourth opera, and we, each, receives its New York premiere at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust, where it will star Ah Young Hong and Jesse Blumberg under Tito Muñoz’s leadership, in a production directed by James Matthew Daniel (see Sep 28). [Feb 6: NYC/NatSaw]

Feb 6–April 19
Known as “one of America’s best at commissioning new works,” (D Magazine), the DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (DSO) and Music Director FABIO LUISI continue their longstanding tradition of championing contemporary composers with three DSO-commissioned world premieres during the 2024–25 season. First, they collaborate with Native American, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Raven Chacon on a new orchestral work (Feb 6–9). Next, Luisi conducts the world premiere of a new work by DSO composer-in-residence Sophia Jani – 2023 Musical Artist in Residence of the Arvo Pärt Centre and an Opus Klassik nominee – on a program that also features the Dallas premiere of Arlene Sierra’s new work, Kiskadee, which was commissioned by the League of American Orchestras with the generous support of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation (March 6–9). Finally, Luisi leads the world premiere of Sean Shepherd’s Concerto for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon (April 17–19). Shepherd, “an exciting composer of the new American generation” (New York Times), recently completed his tenure as the Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow of the Cleveland Orchestra. [Feb 6, 7, 8, 9; March 6, 7, 8, 9; April 17, 18, 19: Dallas]

Feb 13 
ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S (OSL) Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie leads the orchestra with pianist Marc-André Hamelin in Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto, alongside works by Mozart and Haydn, at Carnegie Hall (see Nov 14). [NYC/CH]

Feb 15, 16
Preeminent conductor-composer Michael Tilson Thomas leads the SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY in performances of his own Street Song for Symphonic Brass, Tchaikovsky’s First Symphony, and Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, with Parker Van Ostrand as piano soloist. [San Diego, CA]

Feb 18–March 6
The LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (LSO) embarks on its first U.S. tour with Sir Antonio Pappano, who launches his tenure as Chief Conductor in September. Joined by pianist Yunchan Lim for Rachmaninoff and by violinist Janine Jansen for Mendelssohn and Bernstein, Pappano and the orchestra perform the first symphonies of Mahler and Walton alongside works by Elgar and Walker in ten cities across California and Florida, before concluding the tour with back-to-back programs at Carnegie Hall. The New York concerts mark the seven-time Grammy-winning conductor’s first appearances at the venue with the LSO. [Feb 18: Santa Barbara, CA; Feb 19: Palm Desert; Feb 20: Costa Mesa; Feb 21: San Diego, CA; Feb 22: Davis, CA; Feb 23: Stanford, CA; Feb 26: Orlando, FL; Feb 27, 28: Naples, FL; March 1: West Palm Beach, FL; March 2: Miami; March 5, 6: NYC/CH]

Feb 20, 21, 22
MARIN ALSOP becomes the first U.S.-born woman to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic when she makes her long-awaited debut with the orchestra. Her program combines the world premiere of a new Berlin Philharmonic co-commission from Finland’s Outi Tarkiainen with three works from the Americas: the 1954 version of Copland’s Appalachian Spring, Brett Dean’s Fire Music, and Villa-Lobos’s Chôros No. 10 (“Rasga o coração”), for which Alsop and the orchestra will be joined by the Berlin Radio Choir. [Berlin]

Feb 20, 21, 22
After a weeklong residency with the Boston Symphony at the 2024 Tanglewood Music Festival, ALAN GILBERT returns to lead the orchestra in a program juxtaposing two Haydn symphonies with Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto, featuring Gramophone Award winner Isabelle Faust. Gilbert’s leadership of the Boston Symphony has been called “revelatory,” thanks to “his thoughtful musicianship and fresh approaches to programming” (Boston Globe). [Boston]

Feb 21, 22, 23
DANIIL TRIFONOV plays Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto with the San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen. In a five-star review of Trifonov’s recording of the work, BBC Music magazine writes: “This is a monstrously beautiful account of the Titanic terror in Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto – can anyone play this better today?” [San Francisco]

Feb 22–28
KATHRYN LEWEK makes her house and role debuts as Puccini’s Musetta in Opera Colorado’s La bohème (see Sep 26). [Feb 22, 25, 27, 28: Englewood, CO]

Feb 26
DANIIL TRIFONOV gives a solo recital at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center (program to be announced) (see Oct 17). [Philadelphia]

Feb 27; March 1
MARIN ALSOP returns to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to conduct the National Symphony Orchestra in a pairing of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade with Julia Wolfe’s Her Story, which commemorates the fight for women’s suffrage. As when Alsop led its Chicago premiere last year, Wolfe’s work will feature the all-female vocalists of the Lorelei Ensemble. [Washington, D.C.]

Feb 28; March 1
Finnish maestro Osmo Vänskä returns to the SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY for a Finnish-themed program, in which Sibelius’s Tapiola and Fifth Symphony bookend Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto, featuring Finnish pianist Paavali Jumppanen. [San Diego, CA]

Feb 28–March 15
Cellist INBAL SEGEV, well-known for her commitment to expanding the cello repertoire and interpretations of 21st-century music, collaborates with conductor Leonard Slatkin for performances of Mark Adamo’s new cello concerto titled Last Year, written in 2022 and inspired in part by Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. After two performances with the Nashville Symphony, Segev and Slatkin perform the same piece with the Las Vegas Philharmonic. [Feb 28, March 2: Nashville, TN; March 15: Las Vegas]

MARCH 2025

March 2
“He likes to put interpreters at the border of what’s possible and what is not. If you like that, it’s incredibly exciting,” says pianist PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD of his late teacher and collaborator, Pierre Boulez, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday next year. To honor the centenary, Aimard intersperses the French avant-gardist’s music with works by Ravel, Stravinsky, and Bartók at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, in what marks the first of his two solo recitals at the New York venue next spring. [NYC/CH]

March 2–7
DANIIL TRIFONOV embarks on a high-profile U.S. recital tour with violinist Leonidas Kavakos, who is, like the pianist, a former Gramophone Artist of the Year. With a duo program of Beethoven, Brahms, Bartók, and Poulenc, they perform together in Kansas City, in Boston’s Celebrity Series, and at Washington’s Kennedy Center, New York’s Carnegie Hall, and Chicago’s Symphony Center. [March 2: Washington, D.C.; March 4: NYC/CH; March 5: Boston; March 7: Kansas City, MO; March 9: Chicago]

March 6, 7, 8
MARIN ALSOP returns to the New York Philharmonic for the world premiere of a new work commissioned by the orchestra from Nico Muhly, with Renaud Capuçon as soloist, alongside Beethoven’s Third Leonore Overture, Brahms’s Variations on a Theme of Haydn, and Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. It was in ballet music by Stravinsky’s compatriot Prokofiev that Alsop demonstrated “her vivid sense of color and rhythmic clarity” (New York Times) with the Philharmonic last year. [NYC/DGH]

March 6–9
The DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (DSO) and Music Director Fabio Luisi give the world premiere of a new work by DSO composer-in-residence Sophia Jani – 2023 Musical Artist in Residence of the Arvo Pärt Centre and an Opus Klassik nominee – on a program that also features the Dallas premiere of Arlene Sierra’s new work, Kiskadee, which was commissioned by the League of American Orchestras with the generous support of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation (see Feb 6). [March 6, 7, 8, 9: Dallas]

March 7, 8, 9
PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD performs Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand with Michael Tilson Thomas and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Written for a pianist who lost his right arm in World War I, the work is one to which Aimard regularly returns; as the UK’s Independent observes, “It is hard to imagine a pianist better qualified to play works by Ravel.” [Philadelphia]

March 13–16
Grammy-winning conductor TEDDY ABRAMS, Musical America’s 2022 Conductor of the Year, conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra and soloist Ray Chen in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, along with Whitman Songs by Abrams’s mentor Michael Tilson Thomas, featuring bass-baritone Dashon Burton. The “Symphonic Dances” from Bernstein’s West Side Story complete the program. [March 13, 14, 15, 16: Boston]

March 19–April 4
RAFAEL PAYARE returns to London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, to conduct Puccini’s Turandot in Andrei Șerban’s classic production, with Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role. At the conductor’s 2023 debut at the English house, his leadership proved both “irresistible” (The Guardian) and “perfectly judged” (The Times of London). [March 19, 22, 24, 27, 29, April 1, 4: London]

March 23–April 26
As today’s reigning Queen of the Night, KATHRYN LEWEK reprises her star turn in the Mozart role in Simon McBurney’s uproarious full-length production of The Magic Flute at New York’s Metropolitan Opera (see Nov 14). [March 23, 28; April 1, 4, 7, 9, 12, 16, 19, 23, 26: NYC/Met]

March 25–April 1
Last year, pianist LEIF OVE ANDSNES’s Carnegie Hall recital was a New York Times Critic’s Pick that showcased his “committed playing and interpretive wisdom.” Now he returns to the venue’s main stage to kick off his next U.S. solo recital tour. With a program combining Chopin’s 24 Preludes with sonatas by Andsnes’s fellow Norwegians Grieg and Geirr Tveitt, this also takes him to Cleveland, St. Paul, Berkeley, and Aliso Viejo, CA. [March 25: NYC/CH; March 27: Cleveland, OH; March 28: St. Paul, MN; March 30: Aliso Viejo, CA; April 1: Berkeley, CA]

APRIL 2025

April 3, 4, 5
ALISA WEILERSTEIN joins the New York Philharmonic and conductor Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider for the world premiere of a new concerto by Thomas Larcher, a contributor to her ongoing “FRAGMENTS” project. A New York Philharmonic co-commission, the Austrian composer’s new work marks the last of three new concertos written for Weilerstein to premiere over the coming season. She regularly appears with the New York Philharmonic, their most recent collaboration confirming her standing as “an artist who adroitly channels fierce work with her penetrating, brilliant sound” (New York Times). [NYC/DGH]

April 6
Early music ensemble Twelfth Night is joined by soprano Nola Richardson and mezzo-soprano Xenia Puskarz Thomas for a performance of Handel’s pastoral cantata Aminta e Fillide in CARAMOOR’s Rosen House Music Room (see Oct 6). [Katonah, NY]

April 10
ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie conducts Bach’s St. John Passion with his own La Chapelle de Québec and an all-star roster of soloists including Andrew Haji, Philippe Sly, Joélle Harvey, and Hugh Cutting at Carnegie Hall (see Nov 14). [NYC/CH]

April 17, 18, 19
The DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA and Music Director FABIO LUISI perform the world premiere of Sean Shepherd’s Concerto for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon. Shepherd, “an exciting composer of the new American generation” (New York Times), recently completed his tenure as the Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow of the Cleveland Orchestra (see Feb 6). [Dallas]

April 21–27
The 2025 GATEWAYS MUSIC FESTIVAL will take place in Rochester and New York City, with a range of community concerts in and around both locations. Comprised entirely of professional classical musicians of African descent, the Gateways Festival Orchestra will be in residence at the Eastman School of Music, performing in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre, before making its triumphant return to Carnegie Hall under the baton of ANTHONY PARNTHER, who led its historic, sold-out debut there in 2022. [April 21–24: Rochester, NY; April 25, 26: NYC/TBA; April 27: NY/CH]

April 24, 25, 26
Zell Music Director Designate Klaus Mäkelä returns to the CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA for performances of Mahler’s monumental Third Symphony with contralto Wiebke Lehmkuhl and the Uniting Voices Chicago choir. After the Finnish conductor’s most recent concerts with the orchestra, the Chicago Classical Review concluded that “the orchestra made an inspired choice with Klaus Mäkelä as their future leader.” [Chicago]

April 26–May 4
Following productions of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre in THE ATLANTA OPERA’s Ring cycle over the past two seasons, the company continues its Ring cycle with Siegfried, an epic five-hour opera in which love, courage, and wisdom triumph over the lure of unfettered power. With a superb cast led by heldentenor Stefan Vinke, this all-new production by General and Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun also features Greer Grimsley continuing his role as Wotan and Zachary Nelson returning as Alberich. Joining them are two international talents singing for Atlanta audiences for the first time: Lise Lindstrom in the role of Brünnhilde and Lindsay Ammann in the role of Erda. Following his turn in the company’s The Magic Flute, tenor Barry Banks sings the role of Mime. Like the previous Ring cycle productions, Siegfried is directed by Zvulun in collaboration with scenic and projections designer Erhard Rom and lighting designer Robert Wierzel, with costumes by European Opera Prize-winner Mattie Ullrich. The team expands on their vision from the first two productions, creating a setting equally inspired by ancient Germanic folklore and today’s Marvel multiverse. [April 26, 29; May 2, 4: Atlanta]

April 27
The Brentano String Quartet gives the New York premiere of a new work by Lei Liang, along with music of Haydn and Brahms, in CARAMOOR’s Rosen House Music Room (see Oct 6). [Katonah, NY]

MAY 2025

May 1–4
In his sole orchestral concerts as 2024–25 Artist-in-Residence of the CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, DANIIL TRIFONOV gives four performances of Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto under the baton of Music Director Designate Klaus Mäkelä. Praising Trifonov’s “big, warm, noble interpretation” of the work, Classical Voice writes: “In agitated passages, Trifonov sounded like a heaven-storming Brahmsian; in quiet passages, he sounded like a poet lost in a world of fantasy and ecstasy.” [May 1, 2, 3, 4: Chicago]

May 4
For his second spring appearance at Carnegie Hall, PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD deconstructs the keyboard fantasy with a solo recital spanning four centuries of music in the venue’s Zankel Hall. After a similar exploration of the fantasia form, the San Diego Union-Tribune marveled: “There have been few piano recitals this season so thoughtfully curated as the one that Pierre-Laurent Aimard gave. … A fascinating, unforgettable concert.” [NYC/CH]

May 8, 9, 11
LEIF OVE ANDSNES joins ALAN GILBERT and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra at the 2025 Hamburg International Music Festival, for performances of Debussy’s seldom-programmed Fantaisie for piano and orchestra. Andsnes previously performed the work “with easy virtuosity and panache” (New York Times) during his tenure as Artist-in-Residence of the New York Philharmonic. [Hamburg]

May 8, 10, 11
PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD performs solo and concertante works by French composers Debussy and Boulez with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Salonen is a frequent collaborator of the pianist’s. Released last year, their complete Bartók concerto cycle scored a five-star review in the UK’s Sunday Times, which called it “revelatory,” adding: “Superlative this absolutely is.” [Los Angeles]

May 9, 10
TEDDY ABRAMS and the LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA present “Creators Fest,” spotlighting the three current members of the orchestra’s groundbreaking Creators Corps initiative, a radically new, community-focused model for collaborating with symphony orchestras in the 21st century. Following performances of works by Creators Corps composers in November (see Nov 15, 16 above), this musical finale of the third year of the unique program sees performances of large-scale commissioned works by all three composers: Brittany Green, Oswald Huỳnh, and Baldwin Giang. [Louisville]

May 9, 10
Cellist INBAL SEGEV joins the West Michigan Symphony and conductor Scott Speck for a performance of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto (May 9) in Muskegon, Michigan, before giving a chamber performance the following night that features music of Bach, Debussy, Prokofiev, and Segev herself: the world premiere of her Trio for Cello, Clarinet, and Piano (2024). [Muskegon, MI]

May 10, 16, 18
ANTHONY PARNTHER takes the Detroit Opera podium for a revival of Anthony Davis’s Pulitzer Prize-winning opera, The Central Park Five, which examines the wrongful convictions of five Black and Latino teens. In the same work at Long Beach Opera, Parnther “conducted with gripping authority” (Los Angeles Times). [Detroit]

May 12–June 7
Pulitzer Prize winner John Adams is one of JULIA BULLOCK’s frequent collaborators: she created the role of Dame Shirley in his Girls of the Golden West, as well as singing the role of Kitty Oppenheimer on the Grammy-nominated 2018 Nonesuch recording of his opera Doctor Atomic with the composer conducting the BBC Symphony. Commissioned to write a new Antony & Cleopatra to celebrate the centennial of the San Francisco Opera, Adams turned to Bullock once again to bring one of Shakespeare’s greatest female protagonists to life. A co-commission and co-production with the Gran Teatre del Liceu and the Metropolitan Opera House, the opera debuts at the Met in spring 2025 with Bullock in the title role, following her house debut this past season in Adams’s El Niño. Adams adapted the libretto himself from Shakespeare’s tragedy, collaborating with director Elkhanah Pulitzer and playwright Lucia Scheckner to combine the mythic image of antiquity with the glamor of 1930s Hollywood. Gerald Finley sings opposite Bullock in the role of Antony. [May 12, 15, 20, 24, 30; June 3, 7: NYC/Met]

May 15–18
The DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, led by Baltimore Symphony Music Director Jonathon Heyward, performs Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto with British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor as soloist. On the second half of the program, Heyward conducts the orchestra in Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony. [May 15, 16, 18: Dallas]

May 20
ALISA WEILERSTEIN returns to Carnegie’s Zankel Hall for the New York premiere of FRAGMENTS 3, the third program in “FRAGMENTS,” her ongoing solo cello performance series (see Jan 21). [NYC/CH]

May 23, 24, 25
In May, after summer engagements for the last two seasons with the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, Grammy-winning conductor TEDDY ABRAMS conducts the orchestra at Disney Hall in Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, along with Gershwin’s Concerto in F featuring soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. For the second and third performances of the run, the program will open with Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Shaw’s LA Phil-commissioned The Observatory, inspired by the experience of looking down at the shape of Los Angeles and up at the night sky from Griffith Park. [Los Angeles]

May 23, 25
After a fall production of Berg’s Wozzeck at the Royal Swedish Opera, ALAN GILBERT reprises his interpretation of the opera in concert performances with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra at the 2025 Hamburg international Music Festival. Their stellar cast includes Matthias Goerne in the title role and Christine Goerke as Marie. [Hamburg]

May 25
Under the baton of Music Director RAFAEL PAYARE, the SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY performs Mahler’s monumental Third Symphony. They will be joined by mezzo-soprano soloist Karen Cargill, whose Mahler is “warm, instinctive and golden-voiced” (The Guardian). [San Diego]

May 30, 31; June 1
Principal Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera from 2011-17, DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (DSO) Music Director FABIO LUISI is always particularly in his element conducting vocal music. For the grand finale of his season with the DSO, Luisi conducts Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection,” following his leadership of the same composer’s Symphony No. 5 during the 2023–24 season, which marked their first full presentation of a Mahler symphony together. Soloists for the “Resurrection” Symphony are soprano Sofia Fomina and mezzo-soprano Catriona Morison, with the Dallas Symphony Chorus. The “Resurrection” Symphony holds special significance for Dallas symphony-goers as the first subscription concert ever performed at the newly opened Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in 1989 under former Music Director Eduardo Mata. [Dallas]

JUNE 2025

June 20, 21
ANTHONY PARNTHER conducts the National Symphony Orchestra in a program of contemporary film music curated by Academy Award-winning composer Kris Bowers (of Bridgerton and The Color Purple fame). The concerts conclude “Notes & Frames,” the orchestra’s three-week festival of music in film. [Washington, D.C.]