21C MEDIA GROUP’S CLASSICAL MUSIC SEASON PREVIEW 2026/2027
CONCERTS, SPECIAL EVENTS, & RECORDINGS
* Abbreviations for New York City concert venues follow below preview
For 21C’s artists and organizations, the 2026–27 season brings a full lineup of performances and recordings. See highlights of the coming year below (all subject to change).
AUGUST 2026
Aug 28; Sep 11
Following a two-month period of streaming on Apple Music Classical, a new recording on OUTHERE MUSIC’s Delos label of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, featuring the SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY led by its Music and Artistic Director RAFAEL PAYARE, will have its worldwide digital release on August 28, with CDs available for purchase on September 11. Marking the first album recorded in the Jacobs Music Center, the orchestra’s newly renovated home hall, the recording showcases the chemistry between the orchestra and conductor, as well as what Payare calls “the extraordinary depth beneath the surface” of the composer’s music. [Delos]
SEPTEMBER 2026
Sep 4
For the WARNER CLASSICS label debut of Saehyun Kim, First Grand Prize winner at the Long-Thibaud International Competition in spring 2025, the 19-year-old pianist chose a program of works by Fauré and Chopin to pay homage to the first European city where he ever performed: Paris. [Warner Classics]
Sep 4, 5
Grammy-winning conductor ALAN GILBERT launches his eighth season as Chief Conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra (NDREO) with an Opening Night program featuring Stephan Cürlis as soloist in James Oliverio’s timpani concerto, Legacy Ascendant, a work originally premiered by The Cleveland Orchestra under Gilbert’s leadership. As in previous years, he and the NDREO complete their season-opening program with a Mahler symphony, this time No. 6, the “Tragic.” Their recording of the same composer’s Seventh prompted MusicWeb International to characterize them as “selfless ambassadors for Mahler,” in a review that concluded: “Thanks to the expert pacing of Alan Gilbert, … we are in good hands.” [Hamburg]
Sep 7; Nov 21, 26
On a European tour that takes him from Georgia’s wine region to Germany’s Schloss Elmau, pianist SERGEI BABAYAN continues exploring the evolution of lieder, folksong, and the elusive art of melody with his solo recital program, “Songs.” Combining solo works with piano transcriptions of songs by composers from Schubert, Schumann, and Rachmaninoff to Harold Arlen, Charles Trenet, and Armenian folk hero Komitas, the program is “a meditation of the highest pianistic echelon” (Die Rheinpfalz, Germany). [Sep 7: Tsinandali, Georgia; Nov 21: Schloss Elmau, Germany; Nov 26: Bari, Italy]
Sep 8, 10, 12
“A conductor for the future” with “a flourishing career” (The New York Times), ANTHONY PARNTHER starts his new season with two programs with the San Francisco Symphony. After conducting the orchestra in a program of jazz standards to showcase the singular voice of Grammy-winning vocalist Samara Joy (Sep 8), he leads two performances of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi live to film (Sep 10, 12). “Few people know the music of Star Wars as intimately as Parnther” (Hollywood Reporter), who conducted two series in the Star Wars franchise and worked with John Williams on numerous occasions. [San Francisco]
Sep 9–Oct 20
Grammy-winning American classical singer JULIA BULLOCK – “one of today’s smartest, most arresting vocalists in any genre” (NPR) – reprises one of her signature performances: Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine, inspired by the life and art of Joséphine Baker and developed in collaboration with storied opera director Peter Sellars and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Tyshawn Sorey. Zachary Woolfe, writing in The New York Times, called Perle Noire “… a masterpiece. … This is a ritual of mourning, not a gay-Paree nostalgia trip, and it is one of the most important works of art yet to emerge from the era of Black Lives Matter.” After eight performances at the Opéra de Paris, in the country that made Baker famous, Bullock also performs the piece at London’s Barbican Centre. [Sep 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19: Paris; Oct 20: London]
Sep 10; Nov
An exclusive new partnership between OUTHERE MUSIC’s Delos label and the prestigious Colburn School in Los Angeles will see a series of releases from some of the most promising young talents in classical music. The first release in the Colburn Collection will feature Trio Azura (Duncan McDougall, violin; Yejin Hong, cello; and Yanfeng Tony Bai, piano) in an all-American program entitled Storytellers, featuring music by Jennifer Higdon, John Harbison, and Charles Ives (Sep). Later in the fall, Trio Caspar (Andrea Caputo, clarinet; Jason Moon, violin; and Bogang Hwang, piano) will release a wide-ranging album including music by American composers Libby Larsen and the late Paul Schoenfeld along with works of Stravinsky and Schumann (Nov). [Delos]
Sep 11
Grammy-winning vocal ensemble CHANTICLEER returns to its roots in early music with Machaut, a new recording on OUTHERE MUSIC’s Delos label featuring composer, poet, and musician Guillaume de Machaut’s landmark Messe de Nostre Dame. Marking the earliest complete, polyphonic setting of the Mass Ordinary attributed to a single, named composer, the mass is complemented on the album by a selection of Machaut’s secular love songs. As Alex Ross reported in The New Yorker after a live performance of this music: “In Chanticleer’s dulcet rendition, voices brushed against one another like roses swaying in a breeze. Across some six and a half centuries, a composer held an audience spellbound.” [Delos]
Sep 12–Oct 4
Heralded as “the finest British opera conductor of his generation” (The Telegraph, UK), EDWARD GARDNER launches his third season as Music Director of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet with Richard Strauss’s Elektra. Norwegian Critics’ Prize-winning soprano Elisabeth Teige headlines a contemporary staging from Hedda Award-winning director Ole Anders Tandberg. [Sep 12, 16, 19, 23; Oct 2, 4: Oslo]
Sep 13–20
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” – opens its season with a staged version at home in the Bay Area of a work that has long been a staple of the group’s concert repertoire: Guillaume de Machaut’s Messe de Nostre Dame. ELKHANAH PULITZER, a frequent collaborator with John Adams – she staged his Antony & Cleopatra at the Metropolitan Opera in 2024-25 – will be the director. This seminal work of liturgical composition is believed to be the first setting of the Ordinary of the Mass by a single composer. [Sep 13, 17, 19, 20: San Francisco]
Sep 13–April 16
Cellist ALISA WEILERSTEIN, whose ongoing FRAGMENTS project weaves together the 36 movements of Bach’s cello suites with 27 new commissions to make six unique hour-long programs and was the focus of a cover feature in the October 2025 issue of The Strad, performs selected parts of the project in Asia and the U.S. this season. In Taipei, she performs FRAGMENTS 1 – Wonder and FRAGMENTS 2 – Tumult, reprising the same program a week later in Shanghai. Returning to the U.S., she completes the six-performance cycle in Carnegie Hall with FRAGMENTS 6 – Radiance, before continuing in the spring with FRAGMENTS 5 – Lament. [Sep 13: Taipei; Sep 20: Shanghai; Nov 5: NYC/CH; April 16: San Diego]
Sep 15
The EASTMAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC at the University of Rochester presents selections from the Anthology of Art Songs by Black Composers, which celebrates the African American musical tradition and its impact. The program features three of the school’s distinguished faculty members: Grammy-nominated baritone Joshua Conyers and sopranos Nicole Cabell, winner of BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, and Kiera Duffy, known for her “crystalline, multifaceted sound and wonderfully flexible technique” (The Observer). [Rochester, NY]
Sep 26
Recently hailed as “a conducting force to be reckoned with” (The New York Times), leading British conductor EDWARD GARDNER opens his sixth season as Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra with a grand-scale performance of Britten’s War Requiem, featuring vocal soloists Natalya Romaniw, Allan Clayton, and Benjamin Appl with the London Philharmonic Choir, London Symphony Chorus, and Tiffin Boys’ Choir & Girls’ Choir. Gardner’s recording of the same composer’s Peter Grimes not only secured the Gramophone Award for Best Opera Recording but also won Gramophone’s Recording of the Year. [London]
OCTOBER 2026
Oct Oct
Violinist/composer Patricia Kopatchinskaja, a visionary artist known for her intense performances and thought-provoking programs, joins pianist/composer Fazıl Say for a new recording on OUTHERE MUSIC’s Alpha Classics label. The program comprises Prokofiev’s Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1, Szymanowski’s Mythes, and works by the two performers themselves: Say’s “Lost Screams” Sonata (Sonata No. 3 for violin and piano, 2024) and Kopatchinskaja’s UniSolo for violin and piano (2024). [Alpha Classics]
Celebrated French pianist Bertrand Chamayou performs selections from Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words on a new release from WARNER CLASSICS, connecting the works to his own childhood memories, inspired by old photographs. Chamayou says: “It seems to me to be inseparable from this music … Going through pages of the Songs without Words is like leafing through an old album or opening a trunk filled with a jumble of faded family photos and memorabilia, and then rifling through them, dipping into the stories that each of them brings alive for us.” The composer himself felt this to be the kind of music that “fills the soul with a thousand things better than words.” [Warner Classics]
Oct 2
Grammy-winning Musical America 2022 Conductor of the Year TEDDY ABRAMS joins the San Francisco Symphony and a roster of luminaries to celebrate Michael Tilson Thomas’s life and legacy with “A Concert for MTT.” Along with Abrams, the performance will feature many of Tilson Thomas’s longtime friends and collaborators, including mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, vocalist Audra McDonald, pianists Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Yuja Wang, and conductor Edwin Outwater, as well as the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus and other special guests. Through a mix of personal tributes and anecdotes, archival footage and recordings, and performances of iconic repertoire, the concert will trace Tilson Thomas’s remarkable journey and illuminate the indelible mark left by his 25-year tenure leading the San Francisco Symphony. [San Francisco]
Oct 2
Making his debut on OUTHERE MUSIC’s Alpha Classics label, pianist PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD performs an all-Schoenberg program. Aimard has waited more than 40 years to record Schoenberg’s piano works – a journey that began in 1973 when, as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, he performed Schoenberg’s Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 11 live on TV after winning the Olivier Messiaen Competition. On this recording, he traces the composer’s artistic evolution through five landmark piano works, from the milestone Op. 11 (1909) – known as the first work in music history to fully embrace atonality – to Op. 33b (1931), written on the eve of Schoenberg’s emigration to the U.S. and reflecting both Brahmsian tradition and a world in transition. Aimard says: “It is extraordinary that, in an era where everything is recorded multiple times, we still do not have a wide spectrum of choices for Schoenberg’s music. It suggests there remains a profound misunderstanding of this repertoire – or perhaps that we simply need more time to absorb what is truly valuable.” [Alpha Classics]
Oct 2
Pathbreaking contemporary chamber ensemble Alarm Will Sound was founded 25 years ago at the EASTMAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC. Now, fresh from winning the 2026 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble, the group makes its Eastman homecoming with a new program of complex electronica from Aphex Twin and others, performed live on acoustic instruments. [Rochester, NY]
Oct 2
On My American Story – South, Grammy-winning pianist DANIIL TRIFONOV – “without question the most astounding pianist of our age” (The Times of London) – delves into music of South America and the Caribbean. As well as performing his own Tango and solo works by Ginastera, Guarnieri, Lecuona, Villa-Lobos, and Gabriela Lena Frank, he is joined by the São Paulo Symphony and Gonzalo Grau for Barroso’s Aquarela do Brasil and the world premiere recording of Golijov’s Cuadros del Sur, both of which have been arranged especially for the project. Representing the second leg of an autobiographical musical journey through the Americas, the recording follows My American Story – North, described in a five-star review by the Financial Times as “a marvel.” [Deutsche Grammophon]
Oct 2, 3, 4
“One of the most prominent composers in the country,” MICHAEL HERSCH “writes masterly modernist music of implacable seriousness” (The New Yorker). Spectrum NYC presents a three-day festival dedicated to his music, featuring some of his closest collaborators, including the FLUX Quartet; soprano Ah Young Hong; violinists/violists Miranda Cuckson, Adda Kridler, and Leah Asher; oboist James Austin Smith; cellist Coleman Itzkoff; and bassoonist Ben Roidl-Ward, as well as the chance to hear the composer-pianist’s increasingly rare public performances of his own work. Presented at Manhattan’s MISE-EN_PLACE, the event represents Spectrum’s second Hersch Festival. The first took place ten years ago, impressing The New York Times with “moments of sublime beauty” that made for “an extraordinary musical experience.” [NYC/MEP]
Oct 3, 4
The SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY opens its eighth season under the baton of Music and Artistic Director RAFAEL PAYARE with a pairing of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor – featuring Yefim Bronfman as soloist – and Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, continuing the ongoing performances of late Romantic masterpieces that are perfectly complemented by the recently renovated Jacobs Music Center, the orchestra’s winter home. Also on the program is Sofia Gubaidulina’s Fairytale Poem. [San Diego]
Oct 8–May 23
CHANTICLEER’s primary touring program this season is Paradise, which explores humanity’s eternal longing for the ideal: visions of a perfect world, love, or future. Spanning centuries, cultures, and styles, the program includes songs of praise by Renaissance composers Jean Mouton and Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla; biblical interpretations of paradise in Darius Milhaud’s “Psalm 121” and Bobby McFerrin’s “The 23rd Psalm”; visions of perfect love, both earthly and divine, in Giovanni Valentini’s “Adoramus Te, Christe” and Jean Sibelius’s epic Finnish love song, “Rakastava”; and a collection of contemporary songs including arrangements of Richard Evans’s “Journey to Recife” and Manuel Sánchez Acosta’s “Paraiso Soñado,” reminders that sometimes paradise is as close as a plane, a train, or a dream. Chanticleer also continues its celebration of America’s 250th year of independence by showcasing the diverse voices, songs, harmonies, and rhythms of the nation in Our American Journey. The cornerstone of the program is a commission by composer Trevor Weston, demonstrating the link between traditional American hymnody and African American Spirituals. Other repertoire traces the progression of the American choral tradition from Black Gospel quartets to Shape-Note singing to Barbershop quartets and vocal jazz. the tour culminates with six performances at home in California (May 14–23). [Fall tour begins Oct 8: Saratoga Springs, NY; additional dates TBA; May 14: Santa Clara, CA; May 15: Mill Valley, CA; May 16: Sacramento, CA; May 21: Petaluma, CA; May 22: San Francisco; May 23: Berkeley, CA]
Oct 9, 11
DANIIL TRIFONOV performs Brahms’s First Piano Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic and Chief Conductor Kirill Petrenko at New York’s Carnegie Hall. After a previous account of the same concerto, the Washington Classical Review wrote: “Trifonov’s attention to legato shaping brought out every gorgeous, longing harmonic twist of this exquisite music.” [NYC/CH]
Oct 11
Having long “used his platforms and rising profile to champion Black composers” (The New York Times), ANTHONY PARNTHER makes his London Symphony Orchestra debut with the world premiere of Atlantic Requiem. Bringing to life a new work commemorating the lives of Africans trafficked into slavery from Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize-winning British composer David Önaç, the performance will feature soloists J’Nai Bridges and Orson Van Gay II with the BBC Singers. [London]
Oct 13–24
Last year, Grammy-winning violinist JOSHUA BELL was awarded an honorary CBE for his services as Music Director of London’s Academy of St Martin in the Fields. In the 2026-27 season, which marks the 15th of their partnership, he leads the orchestra from the violin on extensive tours of Asia and Europe. After kicking off in Taipei, their Asian tour takes them to Beijing, Shanghai, and other destinations in China with a program featuring Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony and Dvořák’s Violin Concerto, with himself as soloist. [Oct 13: Taipei; Oct 16: Beijing; Oct 17: Shanghai; Oct 18: Zhengzhou, China; Oct 20: Shenzhen, China; Oct 22: Suzhou, China; Oct 24: Macau, China]
Oct 14–22
“A pianist of magisterial elegance, power, and insight” (The New York Times), celebrated Norwegian pianist LEIF OVE ANDSNES undertakes a season-long tenure as 2026-27 Artist-in-Residence of Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra (NDREO). Marking his first appearances in the role, he joins NDREO musicians for chamber works by Boccherini and Schumann, before collaborating with the full orchestra and Chief Conductor ALAN GILBERT on performances of Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto in Hamburg, Budapest, and Vienna. [Oct 14 (chamber): Hamburg; Oct 15, 16, 18 (concerto): Hamburg; Oct 21: Budapest; Oct 22: Vienna]
Oct 16–March 20
ALISA WEILERSTEIN gives multiple performances of Sergei Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante this season. Composed for a young Mstislav Rostropovich, the work was completed in 1952, the year before the composer’s death. After fall performances with the Pittsburgh Symphony (Oct 16–18), in the winter Weilerstein performs the work under the baton of Estonian conductor PAAVO JÄRVI for his Symphony Hall debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where Weilerstein serves as Artist-in-Residence for the season (Feb 4–6). She returns to the work the following month with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (March 18–20), led by James Gaffigan. [Oct 16, 18: Pittsburgh; Oct 17 (chamber): Pittsburgh; Feb 4, 5, 6: Boston; March 18, 20: Chicago]
Oct 20
JULIA BULLOCK reprises one of her signature performances: Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine, inspired by the life and art of Joséphine Baker and developed in collaboration with storied opera director Peter Sellars and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Tyshawn Sorey, at London’s Barbican Centre (see Sep 9–Oct 20). [London]
Oct 23; fall TBA
EDWARD GARDNER expands his extensive and unusually wide-ranging discography with two new titles, both recorded for LPO Live with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Their “ravishing performance” (Opera Today) of Bartók’s ballets The Wooden Prince and The Miraculous Mandarin is due for release on October 23, followed later this fall by their “superlative performance” (Bachtrack) of an all-Elgar program comprising In the South (Alassio), the “Enigma” Variations, and Sea Pictures, featuring mezzo-soprano Beth Taylor. [LPO Live]
Oct 25
The EASTMAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC presents Grammy-winning vocal ensemble CHANTICLEER in “Our American Journey,” a collection of homegrown music celebrating 250 years of American independence. A centerpiece of the program is a new commission from Trevor Weston that explores the relationship between the African American spiritual and traditional American hymnody. [Rochester, NY]
Oct 25, 27, 29
RAFAEL PAYARE, Music and Artistic Director of both the SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY and the ORCHESTRE SYMPHONIQUE DE MONTRÉAL (Montreal Symphony Orchestra/OSM), leads the OSM on its 61st international tour in California. Performing as guests of the San Francisco Symphony (Oct 25) and the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Oct 27) for the first time in 37 years before continuing on to Payare’s other home territory of San Diego (Oct 29), the OSM is joined by violinist Leonidas Kavakos for Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D in the first and third performances and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor in the second. Tour repertoire also includes Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, which Payare led on OSM’s European tour in 2022; Montreal composer Samy Moussa’s Elysium; and Stravinsky’s complete Firebird ballet. [Oct 25: San Francisco; Oct 27: Los Angeles; Oct 29: San Diego]
Oct 28–31
As “Hollywood’s go-to conductor for epic projects” (Billboard), ANTHONY PARNTHER is in a league of his own when it comes to “soaring readings of hit movie scores” (The Philadelphia Tribune). This Halloween, he returns to the New York Philharmonic for three performances, live to film, of Michael Abels’s haunting score to Jordan Peele’s Academy Award-winning movie, Get Out. [Oct 28, 29, 30, 31: NYC/DGH]
Oct 29, 30, 31
Grammy- and ECHO Klassik Award-winning conductor FABIO LUISI, in addition to his role as Music Director of the DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, also serves as Principal Conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra (DNSO). Following their presentation of Rued Langgaard’s Music of the Spheres last season during the orchestra’s centennial celebrations, Luisi turns to another large-scale choral work this fall: Verdi’s Requiem. The DNSO is joined by tenor Saimir Pirgu, soprano Maria Agresta, and mezzo-soprano Deniz Uzun, as well as the Danish National Concert Choir and BBC Singers. [Copenhagen]
Oct 29; Nov 1
Conductor and composer TEDDY ABRAMS leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the world premiere of his own LA Phil-commissioned Seasons of America, composed for and featuring violinist Ray Chen. The work is showcased on a program that surveys more than a century of American symphonic music, also including Julia Perry’s A Short Piece for Orchestra, Charles Ives’s Three Places in New England, and Gershwin’s An American in Paris. [Los Angeles]
Oct 30
Conductor RAFAEL PAYARE, Music and Artistic Director of the ORCHESTRE SYMPHONIQUE DE MONTRÉAL (Montreal Symphony Orchestra/OSM), releases his fifth recording on Pentatone with the orchestra, featuring Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. [Pentatone]
Oct 31; Nov 1
LEIF OVE ANDSNES returns to the Detroit Symphony under the baton of his compatriot Tabita Berglund, Chief Conductor Designate of the Bergen Philharmonic, for Britten’s sole Piano Concerto. He previously dispatched the same work “with such effortless command and penetrating clarity that every burst of arm-blurring octaves, every tangled patch of passagework, seemed both meaningful and fantastical” (The New York Times). [Detroit]
Oct 31–Nov 30
Cellist ALISA WEILERSTEIN has long been a tireless champion of new music and a favorite collaborator for contemporary composers. This fall, she joins the Netherlands Philharmonic under the baton of Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu for the European premiere of Wynton Marsalis’s Cello Concerto “Journey to Freedom” (Oct 31; Nov 2). A month later she performs the Austrian premiere of Thomas Larcher’s cello concerto, returning into darkness, with the co-commissioning Tonkünstler Orchestra (Nov 28–30). Larcher, whose music has been praised as “one of this century’s wonders” (The Times, UK), composed the work for Weilerstein, who gave the world and European premieres in 2025 with two other co-commissioners: the New York Philharmonic and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. [Oct 31; Nov 2: Amsterdam; Nov 28, 29: Vienna; Nov 30: St. Pölten, Austria]
NOVEMBER 2026
Nov Nov
An exclusive new partnership between OUTHERE MUSIC’s Delos label and the prestigious Colburn School in Los Angeles sees the release of a wide-ranging album by Trio Caspar (Andrea Caputo, clarinet; Jason Moon, violin; and Bogang Hwang, piano), including music by American composers Libby Larsen and the late Paul Schoenfeld along with works of Stravinsky and Schumann (see Sep). [Delos]
WARNER CLASSICS releases two new albums in November. First, a starry cast including Sabine Devieilhe and Jakub Józef Orlinski join the historically informed ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro for a new recording of Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto, composed in London in 1724 and today one of the most frequently performed Baroque operas. Also in November, cellist Gautier Capuçon releases a new recording featuring the 2022 Cello Concerto by Danny Elfman – written for the cellist – along with a selection of Elfman’s film music. Following the U.S. premiere of the concerto in San Francisco in 2022, SF Classical Voice reported that Capuçon “executed every bit of it beautifully, with rich tone and technical security.” [Warner Classics]
Nov 1
TEDDY ABRAMS leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a second performance of his own LA Phil-commissioned Seasons of America, composed for and featuring violinist Ray Chen (see Oct 29). [Los Angeles]
Nov 4 Nov 4, 5, 7
Released earlier this year on KAIROS Recordings, MICHAEL HERSCH’s newest album, across … in grief and detail, comprises works written for three of the composer’s most trusted interpreters: bassoonist Ben Roidl-Ward and violinist William Overcash, collectively known as the duo Wolftone, and soprano Ah Young Hong. The three artists reunite to reprise music from the album in a free, live program at New York’s DiMenna Center that also includes works by Hildegard von Bingen and György Kurtág. One of their previous live Hersch collaborations was hailed as “a program of chamber music that delves into emotional experiences to find meaning both in intensity and in stillness” (Broadway World). [NYC/DMC]
With a reputation as “a noted authority on the late-Romantic repertoire” (BBC Music Magazine), RAFAEL PAYARE returns to the podium of the New York Philharmonic to conduct a pairing of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2, performed by soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Bruckner’s profound Symphony No. 9, which after nearly a decade of work was unfortunately left unfinished at the composer’s death. [NYC/DGH]
Nov 5
Cellist ALISA WEILERSTEIN, whose ongoing FRAGMENTS project weaves together the 36 movements of Bach’s cello suites with 27 new commissions to make six unique hour-long programs, completes the six-performance cycle in Carnegie Hall with FRAGMENTS 6 – Radiance (see Sep 13–April 16). [NYC/CH]
Nov 4–22
Charismatic Serbian-French violinist Nemanja Radulović, most recently heard on a new all-Prokofiev recording from WARNER CLASSICS, tours the U.S. with his orchestra, Double Sens, making stops in California (Nov 4-7), Baltimore’s Meyerhoff Symphony Hall (Nov 9), Princeton’s Richardson Auditorium (Nov 12), Boston’s Jordan Hall (Nov 13), New Canaan’s Grace Farm Sanctuary (Nov 15), and Chicago’s Symphony Center (Nov 22). His U.S. season also features performances of Barber’s Violin Concerto with the San Francisco Symphony in January, and Beethoven with the Detroit Symphony in June. [Nov 4: Santa Barbara, CA; Nov 5: Northridge, CA; Nov 7: La Jolla, CA; Nov 9: Baltimore; Nov 13: Boston; Nov 15: New Canaan, CT; Nov 22: Chicago]
Nov 5–April 15
Now in its 52nd year, ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S (OSL) – celebrated for its “exceptionally fine and committed music-making” (The New York Times) – gives six performances in 2026–27 in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, plus a special presentation of Leonard Bernstein’s On the Town that launches a five-year series celebrating classic American musicals (Jan 11, 12). Following a pair of recent collaborations with the orchestra, French conductor Louis Langrée opens OSL’s Carnegie Hall season with an all-Berlioz program. Bookended by the overture to Les francs-juges and the revolutionary Symphonie fantastique is the composer’s orchestral song cycle Les nuits d’été, featuring French lyric tenor Benjamin Bernheim in his Carnegie Hall and OSL debuts (Nov 5). Conductor Dennis Russell Davies, violinist Robert McDuffie, and baritone Zachary James join the orchestra to celebrate the music of Philip Glass on his 90th birthday, featuring the New York premiere of his “Lincoln” Symphony (Jan 31). French conductor Christophe Rousset, founder of the ensemble Les Talens Lyriques, makes his OSL and Carnegie Hall conducting debuts with Mozart’s Requiem, on a program with Schubert’s Mass No. 2 in G, joined by the Clarion Choir and a quartet of soloists: soprano Liv Redpath, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, tenor Andrew Staples, and bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green in his OSL debut (Feb 11). Former Principal Conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Radiophilharmonie Andrew Manze returns to conduct OSL in Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony and Third Piano Concerto, with Yeol Eum Son – making OSL and Carnegie Hall debuts – as soloist (March 11). Conductor Semyon Bychkov, violinist Maxim Vengerov, and pianist Evgeny Kissin honor the Rostropovich centennial with works by Britten, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich in a benefit performance for Carnegie Hall (March 27); and Daniele Rustioni – Principal Guest Conductor of New York’s Metropolitan Opera and Music Director of Opéra National de Lyon – concludes OSL’s Carnegie Hall season conducting a program of Busoni, Dvořák, and Chopin, featuring Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii (April 15). [Nov 5; Jan 11, 12, 31; Feb 11; March 11, 27; April 15: NYC/CH]
Nov 6
Following the release of his epic exploration of the complete works of Louis Couperin on WARNER CLASSICS, harpsichord virtuoso Jean Rondeau returns to Carnegie Hall for an all-French program at Weill Recital Hall. About the recording, Early Music America wrote, “Jean Rondeau’s 10-CD compilation of all the known works of Louis Couperin (1626-1661) is a cornucopia of delights. His harpsichord playing is off-the-charts terrific, as are his collaborations with esteemed instrumentalists and vocalists.” [NYC/CH]
Nov 6, 7, 8
LEIF OVE ANDSNES joins the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Music Director Designate Daniel Harding for Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto. As the Chicago Classical Review recognized after an account of the same work, “Andsnes’s memorable Brahms blends intimacy and bravura.” [Los Angeles]
Nov 7–Dec 27
THE ATLANTA OPERA (TAO) embarks on its 47th season in 2026-27, marking its final season before moving into its new home, the Molly Blank Center for Opera and the Arts. The mainstage season opens with Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. General & Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun’s iconic production of Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell’s Silent Night, which returns to Atlanta for the first time in ten years, telling a story about the World War I Christmas truce of 1914. The production features tenor Kameron Lopreore, soprano Sylvia D’Eramo, baritone Aleksey Bogdanov, and baritone Luke Sutliff, with TAO Principal Conductor Iván López Reynoso on the podium (Nov 7–15). The same story is told through a different genre in December as part of the Molly Blank Discoveries Series, which presents Peter Rothstein’s a capella musical All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914 – with a text drawn from a wide range of sources including letters, journals, official war documents, poetry, grave stone inscriptions, and an old radio broadcast – in a co-production with Atlanta’s Theatrical Outfit (Dec 2–27). [Nov 7-15; Dec 2-27: Atlanta]
Nov 9–Dec 1
Since spring 2021, ALAN GILBERT has been Music Director of the Royal Swedish Opera, where he was named Royal Court Kapellmeister by the King of Sweden. At the Stockholm house this fall, he conducts Clara Svärd’s production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte, which transports the action to a 1960s-style artist’s studio, and an all-American orchestral program of Copland, Barber, Gershwin, and Bernstein, as part of this year’s celebrations of the Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra’s landmark 500th anniversary. [Nov 9, 12, 15, 17, 20, 23, 26, 28; Dec 1 (opera); Nov 21, 25 (concert): Stockholm]
Nov 12, 14, 15
JULIA BULLOCK makes her debut with The Cleveland Orchestra in performances of Britten’s song cycle Les Illuminations, conducted by Jane Glover. When she performed the cycle – comprising nine settings of poems by Rimbaud – with the San Francisco Symphony in 2020, the San Francisco Chronicle found her interpretation to be “something of a revelation … a performance of magnificent expansiveness.” [Nov 12, 14, 15: Cleveland]
Nov 14, 15
DANIIL TRIFONOV makes his SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY debut with performances of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto under the baton of Music Director RAFAEL PAYARE. The pianist’s interpretation of the work previously impressed NPR with its “fierce power and precision, coupled with a really intense musicality.” [San Diego]
Nov 17
Joined by pianist Peter Dugan, with whom he makes a “dream team” (Bachtrack), JOSHUA BELL returns to London’s Wigmore Hall with a solo recital program pairing unaccompanied Bach with violin sonatas by Beethoven, Saint-Saëns, and John Corigliano. Bell’s Wigmore recitals are known for their “passion and poise” (Seen and Heard International). [London]
Nov 18, 21
“A brilliant musician and an extraordinary visionary” (The Wall Street Journal), Grammy-winning French pianist PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD returns to the States for two solo recitals this fall: at The 92nd Street Y, in his sole New York appearance of the season, and at Santa Monica’s Maestro Chamber Music Society. In Santa Monica, he performs the complete second book of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, as on his 2025 recording of the work, which shows him “at the apex of his musicianship: technique and imagination at the service of sheer expressive intensity” (The New York Times). [Nov 18: NYC/92NY; Nov 21: Santa Monica, CA]
Nov 21, 26
SERGEI BABAYAN continues touring Europe with his solo recital program, “Songs,” which combines solo works with piano transcriptions of songs, by composers from Schubert, Schumann, and Rachmaninoff to Harold Arlen, Charles Trenet, and Armenian folk hero Komitas (see Sep 7). [Nov 21: Schloss Elmau, Germany; Nov 26: Bari, Italy]
Nov 25; Feb 24
When EDWARD GARDNER opened the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO)’s 2025–26 season with music by Composer-in-Residence Sir George Benjamin, their performance showcased “an orchestra at its blazing best” (The Times, UK). Now the conductor features works by his eminent compatriot in two more LPO programs. This fall, they undertake Benjamin’s Marlovian opera, Lessons in Love and Violence (2018), starring Nathaniel Sullivan, Georgia Jarman, Gyula Orendt, and Toby Spence in a semi-staged concert performance directed by Dan Ayling (Nov 25). Early next year, Gardner and the LPO perform Benjamin’s Concerto for Orchestra alongside Tippett’s Fourth Symphony and Sibelius’s Swan of Tuonela and Violin Concerto, featuring Sibelius Competition laureate Pekka Kuusisto (Feb 24). Lauded as “Tippett’s greatest living conductor” (Gramophone), Gardner won the 2025 Sibelius Prize for his promotion of the Finnish composer’s music. [London]
Nov 28, 29, 30
ALISA WEILERSTEIN performs the Austrian premiere of Thomas Larcher’s cello concerto, returning into darkness, with the co-commissioning Tonkünstler Orchestra (see Oct 31-Nov 30). [Nov 28, 29: Vienna; Nov 30: St. Pölten, Austria]
DECEMBER 2026
Dec 2–27
THE ATLANTA OPERA, as part of the Molly Blank Discoveries Series, presents Peter Rothstein’s a capella musical All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914 in a co-production with Atlanta’s Theatrical Outfit (See Nov 7–Dec 27). [Dec 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 26, 27: Atlanta]
Dec 3, 4, 5
Marking his only U.S. appearance of the season, ALAN GILBERT returns to The Cleveland Orchestra for a recent work by his fellow native New Yorker Dalit Warshaw, alongside Debussy’s Images and Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto, featuring Grammy-winner Augustin Hadelich. Since serving as its Assistant Conductor in the mid-1990s, Gilbert has shared a special rapport with the orchestra that “evince[s] levels of comfort and mutual understanding enjoyed only by the initiated” (Cleveland Plain-Dealer). [Cleveland]
Dec 6, 8; May 16
A longtime collaborator with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS), cellist INBAL SEGEV joins CMS in December for a concert of Baroque concertos, each of which features a wind player as soloist. Music by Vivaldi, Telemann, Bach, Marcello, and more is featured (Dec 6, 8). In the spring, Segev rejoins CMS along with a large group of collaborators to perform chamber works of orchestral scale, including Stravinsky’s “Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto, Haydn’s Arianna a Naxos cantata featuring mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A, and more. [NYC/ATH]
Dec 12
DANIIL TRIFONOV returns to New York’s Carnegie Hall for his annual solo recital in the Stern Auditorium, where he performs a program pairing works by Handel, Schubert, and Stravinsky with selections from his new Deutsche Grammophon recording, My American Story – South. The pianist’s recitals have been likened to a “masterclass in how virtuosity is sublimated into poetry” (Bachtrack), and it was after one of his numerous previous sold-out Carnegie Hall recitals that The New York Times hailed him as “one of the most awesome pianists of our time.” [NYC/CH]
Dec 13
In concerts that mark his debut with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, SERGEI BABAYAN performs Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto under the baton of Emmanuel Tjeknavorian at Suntory Hall. A recognized master of the Russian concerto repertoire, Babayan is a “pianist’s pianist” whose interpretations combine “quiet beauty and emotional fire” (The Times of London). [Tokyo]
Dec 16, 17
ALAN GILBERT returns to the Orchestre de Paris for Mahler’s Sixth Symphony (“Tragic”) and Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy, featuring JOSHUA BELL. After one of the conductor’s previous collaborations with the orchestra, Bachtrack marveled at his “astonishing ability to maintain the balance between technical mastery – that of a great conductor attentive to the clarity of sound, rhythm, and the balance of the desks – and the other commitment, which by its fever or abandonment breathes a warm breath, a life.” [Paris]
JANUARY 2027
Jan 2–17
JOSHUA BELL is known for the “gusto and guts” (The Times, UK) of his performances as a player-conductor. After leading the New York Philharmonic from the violin in Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony and as the soloist in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, he embarks on his second international tour of the season with London’s Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Programs pairing concertante works by Bruch and Dvořák with symphonies by Mendelssohn and Brahms take them to Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, and other major European cities. [Jan 2, 3: NYC/DGH; Jan 7, 8: Hamburg; Jan 9: Berlin; Jan 11: Cologne; Jan 12: Stuttgart; Jan 13: Erlangen, Germany; Jan 17: London]
Jan 10, 11
ALAN GILBERT conducts the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra (NDREO) at concerts celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Elbphilharmonie, their state-of-the-art Hamburg home. Fittingly, their program features Wagner’s Parsifal Prelude, the work that launched the venue’s official grand opening; Unsuk Chin’s Frontispiece, which Gilbert premiered with the NDREO in the first concert of his tenure as the ensemble’s Chief Conductor; and Die Weihe des Hauses, a Beethoven overture composed for the inauguration of Vienna’s Theater in der Josefstadt. This festive program concludes with Harmonielehre by American icon John Adams, whose 80th birthday falls just weeks later. [Hamburg]
Jan 11, 12
ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S launches a five-year series celebrating classic American musicals with two performances in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage of Leonard Bernstein’s On the Town, a love letter to New York City featuring a 45-piece orchestra led by Emmy- and Grammy-winning series Music Director Rob Berman. Like last season’s presentation of Oklahoma! In Concert, On the Town will be directed by Drama Desk and Tony Award winner Shuler Hensley and choreographed by Chase Brock and will include a cast of Broadway favorites. [NYC/CH]
Jan 22, 23; May 19, 20
As powerful an advocate as ALISA WEILERSTEIN is for contemporary music, she is no less celebrated for her fresh perspectives on the standard cello repertoire. One of the latter works the cellist focuses on in the coming season is Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote, a tone poem with cello and viola soloists who respectively portray the title character and his squire, Sancho Panza. Weilerstein performs the work with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Cristian Mӑcelaru (Jan 22, 23), before reprising it later in the spring with her husband, RAFAEL PAYARE, leading his ORCHESTRE SYMPHONIQUE DE MONTRÉAL (Montreal Symphony Orchestra/OSM) in a program comprised entirely of Strauss tone poems (May 19, 20). [Jan 22, 23: Cincinnati; May 19, 20: Montreal]
Jan 22–Feb 11
EDWARD GARDNER is set to lead all four operas of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Norwegian National Opera & Ballet over the next three seasons, crowned by two complete cycles in a single week. He and the company kick off this ambitious project with Das Rheingold, starring Yngve Søberg, Johannes Weisser, Magnus Staveland, and Astrid Nordstad in a new production by Tatjana Gürbaca, a director known for her psychologically precise interpretations of relationships. Captured live at the Oslo house, Gardner’s Norwegian Opera recording of Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer was a 2026 International Classical Music Award nominee that won Best Opera at the 2025 Gramophone Awards. [Jan 22, 24, 28, 31; Feb 4, 6, 9, 11: Oslo]
Jan 23, 24, 27
DANIEL HOPE, the Berlin-based violinist whose “thriving solo career [is] built on inventive programming and a probing interpretive style” (The New York Times), embarks on a North American tour with “La belle époque.” A recital program that captures the spirit of pre-World War I Europe through works by Franck, Ravel, Fauré, Schoenberg, Kreisler, de Falla, and Enescu, this takes him to Montreal’s Salle Bourgie, Virginia’s Wolf Trap, and Napa with pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips, his partner on their 2020 recording of the same name, hailed as “an ingenious, gorgeous concept album” (The Telegraph, UK). [Jan 23: Montreal; Jan 24: Vienna, VA; Jan 27: Napa, CA]
Jan 28, 29, 30
DANIEL HOPE has served as Music Director and Concertmaster of San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra (NCCO), one of the world’s few conductorless ensembles, since 2018. For their first Bay Area tour of the year, he and the NCCO join trailblazing pianist LARA DOWNES for the world premiere of Clarice Assad’s Beauty Has No Borders, an “homage to jazz and the visionary composers and performers who shaped it into one of America’s most transformative and enduring art forms.” Their program also includes Mozart’s 29th Symphony and Stravinsky’s Apollon musagète. [Jan 28: Berkeley, CA; Jan 29: Rohnert Park, CA; Jan 30: San Francisco]
Jan 30–June 10
THE ATLANTA OPERA’s winter and spring mainstage season continues with Bizet’s Carmen, directed by Brenna Corner and starring Rihab Chaieb (Jan 30–Feb 7); Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. General & Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun’s productions of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, starring three-time Grammy winner Ryan Speedo Green as the Dutchman and Wendy Bryn Harmer as Senta (March 13–21); and Puccini’s Tosca, with Monica Conesa in the title role (May 1–9). As part of the NOW Festival in June 2027, the company will also present Jubilee by NOW Festival Artistic Advisor Tazewell Thompson and Dianne Adams McDowell, a theatrical tribute to the Fisk Jubilee Singers, an African American a cappella ensemble born on the campus of Fisk University in the wake of the Civil War (June 5–10). [Jan 30–Feb 7; March 13–21; May 1–9; June 5–10: Atlanta]
Jan 31
Eastman Opera Artistic & Music Director Timothy Long plays music by Native American, First Nations, and Métis artists at the EASTMAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC. Performing at the piano with Martha Redbone and her funk band, classical musicians, and special guests, Long features selections from his acclaimed collection The North American Indigenous Songbook, which combines “traditional styles” with “forays into avant-garde music and groovier singer-songwriter veins” (The New York Times). [Rochester, NY]
Jan 31
Conductor Dennis Russell Davies, violinist Robert McDuffie, and baritone Zachary James join ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage to celebrate the music of Philip Glass on his 90th birthday, featuring the New York premiere of his “Lincoln” Symphony (see Nov 5–April 15). [NYC/CH]
FEBRUARY 2027
Feb 4, 5, 6
Opus Klassik 2019 Conductor of the Year PAAVO JÄRVI guest conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in Sibelius’s Second Symphony, on a program with Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante for Cello and Orchestra – originally composed for up-and-coming Russian superstar Mstislav Rostropovich – featuring cellist ALISA WEILERSTEIN, who serves this season as the BSO’s Artist-in-Residence (see also Oct 16–March 20). [Boston]
Feb 6–13
As the dedicatee of a new piano concerto by Grammy-nominated American composer Missy Mazzoli, “the 21st century’s gatecrasher of new classical music” (NPR), LEIF OVE ANDSNES gives its world and U.S. premieres with the two co-commissioning orchestras. First, as part of his season-long artistic residency with Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, he gives the concerto’s first performance under ALAN GILBERT’s leadership at the orchestra’s third “Elbphilharmonie Visions” festival, which offers a biennial celebration of 21st-century music. Next, just days later, Andsnes gives the work’s first American performances in concerts with Daniel Harding and the New York Philharmonic. [Feb 6: Hamburg; Feb 11, 12, 13: NYC/DGH]
Feb 7–28; April 16–18
JULIA BULLOCK is a longtime collaborator with Pulitzer Prize winner John Adams, most recently making her Metropolitan Opera debut in the title role of his Antony & Cleopatra. She also created the role of Dame Shirley in his Girls of the Golden West and sang the role of Kitty Oppenheimer on the Grammy-nominated 2018 Nonesuch recording of his opera Doctor Atomic, with the composer conducting the BBC Symphony. She returns to the latter role this season for the opera’s Swiss premiere at the Zurich Opera House (Feb 7–28), before joining an all-Adams program conducted by the composer with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in their “Minimalist Icons” series (April 16–18). [Feb 7, 11, 14, 20, 24, 28: Zurich; April 16, 17, 18: Los Angeles]
Feb 9–23
The MONTEVERDI CHOIR & ORCHESTRAS (MCO) celebrates the 300th anniversary of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with performances of the oratorio, first at London’s St Martin-in-the-Fields and then on a major U.S. tour that culminates at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Together with soloists including Nick Pritchard, Florian Störtz, and Carolyn Sampson, the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists will perform under the leadership of Japanese maestro Masaaki Suzuki, whose recent MCO debut was “a dream cantata date.” As The Arts Desk (UK) continued: “Here was choral and instrumental Bach performed not just with meticulous professionalism but a dash and verve that filled each movement with an infectious enthusiasm.” [Feb 9: London; Feb 13: Atlanta; Feb 14: Carmel, IN; Feb 16: University Park, PA; Feb 17: Princeton, NJ; Feb 18: Kansas City, MO; Feb 20: Ann Arbor, MI; Feb 21: Berkeley, CA; Feb 23: NYC/CH]
Feb 11
French conductor Christophe Rousset, founder of the ensemble Les Talens Lyriques, makes his ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S and Carnegie Hall conducting debuts in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage with Mozart’s Requiem, on a program with Schubert’s Mass No. 2 in G, joined by the Clarion Choir and a quartet of soloists: soprano Liv Redpath, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, tenor Andrew Staples, and bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green in his OSL debut (see Nov 5–April 15). [NYC/CH]
Feb 12, 13
The DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (DSO) and Music Director FABIO LUISI present a first for both conductor and orchestra: J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion. Though widely renowned for his interpretations of opera and oratorio, Luisi has to date never had the opportunity to conduct any of Bach’s Passion settings, which he considers to be the pinnacle of the Baroque master’s works. The DSO has likewise never performed the St. John Passion. With vocal soloists to be announced at a later date, the performance will also feature the Dallas Symphony Chorus led by chorus director Anthony Blake Clark (Jean D. Wilson Chair). [Dallas]
Feb 17
London Philharmonic Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor Designate PAAVO JÄRVI conducts that orchestra with pianist Benjamin Grosvenor in Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto. The concerto is paired with Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony, most of which was composed soon after the death of Stalin and which is often interpreted as a depiction of his iron-fisted rule over Soviet Russia. The program opens with the equally ominous Overture No. 2 by Järvi’s fellow Estonian, the late Veljo Tormis. [London]
Feb 18
Before featuring the work on their upcoming U.S. tour, ALISA WEILERSTEIN joins the LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA and Sir Antonio Pappano for a performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto at London’s Barbican Hall (see also Feb 26–March 14). [London]
Feb 18–27
On a high-profile European tour with the Berlin Baroque Soloists and artistic director Gottfried von der Goltz, DANIIL TRIFONOV performs a pair of Beethoven rarities: the Piano Concerto in E-flat and the Rondo for Piano and Orchestra in B-flat. Bachtrack writes of his Beethoven interpretations: “A genius and a miracle: these descriptions hardly do justice to one of the most beloved young pianists of our time.” [Feb 18: Freiburg, Germany; Feb 19: Luxembourg; Feb 20: Paris; Feb 21: Essen, Germany; Feb 23: Hamburg; Feb 25: Ljubljana, Slovenia; Feb 26: Munich; Feb 27: Vienna]
Feb 24
EDWARD GARDNER and the London Philharmonic Orchestra perform the Concerto for Orchestra by Sir George Benjamin, their Composer-in-Residence, alongside Tippett’s Fourth Symphony and Sibelius’s Swan of Tuonela and Violin Concerto, featuring Sibelius Competition laureate Pekka Kuusisto (see Nov 25). [London]
Feb 26, 27
TEDDY ABRAMS leads the LOUSIVILLE ORCHESTRA in a performance of Brahms’s Symphony No. 4, the great symphonist’s final and most densely crafted contribution to the genre. Also included is a reprise of Abrams’s Seasons of America, composed for and featuring violinist Ray Chen, following its fall premiere with the commissioning LA Phil; and a world premiere by Louisville native KiMani Bridges, whose relationship with the orchestra began as a teenager through mentorship and education programs. [Louisville]
Feb 26–March 14
The LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (LSO) embarks on its second U.S. tour with its two-time Grammy-winning Chief Conductor, Sir Antonio Pappano. Joined by ALISA WEILERSTEIN for Elgar’s Cello Concerto and by Maxim Vengerov for Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, Pappano and the orchestra travel from coast to coast, performing programs that also feature Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben and Elizabeth Maconchy’s Nocturne alongside Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich symphonies. Following new educational residencies in Palm Desert and Ann Arbor, returns to three cities in Florida, the LSO’s first appearance since 2015 at LA’s Disney Hall, and its first since 2009 in Boston, they conclude the tour with back-to-back programs at New York’s Carnegie Hall, where pianist Kirill Gerstein joins Weilerstein and Vengerov for Beethoven’s Triple Concerto. [Feb 26, 27: Palm Desert, CA; Feb 28: Los Angeles; March 3, 4: Ann Arbor, MI; March 6: Orlando, FL; March 7, 8: West Palm Beach, FL; March 9: Naples, FL; March 11: Boston; March 13, 14: NYC/CH]
MARCH 2027
March 5–14
EDWARD GARDNER returns to the States for debuts with two major U.S. orchestras. With the SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY, he leads an ocean-themed program of Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, and Ravel, featuring two-time Grammy winner Sasha Cooke in the latter’s song cycle Shéhérazade. Next, with the Detroit Symphony, Gardner conducts Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto, with Montreal International Competition-winning Hungarian pianist Zoltán Fejérvári as soloist, Lili Boulanger’s D’un matin de printemps, and Stravinsky’s The Firebird, performed complete. Already a favored guest of American orchestras, Gardner’s appearances ”always reward the listener with electrifying performances” (Washington Classical Review). [March 5, 7: San Diego; March 12, 13, 14: Detroit]
March 11
Former Principal Conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Radiophilharmonie Andrew Manze returns to conduct ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S (OSL) in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage in Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony and Third Piano Concerto, with Yeol Eum Son – making OSL and Carnegie Hall debuts – as soloist (see Nov 5–April 15). [NYC/CH]
March 11–14
In his second season as Principal Guest Conductor of the New Jersey Symphony, JOSHUA BELL plays and conducts all-Beethoven programs featuring the Violin Concerto and Seventh Symphony to mark the 200th anniversary of the composer’s death. In his first appearances in this specially created role, “Bell struck just the right note …, suggesting that this might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship” (NJ.com). [March 11: New Brunswick, NJ; March 12: Princeton, NJ; March 13, 14: Newark, NJ]
March 12, 13, 14
Grammy winner TEDDY ABRAMS makes his debut with the St. Louis Symphony (SLSO), which is joined by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and bass-baritone Kevin Short to perform Wynton Marsalis’s new SLSO co-commissioned Symphony No. 5, “Liberty,” celebrating the nation’s 250th anniversary. The program is rounded out by performances of Aaron Copland’s orchestral suite from the 1940s film Our Town and John Adams’s Frenzy: a short symphony. [St. Louis]
March 13, 19
ANTHONY PARNTHER conducts Chineke!, Europe’s first majority Black and ethnically diverse orchestra, at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall (QEH) and German’s Heidelberg Fruhling Festival. It was he who led the ensemble at London’s BBC Proms and for the re-opening of the newly renovated QEH, in a historic concert that was broadcast live worldwide by the BBC and hailed as “edge-of-your-seat stuff … A most exhilarating evening” (The Guardian). [March 13: London; March 19: Heidelberg, Germany]
March 13–21
THE ATLANTA OPERA’s winter and spring mainstage season continues with Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. General & Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun’s productions of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, starring three-time Grammy winner Ryan Speedo Green as the Dutchman and Wendy Bryn Harmer as Senta (see Jan 30–June 30). [March 13, 16, 19, 21: Atlanta]
March 14
ALISA WEILERSTEIN plays Elgar’s Cello Concerto on a U.S. tour with the LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA and Sir Antonio Pappano in Carnegie Hall. The event also includes Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, for which Weilerstein is joined by violinist Maxim Vengerov and pianist Kirill Gerstein (see Feb 26–March 14). [NYC/CH]
March 14–April 19
To mark the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s death, LEIF OVE ANDSNES embarks on a transatlantic solo recital tour of the composer’s final three piano sonatas, with North American dates in Vancouver, Rockport, Chicago, and New York, where his performance will be presented in the New York Philharmonic’s “Artist Spotlight” series, and European dates at London’s Wigmore Hall, Berlin’s Philharmonie, and Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, as part of his season-long artistic residency with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. The Beethoven Journey, Andsnes’s recording of the composer’s complete music for piano and orchestra, was recognized with BBC Music Magazine’s “Recording of the Year Award.” [March 14: Vancouver; March 16: NYC/DGH; March 19: Rockport, MA; March 21: Chicago; April 15: Hamburg; April 17: London; April 19: Berlin]
March 18, 20
ALISA WEILERSTEIN performs Sergei Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra led by James Gaffigan (see Oct 16–March 20). [Boston]
March 23–April 4
Across six concerts at Carnegie Hall, French chamber group Quatuor Ébène performs a complete cycle of Beethoven’s career-spanning string quartets, which the ensemble has recorded for WARNER CLASSICS. The concerts coincide with the world’s commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the composer’s death. A five-star review in Bachtrack of the group’s recent Beethoven performances in Tokyo ran under the headline: “Taking Beethoven’s quartets to a new level.” [March 23, 24, 25; April 2, 3, 4: NYC/CH]
March 24, 26, 27
PAAVO JÄRVI conducts a trio of concerts with pianist Lang Lang and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, over the course of which the pianist performs all five Beethoven Piano Concertos. Lang Lang’s first big break was with the same orchestra, when at the age of 17 he substituted for André Watts at the Gala of the Century, performing Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto under the baton of Christoph Eschenbach. The first program comprises Concertos 1 and 4 along with the Overture to Fidelio; the second features Concertos 2 and 3 along with the Consecration of the House Overture; and on the final program, Järvi leads the orchestra in Beethoven’s Overture to the ballet The Creatures of Prometheus and Symphony No. 4, before the pianist completes the cycle with the “Emperor” Concerto No. 5. [Chicago]
March 27
Conductor Semyon Bychkov, violinist Maxim Vengerov, and pianist Evgeny Kissin join ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage to honor the Rostropovich centennial with works by Britten, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich in a benefit performance for Carnegie Hall (see Nov 5–April 15). [NYC/CH]
APRIL 2027
April 2, 3
Since presenting its first world premiere in 1912, the DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (DSO) has amassed an impressive musical legacy of more than 100 world premieres and commissions, earning a reputation as “one of America’s best at commissioning new works” (D Magazine). Following sold-out performances of John Williams’s Violin Concerto No. 2 across Germany, Austria, and Belgium during the DSO’s 2024 European tour, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter rejoins FABIO LUISI and the DSO this season – alongside violist Muriel Razavi and cellist Kian Soltani – to present the world premiere of a Triple Concerto by Iranian composer Golfam Khayam, sharing the bill with Mahler’s “Titan” Symphony. Khayam’s sound world fuses Persian and Western classical music in “a perfect testament to the universality of music” (Al Jazeera). [Dallas]
April 2, 3, 4 April 15
Quatuor Ébène completes a series of six concerts at Carnegie Hall that traverse a complete cycle of Beethoven’s career-spanning string quartets, which the ensemble has recorded for WARNER CLASSICS (see March 23–April 4). [NYC/CH]
Daniele Rustioni – Principal Guest Conductor of New York’s Metropolitan Opera and Music Director of Opéra National de Lyon – concludes the ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S season in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage conducting a program of Busoni, Dvořák, and Chopin, featuring Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii (see Nov 5–April 15). [NYC/CH]
April 15, 17, 18
On a Bay Area tour, DANIEL HOPE and the New Century Chamber Orchestra give the world premiere of a new double concerto by Argentinian bandoneon virtuoso Omar Massa, alongside works by Piazzolla and Grammy-winning Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz. A leading Tango Nuevo artist whose work has been declared of “cultural and artistic importance” by Argentina’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Massa joins them for the concerto’s first performances. [April 15: Berkeley, CA; April 17: San Francisco; April 18: Belvedere Tiburon, CA]
April 15, 17, 19 April 16 April 16, 17, 18
LEIF OVE ANDSNES continues his transatlantic solo recital tour of Beethoven’s final three piano sonatas, with European dates at London’s Wigmore Hall, Berlin’s Philharmonie, and Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, as part of his season-long artistic residency with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra (see March 14–April 19). [April 15: Hamburg; April 17: London, UK; April 19: Berlin]
ALISA WEILERSTEIN continues the complete cycle of performances in San Diego of her multi-season solo cello project FRAGMENTS – weaving together the 36 movements of Bach’s solo cello suites with 27 newly commissioned works – with FRAGMENTS 5 – Lament (see Sep 13–April 16). [San Diego]
JULIA BULLOCK joins an all-John Adams program conducted by the composer with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in their “Minimalist Icons” series (see Feb 7–28). [Los Angeles]
April 16, 18
At D.C.’s Library of Congress and Montreal’s Bourgie Hall, PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD gives the Washington and Canadian premieres of DIVISIONS, a Library of Congress co-commission for piano four-hands by his friend Sir George Benjamin, who joins him on stage to perform it. It was after their UK premiere of the same piece that The Guardian hailed Aimard, who completes the program with solo works by Benjamin, Beethoven, and Ravel, as “one of the essential keyboard advocates of our era.” [April 16: Washington, D.C.; April 18, Montreal]
April 21, 22
ALAN GILBERT returns to the Netherlands’ Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, one of the preeminent ensembles of which he is a favored guest. His marine-themed program comprises works by Debussy, Anna Clyne, and Britten, of whose music his interpretations were “a highlight of the Britten year” (The New York Times). [Amsterdam]
April 23, 24
Conductor TEDDY ABRAMS leads the LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA (LO) in his 13th season as Music Director in the world premiere of a new symphony by Timo Andres – his first. Also on the program is the world premiere of a new work by Susanna Hancock, a member of the LO’s groundbreaking Creators Corps, along with a performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue reimagined through the lens of Latin jazz and Cuban traditions. Cuban pianist Ahmed Alom is the featured soloist, bringing his own creative voice to the work through open, improvisatory cadenzas, virtuosic ornamentation, and an expanded percussive sound world. [Louisville]
April 23, 24, 25
PAAVO JÄRVI guest conducts The Philadelphia Orchestra and superstar Russian pianist DANIIL TRIFONOV in Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto, sharing the bill with Tchaikovsky’s beloved Symphony No. 5. Recorded with the same orchestra, Trifonov’s three-volume Deutsche Grammophon Rachmaninov series was recognized with two Grammy nominations and BBC Music Magazine’s Concerto Recording of the Year award. The program opens with Aditus by Järvi’s countryman Erkki-Sven Tüür, a work the conductor recorded in 2003 with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra on an all-Tüür album. [Philadelphia]
April 28–May 6
The SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY embarks on its first European tour, led by Music and Artistic Director RAFAEL PAYARE, with performances in Barcelona, Toulouse, Hamburg, Paris, and Dublin. The first stop in Barcelona will feature Spanish pianist Javier Perianes in Schumann’s Piano Concerto, with the rest of the stops joined by violinist Leonidas Kavakos for Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto. The remainder of the tour repertoire, in various combinations, comprises Grammy Award-winning Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz’s Kauyumari, Bernstein’s “Symphonic Dances” from West Side Story, Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin, and Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. [April 28: Barcelona; April 30: Toulouse; May 3: Hamburg; May 4: Paris; May 6: Dublin]
April 28–May 8
LEIF OVE ANDSNES performs Grieg’s Piano Concerto on a seven-city European tour with the Berlin Philharmonic and Chief Conductor Kirill Petrenko. The pianist’s recording of the work with the same orchestra was recognized with a Gramophone Award. [April 28: Berlin; May 1: Oslo; May 2: Gothenburg, Sweden; May 3: Stockholm; May 5: Aarhus, Denmark; May 6: Copenhagen; May 8: Hamburg]
April 29; May 1
PAAVO JÄRVI guest conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic, performing Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto with Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang as soloist, and Wand’ring Bark by Estonian composer Helena Tulve, who studied with Erkki-Sven Tüür. Järvi has championed the music of both Estonian composers, and he commissioned Tulve’s work for Estonia’s Pärnu Music Festival, which he founded and directs. [Los Angeles]
April 29, 30; May 1
FABIO LUISI, who is in the process of recording Schoenberg’s complete orchestral works with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra on Deutsche Grammophon, leads the San Francisco Symphony and soloist Kirill Gerstein in Schoenberg’s notoriously difficult Piano Concerto, on a program with Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Renowned for his Mahler interpretations, Luisi recorded the Fifth Symphony with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 2023 and performed it the following year with his DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, when The Dallas Morning News reported that “the orchestra performed brilliantly.” [San Francisco]
MAY 2027
May 1–9 May 6
THE ATLANTA OPERA’s spring mainstage season continues with Puccini’s Tosca, with Monica Conesa in the title role (see Jan 30–June 10). [May 1, 4, 7, 9: Atlanta]
The SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY winds up its first European tour, led by Music and Artistic Director RAFAEL PAYARE, with a performance in Dublin. (See April 28–May 6.) [Dublin]
May 14, 15, 16
To conclude their season, DANIEL HOPE and the New Century Chamber Orchestra join American baritone Thomas Hampson, founder of the “Song of America” series, to explore San Francisco’s rich history through narration, imagery, and song. Combining works by Ernest Bloch, one-time Director of the San Francisco Conservatory, with traditional Chinese, Irish, Mexican, and African American song, their evening-length collaboration takes place at San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, where the historic United Nations charter was signed. [San Francisco]
May 14, 15, 16
DANIIL TRIFONOV plays Scriabin’s F-sharp minor Piano Concerto with the DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA and Music Director FABIO LUISI. Scriabin is one of the Russian composers featured on Silver Age, for which Trifonov received Opus Klassik’s Instrumentalist of the Year/Piano award. [Dallas]
May 14, 15, 16
Known for his “charismatic, captivating conducting” (Los Angeles Times), ANTHONY PARNTHER makes his Colorado Symphony debut with an all-Brahms evening, pairing the Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn with Ein deutsches Requiem, for which he and the orchestra will be joined by the Colorado Symphony Chorus. [Denver]
May 14–23 May 16 May 19, 20
CHANTICLEER’s primary touring program this season, Paradise, culminates with six performances at home in California (see Oct 8–May 23). [May 14: Santa Clara, CA; May 15: Mill Valley, CA; May 16: Sacramento, CA; May 21: Petaluma, CA; May 22: San Francisco; May 23: Berkeley, CA]
Cellist INBAL SEGEV joins Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) along with a large group of collaborators to perform chamber works of orchestral scale, including Stravinsky’s “Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto, Haydn’s Arianna a Naxos cantata featuring mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A, and more (see Dec 6). [NYC/ATH]
ALISA WEILERSTEIN performs Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote with her husband, RAFAEL PAYARE, leading his ORCHESTRE SYMPHONIQUE DE MONTRÉAL (Montreal Symphony Orchestra/OSM) in a program comprised entirely of Strauss tone poems (see Jan 22). [Montreal]
May 25–June 6
RAFAEL PAYARE, Music and Artistic Director of both the SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY and the ORCHESTRE SYMPHONIQUE DE MONTRÉAL (Montreal Symphony Orchestra/OSM), closes out the seasons for both orchestras with the same program: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and the Symphony No. 6, “Monarch” by Jimmy López, who recently completed a two-year term as composer-in-residence of both ensembles. The Montreal performance marks the world premiere of the work, which draws inspiration from the migration of monarch butterflies and reflects on the fragile harmony between life and environment. [May 25, 26, 27: Montreal; June 4, 5, 6: San Diego]
JUNE 2027
June 5
Cellist INBAL SEGEV performs a chamber music concert in Tel Aviv’s Shtriker Auditorium along with pianist Victor Stanislavsky, violinists Asi Matathias and Tosca Opdam, and violist Marc Sabbah. Repertoire comprises Mozart’s E-flat major Piano Quartet, and Dvořák’s Piano Quintet. [Tel Aviv]
June 5, 6, 10
As part of THE ATLANTA OPERA’s NOW Festival, the company will present Jubilee by NOW Festival Artistic Advisor Tazewell Thompson and Dianne Adams McDowell, a theatrical tribute to the Fisk Jubilee Singers, an African American a cappella ensemble born on the campus of Fisk University in the wake of the Civil War (see Jan 30–June 10). [June 5, 6, 10: Atlanta]
June 10, 13
For the final chapter of his season-long artistic residency with Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, LEIF OVE ANDSNES reunites with Tabita Berglund to reprise their interpretation of Britten’s unconventional four-movement Piano Concerto. [Hamburg]
Abbreviations for New York City concert venues are as follows:
ATH: Alice Tully Hall
CH = Carnegie Hall
DGH = David Geffen Hall
DMC = The DiMenna Center for Classical Music
MEP = MISE-EN_PLACE
92NY = The 92nd Street Y