21C Media Group’s Classical Music Spring Preview

21C MEDIA GROUP’S CLASSICAL MUSIC SPRING PREVIEW
Feb 16 through June 21, 2025

CONCERTS, SPECIAL EVENTS & RECORDINGS

* Abbreviations for New York City concert venues follow below preview

21C’s artists and organizations offer a full lineup of performances and recordings this spring; for upcoming highlights, see below (all subject to change).

Ongoing
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. She stars as Rose in the new Broadway production of Gypsy that opened this past December at Broadway’s newly renovated Majestic Theatre, taking on what is widely regarded as the greatest role in musical theater. The revival is 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. [NYC/Majestic]

Feb 16–March 15
Long venerated as a “pianist’s pianist” whose interpretations combine “quiet beauty and emotional fire” (The Times of London), SERGEI BABAYAN explores the evolution of lieder, folksong, and the elusive art of melody in his new 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, this thoughtfully curated program takes the Armenian American pianist to three continents this spring. Highlights of the “Songs” tour include recitals at California’s Cal State, Fullerton; New Orleans’s Tulane University; and London’s newest recital venue, Bechstein Hall. [Feb 16: Fullerton, CA; Feb 19: New Orleans; March 15: London]

Feb 18–March 6
The LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (LSO) embarks on its first U.S. tour with Sir Antonio Pappano, who launched his tenure as Chief Conductor last 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 two-time Grammy-winning conductor’s first appearances at the venue with the LSO. [Feb 18: Santa Barbara, CA; Feb 19: Palm Desert, CA; Feb 20: Costa Mesa, CA; 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
After a weeklong residency with the Boston Symphony at the 2024 Tanglewood Music Festival, Grammy-winning conductor 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” (The Boston Globe). [Boston]

Feb 20–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” – continues to 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. [Feb 20: Seattle, WA; Feb 21, 22: Portland, OR; Feb 25: Logan, UT; April 3: Milwaukee, WI; April 4: Wheaton, IL; April 5: Charleston, IL; April 8: Hanover, NH; April 9: Storrs, CT; April 10: NYC/Kaufman; April 11: Great Barrington, MA; April 23: Kennett Square, PA; April 25: Baltimore, MD; April 26: Glassboro, NJ; April 27: Southport, CT; May 10: Santa Monica, CA; May 11: La Jolla, CA; May 12: Palm Desert, CA; May 17: NYC/Rose; May 18: Washington, D.C.]

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
American soprano KATHRYN LEWEK makes her house and role debuts as Puccini’s Musetta, singing opposite her husband, tenor Zach Borichevsky, in Opera Colorado’s La bohème. As The New York Times affirms, “Singing like Lewek’s is what the magic of opera is all about.” [Feb 22, 25, 27, 28: Englewood, CO]

Feb 26
Grammy winner DANIIL TRIFONOV performs a solo program of Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and Barber at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center. “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.” [Philadelphia]

Feb 28–March 1
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) – performs Jessie Montgomery’s Five Freedom Songs, composed for the soprano, on tour around Maryland with the Baltimore Symphony and Music Director Jonathon Heyward. The program also includes Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, in which Bullock sings the soprano solo in the finale. [Feb 28: North Bethesda, MD; Feb 29: College Park, MD; March 1: Baltimore]

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 Grammy-winning French pianist PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD of his late teacher and collaborator, Pierre Boulez, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday this 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 this spring. [NYC/CH]

March 2–9
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–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 two more DSO-commissioned world premieres this spring, both conducted by Luisi. In March, Luisi conducts the world premiere of I Wish You Daisies and Roses 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). Luisi also leads the world premiere of Sean Shepherd’s Quadruple Concerto for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon (April 17–19). Shepherd, “an exciting composer of the new American generation” (The New York Times), recently completed his tenure as the Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow of the Cleveland Orchestra. [March 6, 7, 8, 9; April 17, 18, 19: 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, debuts with 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
Venezuelan conductor 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 Timesof London). [March 19, 22, 24, 27, 29; April 1, 4: London]

March 21
WARNER CLASSICS releases a new disc featuring four of Bach’s keyboard concertos (BWV 1052 in D minor, 1053 in E, 1054 in D, and 1056 in F minor), performed by Italian pianist Beatrice Rana, praised by the Financial Times for bringing “strength and delicacy equally into play” on her previous recording of piano concertos by Robert and Clara Schumann. Rana’s new disc was recorded with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta after a ten-date tour. Bach’s F-minor concerto was also the vehicle for the pianist’s first public orchestral performance. Describing Bach as “an important figure in my life,” she recalls: “My piano studies began when I was very young and Bach was there from the very start.”

March 23–April 26
As today’s reigning Queen of the Night, KATHRYN LEWEK reprises her star turn in Simon McBurney’s uproarious production of The Magic Flute at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, where she has sung Mozart’s antiheroine a record-breaking 64 times. As the New Yorker’s Alex Ross notes, Lewek “executes this stratospherically difficult role better than anyone alive.” [March 23, 28; April 1, 4, 7, 9, 12, 16, 19, 23, 26: NYC/Met]

March 25–April 1
Last year, celebrated Norwegian 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]

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 has passed through Oregon, California, Kansas, Virginia, Florida, and New York; remaining dates are in Wisconsin, and Michigan. [March 26: South Milwaukee, WI; March 27: Holland, MI]

APRIL 2025

April 3, 4, 5
“A cellist of depth, fire, and sinew” (The New Yorker), MacArthur Fellow 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 work is the third new concerto brought to life by Weilerstein this 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” (The 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 the intimate surroundings of CARAMOOR’s Rosen House Music Room. [Katonah, NY]

April 10
ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S (OSL) – celebrated for its “exceptionally fine and committed music-making” (The New York Times) – gives the last of its four mainstage performances in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage this season as it celebrates its 50th anniversary. In Bernard Labadie’s final performance as OSL Principal Conductor, he leads the orchestra in 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. [NYC/CH]

April 11, 12
“A conductor for the future” with “a flourishing career” (The New York Times), ANTHONY PARNTHER returns to the Nashville Symphony for a characteristically creative program. Marking his first symphonic repertoire with the orchestra, this juxtaposes Mendelssohn’s Fifth Symphony (“Reformation”) with two contemporary works: Tu-Jia Dance by Chinese American composer Joan Huang and the Four Winds Concertante by Emmy Award winner Jasmine Barnes. [Nashville, TN]

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” (The New York Times), recently completed his tenure as the Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow of the Cleveland Orchestra (see March 6). [Dallas]

April 18, 19; May 2, 3
JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER continues to showcase world-class artists at Rose Theater this spring. Grammy-winning Cuban American master clarinetist-saxophonist-composer Paquito D’Rivera celebrates his 70-plus years in music with a career retrospective, for which he and his quintet will be joined by Chucho Valdés, Edmar Casteñeda, Roberta Gambarini, and other special guests (April 18, 19). Two weeks later, eight-time Grammy-winning bassist, composer, and bandleader Christian McBride leads his trio in a tribute to their mentor, pathbreaking bassist Ray Brown (May 2, 3). [April 18, 19; May 2, 3: NYC/JALC]

April 21–27
The 2025 GATEWAYS MUSIC FESTIVAL takes place in Rochester and New York City, with a range of concerts, recitals, and panel discussions 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. Celebrating the cultural legacy of spirituals and their transformative impact on American classical music, their  upcoming program combines symphonies by Antonín Dvořák and William Levi Dawson with the world premiere of a new commission from Damian Sneed, for which they will be joined by mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges. [April 21–24: Rochester, NY; April 24–26: NYC (various venues); April 27: NYC/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, Chicago Classical Review concluded that “the orchestra made an inspired choice with Klaus Mäkelä as their future leader.” [Chicago]

April 25, 26, 27:
The PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (PSO) and Music Director Manfred Honeck perform Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto with Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson, winner of the 2025 Grammy for Best Classical Instrumental Solo, alongside Beethoven’s First Symphony and the PSO premiere of Sophia Jani’s Flare. “Honeck and Pittsburgh stand virtually alone as a partnership truly worthy of your time and attention,” writes Classics Today. [Pittsburgh]

April 26–May 4
Following productions of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre over the past two seasons, THE ATLANTA OPERA’s Ring cycle continues 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
For the final performance of the spring in the intimate surroundings of CARAMOOR’s Rosen House Music Room, the Brentano String Quartet performs the New York premiere of a new work by Lei Liang, along with music by Haydn and Brahms. [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 4; June 20
Rufus Wainwright’s new Dream Requiem for orchestra, chorus, soprano, and narrator has its U.S. premiere at Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, featuring narrator Jane Fonda, soprano Liv Redpath, the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, and, led by Artistic Director Grant Gershon, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, which also served as a co-commissioner of the work. The following month sees the Netherlands premiere at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw with another co-commissioner, the Netherlands Philharmonic. The live recording of the work’s Paris 2024 premiere on WARNER CLASSICS, featuring Meryl Streep as narrator and soprano Anna Prohaska, was released last month to enthusiastic reviews. On the latest edition of BBC Radio 3’s Record Review, Andrew McGregor commented: “It’s atmospheric, it’s expansive, it’s eloquent and I think it wears its heart very much on its sleeve which is totally Rufus Wainwright,” while The Scotsman found the piece “both beautiful and grimly apposite.” Dream Requiem was written during the pandemic and is, in Wainwright’s words, a requiem “for the people we have lost in this crisis, for the past from which we are cut off and for the future to which we do not yet know how to connect, a Requiem for human contact, solidarity, and the human voice that have all become dangerous and contagious.” Implicated in this lack of connection are the existential dangers facing the global environment; those dangers are not only very close to home for the composer – a resident of Los Angeles – but make the work even more personal and prophetic. [May 4: Los Angeles; June 20: Amsterdam]

May 8–11
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.” [May 8, 10, 11: Los Angeles]

May 8–11
LEIF OVE ANDSNES joins the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and Chief Conductor ALAN GILBERT 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” (The New York Times) during his tenure as Artist-in-Residence of the New York Philharmonic. [May 8, 9, 11: Hamburg]

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. 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 10–18
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). [May 10, 16, 18: 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 and 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, the opera debuts at the Met in spring 2025 with Bullock in the title role, following her house debut last 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 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]

May 23, 24, 25
In May, after summer engagements for the last two seasons with the Los Angeles 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, CA]

May 27–June 1
ALISA WEILERSTEIN offers her first rendition of the complete “FRAGMENTS” cycle at the 2025 Spoleto Festival USA. Having enjoyed a close relationship with the Charleston-based festival for the past 15 years, she gives the world premiere performances of FRAGMENTS 5 & 6 during a weeklong Spoleto residency that sees her perform all six programs of the series in succession for the first time. [Charleston, SC]

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.]