Alan Gilbert: Santa Fe Chamber Festival residency; Wagner in Hamburg with Nina Stemme & Sweden’s Royal Opera Orchestra; & new Copland recordings with NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra this summer

(June 2026) — Grammy-winning American conductor conductor, violinist, and violist Alan Gilbert returns to the concert hall after a six-month sabbatical for chamber works by Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Arensky, and Shostakovich at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival (July 26–Aug 5) and a Wagner-themed evening in Hamburg with Nina Stemme and Sweden’s Royal Opera Orchestra, of which he is Music Director, to honor the ensemble’s landmark 500th anniversary (Aug 18). By way of an upbeat to his eighth season as Chief Conductor of the German city’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra (NDREO), Gilbert also releases two new recordings with the orchestra, celebrating 250 years of American independence with the release of Copland’s Appalachian Spring(June 19) and the same composer’s Lincoln Portrait, featuring Morris Robinson as narrator (July 3).

Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival residency

Gilbert is a gifted string player and dedicated chamber musician, who has performed with members of the NDREO and New York Philharmonic as well as at festivals including California’s La Jolla Music Society SummerFest and New Mexico’s Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. This summer, he returns to the latter for five chamber programs, performing on violin in the Mendelssohn Octet (July 26 & 27), Arensky Cello Quartet (July 29), and Shostakovich Piano Quintet (Aug 2 & 3), and on viola in the BeethovenSeptet (Aug 5) and Bach’s Goldberg Variations, in a trio arrangement that also features his sister, Jennifer Gilbert, concertmaster of the Orchestre National de Lyon, and Paul Watkins, cellist of the recently retired Emerson String Quartet (Aug 1). His distinguished collaborators also include Harvey de Souza, principal first violin of London’s Academy of St. Martin in the Fields; Peter Wiley, cellist of the legendary Guarneri Quartet; and Avery Fisher Prize-winning clarinetist David Shifrin.

Gilbert has long been a familiar face in Santa Fe, where he was the first music director of Santa Fe Opera. Since making his Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival debut in 2001, he has frequently returned to the festival, serving three times as its Artist-in-Residence. Most recently, three years ago he conducted more than 40 musicians in an account of Messiaen’s monumental From the Canyons to the Stars …, as a centerpiece of the festival’s 50th anniversary season.

Wagner in Hamburg with Nina Stemme & Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra

Since spring 2021 Gilbert has been Music Director of the Royal Swedish Opera (RSO), where he was named Royal Court Kapellmeister by the King of Sweden. This year marks the 500th anniversary of the Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra. To continue their yearlong quincentennial celebrations, he and the orchestra join Swedish soprano Nina Stemme for an evening at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie as part of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. As one of today’s foremost Wagner interpreters, Stemme is their soloist in concert performances of Isolde’s “Liebestod” and Brünnhilde’s “Immolation Scene” on a program that also features orchestral excerpts from Tristan und Isolde, Tannhäuser, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung, as well as the Serenade in F by Swedish late-Romantic Wilhelm Stenhammar (Aug 18). When Gilbert conducted Wagner’s Parsifal with the RSO Orchestra, Opera magazine declared: “Musically, the performance was outstanding.”

New Copland recordings with NDREO

Gilbert and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra release two new titles in their ongoing digital recording series, available from OneGate Media on all major streaming platforms. Both recordings showcase major works by Aaron Copland, in honor of this year’s 250th anniversary of American independence. Captured live in the final concert of the NDREO’s 2020-21 season, the orchestral suite from the composer’s ballet Appalachian Spring is due for release on June 19.

This will be followed on July 3 by Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, recorded live in February 2022 with Grammy-winning American bass Morris Robinson as narrator. Gilbert says: “These are pieces that I think get really to the heart and soul of what makes America great, and it’s nice to be reminded of that these days.” Watch excerpts from both recordings and see Gilbert and Robinson discuss the project here.

Since its launch in fall 2024, the OneGate Media series has yielded Gilbert’s NDREO recordings of works by Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, Ravel, Richard Strauss, Magnus Lindberg, and Unsuk Chin, making his celebrated interpretations of their music accessible to home audiences worldwide.

Alan Gilbert: summer engagements

July 26–Aug 5
Santa Fe, NM
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival

July 26 & 27
MENDELSSOHN: Octet (A. Gilbert on violin; with Harvey de Souza, Jennifer Gilbert, & Noemi Gilbert, violins; Toby Appel & Steven Tenenbom, violas; Paul Watkins & Peter Wiley, cellos)

July 29
ARENSKY: Cello Quartet (A. Gilbert on violin; with Steven Tenenbom, viola; Paul Watkins & Peter Wiley, cellos)

Aug 1
BACH (arr. Dmitry SITKOVETSKY): Goldberg Variations (A. Gilbert on viola; with Jennifer Gilbert, violin; Paul Watkins, cello)

Aug 2 & 3
SHOSTAKOVICH: Piano Quintet (A. Gilbert on violin; with Harvey de Souza, violin; Paul Neubauer, viola; Paul Watkins, cello; Nicolas Namoradze, piano)

Aug 5
BEETHOVEN: Septet (A. Gilbert on viola; with David Shifrin, clarinet; Ted Soluri, bassoon; Julia Pilant, horn; Jennifer Gilbert, violin; Kajsa William-Olsson, cello; Anthony Manzo, double bass)

Aug 18
Hamburg, Germany
Elbphilharmonie
Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival
Royal Swedish Orchestra
WAGNER: Prelude and “Liebestod” from Tristan und Isolde (with Nina Stemme, soprano)
WAGNER: Tannhäuser Overture
WAGNER: “Waldweben” from Siegfried
WAGNER: “Trauermarsch” and “Brünnhilde’s Immolation Scene” from Götterdämmerung (with Nina Stemme, soprano)
STENHAMMAR: Serenade in F