Dallas Symphony Orchestra celebrates 125th anniversary with fall season featuring MD Fabio Luisi leading Mahler 4; world premieres by Angélica Negrón, Jonathan Cziner, Kathryn Bostic, and Moni Jasmine Guo; and DSO premiere by Composer-in-Residence Sophia Jani
(September 2025) — The Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) celebrates its 125th anniversary in 2025–26, as Grammy-winning conductor Fabio Luisi embarks on his sixth season as Louise W. & Edmund J. Kahn Music Director at the helm of four fallprograms in the Texas Instruments Classical Series. Among the highlights are performances of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony (Oct 2 & 5) and three world premieres: former DSO Composer-in-Residence Angélica Negrón’s for everything you keep losing(Oct 16–18), Jonathan Cziner’s Clarinet Concerto featuring DSO Principal ClarinetGregory Raden (Nov 20–22), and Moni Jasmine Guo’s “the sound of where i came from” 乡音 (also Nov 20–22). An additional world premiere in November will be conducted by Marin Alsop: Kathryn Bostic’s Drag, sung by Karen Slack and based on the life of drag king Gladys Bentley with libretto by Lorene Cary. Luisi also leads a DSO premiere by DSO’s current Composer-in-Residence: Sophia Jani’s What do flowers do at night? (Oct 9–12), plus the DSO Gala with new Artist-in-Residence Leonidas Kavakos as his special guest (Oct 4).
Premieres
As part of its 125th anniversary celebration, the DSO commissioned former Composer-in-Residence Angélica Negrón’s for everything you keep losing, a new large choral work for orchestra, SATB chorus, and four soloists that explores sonic loss and the erasure of sonic diversity, tied to habitat destruction, species extinction, and climate change. The piece weaves together poetry by Roque Raquel Salas Rivera, Ricardo Alberto Maldonado, Nicole Delgado, and Amanda Hernández; orchestral music; and the recorded sounds of some of the Puerto Rican species and elements that have been or are in danger of being lost. It also reflects on the loss of language due to colonialism, the displacement of communities, and the silencing of voices, particularly those impacted by the climate crisis. Soprano Lauren Snouffer, mezzo-soprano Kimberly James, countertenor Key’mon Murrah, and tenor Paul Appleby will be the soloists for the world premiere alongside the Dallas Symphony Chorus and chorus director Anthony Blake Clark. The program is rounded out by Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue featuring pianist Inon Barnatan, and Morton Gould’s Latin-American Symphonette (Oct 16–18).
The other two Luisi-conducted world premieres this fall are both on the same program. Dallas-based composer Jonathan Cziner’s Clarinet Concerto featuring DSO Principal Clarinet Gregory Raden (Mr. & Mrs. C. Thomas May, Jr. Chair) is heavily influenced by Jewish music, both the cantorial chant the composer heard in the synagogue growing up and klezmer dances. Composer/pianist Moni Jasmine Guo’s new work titled the sound of where i came from 乡音, commissioned by the League of American Orchestras with the generous support of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Orchestral Commissions Program for women composers, began as an exploration of the idea of “home,” but became an homage to the composer’s grandmother, especially her voice. Now suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, she is no longer able to call Guo by name, yet the sound of her voice lives on in memory and inspired this work (Nov 20–22).
Luisi also conducts a DSO premiere this fall from Opus Klassik-nominated German composer Sophia Jani – currently serving in her third season as DSO’s Composer-in-Residence (Lisa & Robert Segert Chair) – titled What do flowers do at night? Jani, who describes her style as “poetically minimalist,” has been the DSO Composer-in-Residence during the past two seasons, and in 2023 served as the musical Artist in Residence of Estonia’s Arvo Pärt Centre. On the same program is music of Luisi’s compatriot Ottorino Respighi: his Vetrate di Chiesa (“Church Windows”) and Le fontane di Roma (“The Fountains of Rome”); as well as Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 5, “Egyptian”, featuring pianist Bruce Liu (Oct 9–12).
Under the baton of Marin Alsop, the DSO also gives the world premiere this fall of Kathryn Bostic’s Drag. Based on the life of drag king Gladys Bentley, the work is sung by soprano Karen Slack, with libretto by Lorene Cary, on a program with Strauss’s tone poem Don Juan and Brahms’s Second Symphony (Nov 7–9).
More season highlights
Luisi and the DSO open the Texas Instruments Classical Series with Haydn’s witty and elegant “Oxford” Symphony No. 92, which the composer conducted at Oxford University in 1791 to celebrate his honorary Doctor of Music degree. This symphony is of special significance to the DSO’s history as it was featured on the orchestra’s first concert on May 22, 1900, conducted by Hans Kreissig. Haydn’s symphony is paired with the first of two Mahler symphonies this season: his Symphony No. 4, featuring soprano soloist Sofia Fomina (Oct 2, 5). The Fourth Symphony will be reprised on tour in California in the spring, again with Fomina as soloist (March 31–April 2), and Luisi closes his DSO season with Mahler’s monumental Eighth, “Symphony of a Thousand” (May 15 & 17).
2025 Dallas Symphony Orchestra Gala
Luisi kicks off the season in early October with the 2025 Symphony Gala, first leading the orchestra in Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, which Sir Georg Solti conducted at the first subscription concert of his tenure as Music Director of the DSO in the early 1960s. The program culminates with Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, featuring the DSO’s new Artist-In-Residence, Leonidas Kavakos. This once-a-season fundraising event benefits the DSO’s education and outreach initiatives including the Young Strings and Kim Noltemy Young Musicians programs (Oct 4).
Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Fabio Luisi, 2025–26 Season
(All concerts take place at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, TX unless otherwise noted)
DSO Gala
Oct 4
Fabio Luisi, conductor
Leonidas Kavakos, violin
BEETHOVEN: Overture to Egmont
TCHAIKOVSKY: Concerto in D for Violin and Orchestra
Texas Instruments Classical Series
Oct 2 & 5
Fabio Luisi, conductor
Sofia Fomina, soprano
HAYDN: Symphony No. 92, “Oxford”
MAHLER: Symphony No. 4
Oct 9, 11, & 12
Fabio Luisi, conductor
Bruce Liu, piano
Sophia JANI: What do flowers do at night? (DSO premiere)
SAINT-SAËNS: Piano Concerto No. 5, “Egyptian”
RESPIGHI: Vetrate di chiesa (“Church Windows”)
RESPIGHI: Le fontane di Roma (“The Fountains of Rome”)
Oct 16–18
Fabio Luisi, conductor
Inon Barnatan, piano
Dallas Symphony Chorus
Anthony Blake Clark, chorus director
Lauren Snouffer soprano
Kimberly James mezzo-soprano
Key’mon Murrah countertenor
Paul Appleby tenor
Angélica NEGRÓN: for everything you keep losing (world premiere*)
GERSHWIN: Rhapsody in Blue
GOULD: Latin-American Symphonette
*Generously funded by the Norma and Don Stone New Music Fund
Nov 7–9
Marin Alsop, conductor
Karen Slack, soprano
Lorene Cary, librettist
R. STRAUSS: Don Juan
Kathryn BOSTIC: Drag (world premiere*)
BRAHMS: Symphony No. 2
*Generously funded by the Norma and Don Stone New Music Fund
Nov 20–22
Fabio Luisi, conductor
Gregory Raden, clarinet
BEETHOVEN: Leonore Overture No. 3
Jonathan CZINER: Clarinet Concerto (world premiere)
Moni Jasmine GUO: “the sound of where i came from” 乡音 (world premiere, Toulmin commission)
MOZART: Symphony No. 40
Jan 9 & 11
Fabio Luisi, conductor
Jennifer Rowley: Butterfly
Evan LeRoy Johnson: Pinkerton
Manuela Custer: Suzuki
Alessandro Luongo: Sharpless
Keith Jameson: Goro
Kidon Choi: Yamadori & Bonze
Dallas Symphony Chorus
Anthony Blake Clark, chorus director
Paul Curran, stage director
PUCCINI: Madama Butterfly (opera-in-concert)
Jan 15 & 16
Fabio Luisi, conductor
BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 9 (1896, unfinished)
March 26–28
Fabio Luisi, conductor
Amaryn Olmeda, violin
RÓZSA: Violin Concerto, Op. 24
BARTÓK: Romanian Folk Dances
BRAHMS: Selection of Hungarian Dances
March 31–April 2
California Tour
Fabio Luisi, conductor
Hélène Grimaud, piano
Sofia Fomina, soprano
SCHUMANN: Piano Concerto
MAHLER: Symphony No. 4
March 31: Palm Desert
April 1: Santa Barbara
April 2: Costa Mesa
April 30–May 3
Fabio Luisi, conductor
GLINKA: Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila
TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 2, “Little Russian”
STRAVINSKY: The Firebird Suite (1945 version)
May 7, 9, & 10
Fabio Luisi, conductor
Nathan Olson, violin
Stuart Stephenson, trumpet
Kathryn Henry, soprano
BEETHOVEN: “Ah! Perfido,” Scene and Aria for soprano and orchestra
BACH: Violin Concerto in E, BWV 1042
HAYDN: Trumpet Concerto in E-flat
MOZART: Symphony No. 35, “Haffner”
May 15 & 17
Fabio Luisi, conductor
Dallas Symphony Chorus & Baltimore Choral Arts
Anthony Blake Clark, chorus director
Dallas Symphony Children’s Chorus
Ellie Lin, artistic director
Rachel Willis-Sørensen, soprano
Meghan Kasanders, soprano
Deanna Breiwick, soprano
Olesya Petrova, mezzo-soprano
Renée Tatum, mezzo-soprano
Limmie Pulliam, tenor
Luke Sutliff, baritone
Insung Kim, bass
MAHLER: Symphony No. 8, “Symphony of a Thousand”