Eastman School of Music’s 2026–27 season celebrates America250 with 1,000-plus performances; highlights include Alarm Will Sound, Irvine Arditti, Emanuel Ax, Chanticleer, George Lewis, & Candide

Live performance at Eastman School of Music (photo: courtesy of Eastman School of Music)

(July 2026) — 21C Media Group is thrilled to work with the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. With more than 1,000 performances in the 2026-27 season, 90% of them free and open to the public, Eastman is not only a world leader in music education, but also a significant player on the cultural scene. Celebrations of the 250th anniversary of American independence are interwoven throughout the season, from Chanticleer’s exploration of the national sound to productions of Bernstein’s Candide and Jason Robert Brown’s Songs for a New World; a tribute to four American jazz legends; and programs showcasing composer-in-residence George Lewis, North American Indigenous music, and African American music, the last of which was recorded for album release as In Plain Sight this summer. Other highlights of the school’s 105th season include the return of Eastman alums Alarm Will Sound, Jeff Beal, and Anthony Dean Griffey; guest appearances from Emanuel Ax, Irvine Arditti, Aoife O’Donovan, and Chris Thile; the complete Beethoven piano trios; organ and chamber music festivals; Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel; collaborations with the Rochester Philharmonic; and performances by the Eastman Philharmonia, Eastman School Symphony Orchestra, Eastman Chorale, Eastman Jazz Orchestra, and other of the school’s distinguished ensembles.

Joan and Martin Messinger Dean Kate Sheeran says:

“As Eastman celebrates 105 years of excellence, and America commemorates 250, we invite audiences to join us for a range of musical offerings at little to no cost. It is an extraordinary thing to be able to invite our immediate and extended community to experience world-class music almost every day of the academic year. This season offers something for everyone, and we hope that you will join us.”

Alarm Will Sound, Anthony Dean Griffey, & other illustrious faculty & alumni

Alumni and faculty members headline nine programs next season. It was at Eastman that Alarm Will Sound – “one of the most vital and original ensembles on the American music scene” (The New York Times) – was founded 25 years ago. Now, fresh from winning the 2026 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble, the pathbreaking contemporary music group returns with “New Acoustica.” An original program of complex electronica performed live on acoustic instruments, this is the vehicle for the ensemble’s homecoming in the acoustic and historic splendor of Eastman Theatre’s Kodak Hall (Oct 2).

Three of Eastman’s eminent faculty members anchor “In Plain Sight: The Black Anthology.” 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” (Observer) will be joined by Eastman students for selections from the Anthology of Art Songs by Black American Composers, which celebrates African American composition and its impact. After premiering “In Plain Sight” at Eastman’s Kilbourn Hall (Sep 15), the artists look forward to reprising it at New York’s Merkin Hall (Oct 16). Meanwhile, their recording of the program is scheduled for physical and digital release on the Lexicon Classics label this summer. Stream the first advance single here.

Eastman percussion professor, department chair, and alumnus Michael Burritt brings his newly formed Burritt Percussion Group to Kilbourn Hall with a program of original works by his Eastman students (Nov 10). Burritt is both a composer in high demand, whose solo marimba works have become popular standards, and an artist of “virtuosity and palaver” who “becomes the visual personification of the sound he draws from his instrument” (Boston Musical Intelligencer).

Eastman Opera Artistic & Music Director Timothy Long, himself a Muscogee citizen, celebrates 250 years of American Independence with music by Native American, First Nations, and Métis artists at Kilbourn Hall. Performing at the piano with support from Martha Redbone and her funk band, classical musicians, and other special guests, Long presents 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). Featured Indigenous composers include Pulitzer Prize laureate Raven Chacon, Dawn Avery, R. Carlos Nakai, and Long himself (Jan 31).

Two days after his own milestone 60th birthday, two-time Grammy-winning tenor and Eastman vocal professor Anthony Dean Griffey celebrates Valentine’s Day with “An Afternoon of Love Songs,” featuring American and English Art Songs at Kilbourn Hall, where he will be joined by pianist Warren Jones, Musical America’s Collaborative Pianist of the Year 2010. As The Boston Globe observes: “Griffey has voice, technique, musicianship, diction, and poetry in his soul” (Feb 14).

Eastman alumnus and five-time Emmy-winning composer-conductor Jeff Beal returns to conduct the Eastman Philharmonia and Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in a live-to-picture performance of his own original symphonic score to Fritz Lang’s seminal silent movie Metropolis, during the film’s centennial year (March 5; see also Orchestras below).

Three more distinguished Eastman faculty members come together to perform Beethoven’s complete piano trios in three concerts at Kilbourn Hall, offering listeners the chance to hear all six masterworks in chronological order over a single season: Op. 1, Nos. 1-3 (Oct 9); Op. 11, Op. 70, Nos. 1 (“Ghost”) & 2 (Jan 28); and WoO 38, Op. 97 (“Archduke”) (April 23). All specializing in Classical repertoire, Kobrin, Jang & Ying are pianist Alexander Kobrin, a gold medalist at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition; violinist YooJin Jang, a first-prize winner at the Sendai International Music Competition; and cellist David Ying, a Naumburg International Cello Competition winner.

Chanticleer, Chris Thile, Emanuel Ax, & other special guests

Eastman has long attracted guest artists of the highest caliber. With performances by leading lights Emanuel Ax, Irvine Arditti, Chanticleer, Aoife O’Donovan, and Chris Thile, the coming season is no exception.

Grammy-winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer celebrates the nation’s semiquincentennial in Kilbourn Hall with “Our American Journey,” a program tracing the evolution of the national sound. Ranging from barbershop, bluegrass, and folk song to arrangements of Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies” and other more contemporary classics, its cornerstone is a new commission from Trevor Weston that explores the relationship between traditional American hymnody and African American spirituals (Oct 25). “Our American Journey” builds on Chanticleer’s 2002 album of the same name, which was inducted into the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in spring 2025.

Multiple Grammy winners Aoife O’Donovan and Chris Thile join forces for “Wassail!,” an evening of bluegrass, storytelling, and holiday cheer in Kodak Hall (Dec 4). Singer-songwriter O’Donovan is a founding member of the folk trio I’m With Her and the bluegrass quintet Crooked Still, while mandolinist Thile co-founded the acoustic trio Nickel Creek and the acoustic folk and bluegrass quintet Punch Brothers.

Led since 1997 by director Brad Lubman, Eastman’s Musica Nova ensemble specializes in music of our time. Grammy-nominated British violinist Irvine Arditti, leader of the renowned Arditti Quartet, joins them in Kilbourn Hall for an all-contemporary program of Lubman’s This Is Not A Cadenza, György Kurtág’s Pieces for Violin and Cimbalom, and Señales by guest composer Hilda Paredes, whose concertante work was originally premiered by Arditti and the conductor (Dec 10).

Preeminent pianist Emanuel Ax revisits Kilbourn Hall for “A Legend Returns,” a solo recital combining Chopin selections with Schubert’s Four Impromptus and Schumann’s Papillons (March 17). “A soloist equally renowned for interpretive sympathy and technical acumen” (The Wall Street Journal), Ax has been honored with eight Grammy Awards and is Musical America’s reigning “Artist of the Year.”

Orchestral & wind concerts: Eastman Philharmonia, Eastman Wind Ensemble, & more

Each season, Eastman showcases a different guest composer through the Howard Hanson Composer-in-Residence program, of which past incumbents include such important contemporary voices as Shulamit Ran, Oliver Knussen, and Augusta Read Thomas. Poised to work closely with Eastman students next year, the 2026-27 Howard Hanson Composer-in-Residence is George Lewis, a MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellow who serves on Columbia University’s music faculty, where his research centers on experimental music, computer music, interactive media, improvisation, and the ways they relate to race, gender, and decolonization. An advanced ensemble comprising upperclassmen and master’s students, the Eastman Philharmonia introduces the composer and his work with a performance of Lewis’s Minds in Flux (2021), led by Brad Lubman at Kodak Hall. They pair this boundary-pushing piece for orchestra and electronics with Varèse’s modernist masterpiece Amériques, composed a full century earlier (Dec 14).

Orchestral performance is integral to the Eastman experience, and the school boasts multiple ensembles. As well as the Eastman Philharmonia, these include the Eastman School Symphony Orchestra, which serves as the starting point for undergraduate orchestral studies. Next season, Neil Varon, director of orchestral activities, conducts the orchestra in a program of Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, Vaughan Williams’s Four Hymns for tenor, solo viola, and strings, and Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony at Kodak Hall (Oct 3).

Other instrumental ensembles include the Eastman Wind Orchestra, which joins conductor Mark Davis Scatterday and assistant conductors Zachary Griffin and Luca Peveroni for a wide-ranging program of Wagner, Tailleferre, and John Corigliano at Kilbourn Hall (March 29). Two days later, Scatterday leads the Eastman Wind Ensemble – America’s first wind ensemble – in works by Mozart, Britten, Richard Strauss, and Kevin Day (March 31).

Eastman students also enjoy invaluable opportunities to perform with and learn from the professional musicians of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO), which makes its home at Kodak Hall. As well as collaborating with the Eastman Philharmonia and Jeff Beal on a live-to-picture performance of his score to Metropolis (March 5; see above), the RPO accompanies soloists drawn from the school’s piano, violin, cello, and oboe students in concertos by Liszt, Sibelius, Bloch, and Goossens (Jan 27).

Vocal & choral highlights, including Candide & Hänsel und Gretel

Currently celebrating its 100th anniversary season, Eastman Opera Theatre (EOT) has launched the careers of such esteemed vocalists as Julia Bullock, Nicole Cabell, Renée Fleming, Anthony Dean Griffey, Kathryn Lewek, and Erin Morley. Under the leadership of Artistic and Music Director Timothy Long, EOT presents current graduate and undergraduate vocal students in two fully staged productions next season: Bernstein’s Candide at Kilbourn Hall (Nov 5–8) and Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel at Kodak Hall (April 8–11). As Rochester’s CITY magazine reports, EOT “frequently presents large stories with cast, sets, and costumes to match,” its productions being “grand affairs suggesting a wide scope and far-reaching implications for their characters.”

Comprising both graduate and undergraduate students, the Eastman Chorale performs multiple concerts under the baton of interim director Donald Nally next season. These include a fall program at Kilbourn Hall that ranges from the Renaissance polyphony of di Lasso to the contemporary soundscapes of James MacMillan, Ēriks Ešenvalds, and others, by way of Schütz and Brahms (Nov 22). Other highlights include a winter performance at Rochester’s Christ Church, with a program exploring four centuries of sacred music for choir and organ by composers including Schütz, David Lang, Arvo Pärt, and Judith Weir (Feb 12).

Vocal students also appear at the Sloan Performing Arts Center in Songs for a New World (1995), a theatrical song cycle by former Eastman student and three-time Tony Award-winner Jason Robert Brown (Dec 10–13).

Jazz highlights

Repeatedly named “Outstanding Large Ensemble” at the annual DownBeat magazine’s Student Music Awards, the Eastman Jazz Orchestra has long been recognized as one of today’s premier collegiate jazz performing groups. Next season, the ensemble celebrates four major centennials with “Legends!,” a program devoted to jazz greats Ray Brown, John Coltrane, Melba Liston, and Miles Davis, all of whom were born in 1926. There will also be fall performances by the Eastman Vocal Jazz Ensemble, directed by Grammy-winning vocalist Sara Gazarek (Oct 27); Eastman Jazz Lab Band, under trombonist Marshall Gilkes (Nov 3); and Eastman New Jazz Orchestra, led by composer-arranger Dave Rivello (Dec 1).

Organ & chamber music festivals

The school presents two music festivals next season. The Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative aims to make the city of Rochester a global center for organ performance, research, building, and preservation, and its biennial festival is one of the world’s premier organ conferences. Performed on both new and historic instruments throughout the city of Rochester, next season’s edition, “Bach Reflected,” features leading French organist Daniel Roth and includes a concert to launch the publication of Daniel Roth, Organist of Saint Sulpice by the University of Rochester Press, as well as performances by guest organists Anne Laver, Ludger Lohmann, and Joel Speerstra (Nov 8–11).

Eastman’s biannual Chamber Music Extravaganza showcases more than 300 instrumental students in groups ranging from piano duos and string quartets to wind and brass quintets. Next season’s events take place at Hatch Recital Hall and Ciminelli Lounge in the fall (Nov 20; Dec 12–14) and spring (April 16 & 24–26).

Tickets and further information

For ticketed events, seats may be reserved online, by calling 585-274-3000, or in person at the Eastman Theatre Box Office (open on weekdays from 9:30am to 2:30pm at 433 East Main Street). In addition to the list of selected highlights below, full details of all upcoming performances, masterclasses, symposia, and more are provided on Eastman’s newly improved event calendar.

About the Eastman School & University of Rochester

The Eastman School of Music was founded in 1921 by industrialist and philanthropist George Eastman (1854-1932), founder of Eastman Kodak Company, to provide world class musical training and a broad education in the liberal arts. Today, the school’s Collegiate Division enrolls more than 900 students, comprising around 500 undergraduates and 400 graduate students. Nearly a quarter are from overseas, and the others represent almost every U.S. state. They are taught by a faculty of more than 170 performers, composers, conductors, scholars, and educators, who include Pulitzer Prize, Grammy, and Emmy winners; Guggenheim Fellows; ASCAP Award recipients; published authors; recording artists; and musicians who appear in the world’s greatest concert halls. Each year, Eastman’s students, faculty members, and guest artists present more than 1,000 concerts to the Rochester community and beyond. Additionally, over 1,700 community members, from young children through senior citizens, are enrolled in the Eastman Community Music School.

Eastman was the first professional school of the University of Rochester, one of the nation’s leading private research universities, and one of only 62 members of the Association of American Universities. Through its unique cluster-based curriculum, the university gives undergraduates exceptional opportunities for interdisciplinary study and close collaboration with faculty. Located in Rochester, NY, its College, School of Arts and Sciences, and Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences are complemented by Eastman and the Simon School of Business, Warner School of Education, Laboratory for Laser Energetics, School of Medicine and Dentistry, School of Nursing, Eastman Institute for Oral Health, and Memorial Art Gallery.

Eastman School of Music: selected 2026–27 season highlights

Sep 15
Kilbourn Hall
Joshua Conyers, Kiera Duffy, Nicole Cabell, & Friends
“In Plain Sight: The Black Anthology”
(Ticketed)

Oct 2
Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre
Alarm Will Sound
“Homecoming: New Acoustica”
(Ticketed)

Oct 3
Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre
Eastman School Symphony Orchestra / Neil Varon
BEETHOVEN: Egmont Overture
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Four Hymns for tenor, solo viola, and strings
DVOŘÁK: Symphony No. 9
(Free)

Oct 7
Kilbourn Hall
Eastman Jazz Orchestra / Christine Jensen
“Legends!”
Works by BROWN, COLTRANE, LISTON, and DAVIS
(Free)

Oct 9
Kilbourn Hall
Kobrin, Jang, & Ying
BEETHOVEN: Piano Trios, Op. 1, Nos. 1-3
(Ticketed)

Oct 16
New York, NY
Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center
Joshua Conyers, Kiera Duffy, Nicole Cabell, & Friends
“In Plain Sight: The Black Anthology”
(Ticketed)

Oct 25
Kilbourn Hall
Chanticleer
“Our American Journey”
(Ticketed)

Oct 27
Hatch Recital Hall
Eastman Vocal Jazz Ensemble / Sara Gazarek
(Free)

Nov 3
Rochester, NY
Eastman Jazz Lab Band / Marshall Gilkes
(Free)

Nov 5–8
Kilbourn Hall
Eastman Opera Theatre
BERNSTEIN: Candide
(Ticketed)

Nov 8–11
Venues TBD
Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative
“Bach Reflected”
(Ticketed)

Nov 10
Kilbourn Hall
Michael Burritt with the Burritt Percussion Group
(Ticketed)

Nov 20; Dec 12, 13, & 14
Hatch Recital Hall and Ciminelli Lounge
Fall Chamber Music Extravaganza
(Free)

Nov 22
Kilbourn Hall
Eastman Chorale
Works by DI LASSO, SCHÜTZ, BRAHMS, James MACMILLAN, Ēriks EŠENVALDS, Pēteris VASKS, David HURD, & Ayanna WOODS
(Free)

Dec 1
Kilbourn Hall
Eastman New Jazz Orchestra / Dave Rivello
(Free)

Dec 4
Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre
Chris Thile and Aoife O’Donovan
“Wassail!”
(Ticketed)

Dec 10
Kilbourn Hall
Musica Nova / Brad Lubman
Irvine Arditti, violin
Brad LUBMAN: This is not a cadenza (2020/2026)
Hilda PAREDES: Señales (2012)
György KURTÁG: pieces for violin and cimbalom
(Free)

Dec 10–13
Sloan Performing Arts Center, University of Rochester
Eastman Opera Theatre
Jason Robert BROWN: Songs for a New World
(Ticketed)

Dec 14
Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre
Eastman Philharmonia / Brad Lubman
“Introducing George Lewis”
VARÈSE: Amériques (1921)
George LEWIS: Minds in Flux (2021)
(Free)

Jan 27
Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre
Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra / ESM Student Concerto Concert
LISZT: Piano Concerto No. 1
SIBELIUS: Violin Concerto
BLOCH: Schelomo for Cello and Orchestra
GOOSSENS: Oboe Concerto
(Free)

Jan 28
Kilbourn Hall
Kobrin, Jang, & Ying
BEETHOVEN: Piano Trios, Op. 11, Op. 70, Nos. 1 (“Ghost”) & 2
(Ticketed)

Jan 31
Kilbourn Hall
Timothy Long
The North American Indigenous Songbook
(Ticketed)

Feb 12
Christ Church
Eastman Chorale and Organ Department
Works by FINZI, SCHÜTZ, Judith BINGHAM, David LANG, Arvo PÄRT, BRAHMS, Judith WEIR, and HOWELLS
(Free)

Feb 14
Kilbourn Hall
Anthony Dean Griffey, tenor
(Ticketed)

March 5
Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre
Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Eastman Philharmonia / Jeff Beal
Jeff BEAL: Metropolis
(Ticketed)

March 17
Kilbourn Hall
Emanuel Ax, piano
“A Legend Returns”
SCHUMANN: Papillons
SCHUBERT: Four Impromptus
Works by CHOPIN
(Ticketed)

March 29
Kilbourn Hall
Eastman Wind Orchestra / Mark Davis Scatterday
Zachary Griffin and Luca Peveroni, assistant conductors
WAGNER: Trauersinfonie
John CORIGLIANO: Gazebo Dances
TAILLEFERRE: Suite Divertimento
(Free)

March 31
Kilbourn Hall
Eastman Wind Ensemble / Mark Davis Scatterday
MOZART: Serenade in C minor
R. STRAUSS: Serenade
BRITTEN: Russian Funeral
Kevin DAY: Harp Concerto
(Free)

April 8–11
Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre
Eastman Opera Theatre
HUMPERDINCK: Hänsel und Gretel
(Ticketed)

April 16, 24, 25, & 26
Hatch Recital Hall and Ciminelli Lounge
Spring Chamber Music Extravaganza
(Free)

April 23
Kilbourn Hall
Kobrin, Jang, & Ying
BEETHOVEN: Piano Trios WoO 38, Op. 97 (“Archduke”)
(Ticketed)

All events are subject to change. A complete listing is available here.