Rafael Payare guest conducts Philadelphia Orchestra (Jan 23–26) & returns to Royal Opera House (March 19–April 4), leads full roster of performances in San Diego and Montreal including Mahler 3 & 6 and Mozart Festival this winter and spring

(January 2025) — On the heels of the inauguration of San Diego’s newly renovated Jacobs Music Center with the San Diego Symphony (SDS), as well as the fall release of  an all-Schoenberg album and a European tour with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (Montreal Symphony Orchestra/OSM), Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare – music director of both orchestras – looks forward to two high-profile guest conducting appearances this winter and spring. With the Philadelphia Orchestra, he leads violinist Carolin Widmann in Kaija Saariaho’s Graal théâtre along with music of Ravel and Tchaikovsky (Jan 23–26); and at the Royal Opera House, he helms Turandot with Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role (March 19–April 4). Payare also leads a full schedule of winter and spring performances with both SDS and OSM. Repertoire in San Diego includes Mahler’s Third Symphony (May 23–25) and Shostakovich’s “Leningrad” Symphony (May 16, 17), and the roster of stellar soloists across the winter and spring includes cellist Alisa Weilerstein, pianist Alexander Malofeev, and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. With OSM, Payare conducts Mahler’s Sixth Symphony (Jan 16–18) and Das Lied von der Erde (May 28, 29), a spring Mozart Festival that includes the Requiem (April 16, 17) and Così fan tutte (April 23, 25), and much more.

Guest conducting engagements

Payare’s first guest conducting appearance in the new year is with the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he conducts German violinist Carolin Widmann in Kaija Saariaho’s Graal théâtre along with Ravel’s Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloé and Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” Symphony (Jan 23–26). When the conductor made his debut in Philadelphia in 2021, The Wall Street Journal declared him to be “a fireball of energy onstage,” proclaiming: “He is a musician to watch.”

After Payare’s 2023 debut at the Royal Opera House conducting Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, the critics were likewise enthralled, with Bachtrack declaring: “It was light, it was airy, it was enthusiastically accented, it was rhythmically on the nail and it elicited the biggest ovation for an opera overture I can remember – and deservedly so, because it set the scene for an evening of buffa entertainment that never faltered.” The Guardian agreed, finding that Payare’s “perky, pacy reading is full of light and shade, with nimbly sprung rhythms crisp as an iceberg lettuce.” This spring, for his return to the venue, he leads Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role of Puccini’s Turandot (March 19–April 4).

San Diego Symphony (SDS)

Payare continues his season with the SDS at the newly renovated Jacobs Music Center this winter and spring, with particular attention given to their ongoing performances of the complete cycle of the symphonies of Shostakovich and Mahler and the tone poems of Richard Strauss. Rising star pianist Alexander Malofeev joins the orchestra for Prokofiev’s demanding Piano Concerto No. 3, a work originally written for the composer himself to play on tour in the U.S. in the 1920s and 30s. The program begins with the world premiere of Los Angeles-born, Grammy Award-winning composer Billy Childs’s Concerto for Orchestra, and ends with Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony (Jan 31; Feb 1). Soon thereafter, Payare conducts the SDS in Strauss’s tone poem Tod und Verklärung(“Death and Transfiguration”), on a program with Brahms’s Second Symphony and William Walton’s Viola Concerto, performed by SDS principal violist Chi-Yuan Chen (Feb 8, 9).

Three more sets of performances round out Payare’s San Diego Symphony season. First he is joined by his wife, celebrated cellist Alisa Weilerstein, for a performance of South Korean composer Unsuk Chin’s Cello Concerto, sharing the program with Bruckner’sSeventh Symphony (May 10, 11). Next, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet is featured in Camille Saint-Saëns’s final Piano Concerto, No. 5, subtitled “The Egyptian” because he wrote it on vacation in Cairo. Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, “Leningrad,” completes the program. Since its first performance in August 1942, a year into the 30-month blockade of the city by Axis powers, the symphony has become a powerful international symbol of human resistance to brutality, barbarism and injustice (May 16, 17). For their season finale, Payare conducts the SDS and mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill in Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 in D minor, an expansive ode to nature, humanity, and the splendor of the cosmos that still stands as the longest symphony in the standard repertoire (May 23–25).

Payare’s tenure with the SDS reached a new milestone earlier this season when they returned to their home concert hall, the newly renovated Jacobs Music Center, where their performance and the new venue alike were roundly applauded. The San Diego Union-Tribune declared that the SDS “finally has a San Diego venue that permits it to sound like the world-class orchestra they’ve been since Payare took over.” Mark Swed in the Los Angeles Times found that the new venue “expertly handles ear-crushing climaxes as well as it does a lullaby. The hall should, over time, open up sonically and, with luck, mellow. For now, though, it is a place made for excitement.” The Wall Street Journal, for its part, described the hall as “a former movie palace whose acoustic shortcomings were recently rectified in a renovation that allows the ensemble’s artistry to shine,” besides praising Payare himself: “Exuding a podium manner of extreme, yet unforced, exuberance, the lanky Mr. Payare puts a high premium on bringing joy to concert audiences.”

Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM)

Payare and the OSM have just released their latest album on the Pentatone label, a recording of Schoenberg’s Pelleas und Melisande and Verklärte Nacht, marking the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth. The conductor can be heard discussing the new album on a Gramophone podcast here.

Payare is in the midst of undertaking the complete cycle of symphonies of Shostakovich and Mahler and tone poems of Richard Strauss with OSM as well, and with that orchestra has already recorded some of those works. In live performances this winter and spring, the conductor features cellist Alisa Weilerstein in Prokofiev’s Sinfonia concertante (Feb 12, 13); leads Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D with violinist Sergey Khachatryanmaking his OSM debut, along with Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11, “The Year 1905” (Feb 19, 20); collaborates with pianist Marc-André Hamelin in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, on a program with jazz-inflected music by George Antheil, John Harbison, and David Schiff (Feb 22); and conducts Mahler’s “Tragic” Sixth Symphony, sharing the bill with Alma Mahler’s Five Songs featuring Glaswegian mezzo-soprano Beth Taylor (Jan 16, 17, 18). A spring Mozart Festival – also marking the beginning of a multi-year cycle of the composer’s three operas with librettos by Lorenzo Da Ponte – includes performances of the Requiem (April 16, 17), a semi-staged Così fan tutte (April 23, 25), and the “Jupiter Symphony” paired with Piano Concerto No. 27 featuring Kevin Chen (April 24). The orchestra’s season closes with a work for voices and orchestra sung in Indigenous languages, composed and written by Indigenous and Métis artists Ana Sokolović and Ian Cusson with the intention of protecting disappearing languages by immortalizing them with music, paired with Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (May 28–29).

Rafael Payare: winter/spring engagements

Jan 16, 17, 18
Montreal, Canada
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Beth Taylor, mezzo-soprano
A. MAHLER: Five Songs
G. MAHLER: Symphony No. 6 in A minor, “Tragic”

Jan 23, 25, 26
Philadelphia, PA
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Carolin Widmann, violin
RAVEL: Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloé
SAARIAHO: Graal théâtre, for violin and orchestra
TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 6, “Pathétique”

Jan 31; Feb 1
San Diego, CA
Jacobs Music Center
San Diego Symphony
Billy CHILDS: Concerto for Orchestra (world premiere, commissioned by San Diego Symphony)
PROKOFIEV: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C, Op. 26
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat, Op. 55, “Eroica”

Feb 8, 9
San Diego, CA
Jacobs Music Center
San Diego Symphony
Chi-Yuan Chen, viola
STRAUSS: Tod und Verklärung, Op. 24
WALTON: Viola Concerto
BRAHMS: Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 73

Feb 12, 13
Montreal, Canada
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
OSM Chorus (Andrew Megill, chorus master)
PROKOFIEV: Sinfonia concertante in E minor, Op. 125
RAVEL: Daphnis et Chloé, M. 57

Feb 19*, 20
Montreal, Canada
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Sergey Khachatryan, violin
TCHAIKOVSKY: Violin Concerto in D, Op. 35
SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 11 in G minor, Op. 103, “The Year 1905”
*Feb 19 concert will also be streamed live on Medici.tv

Feb 22
Montreal, Canada
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Marc-André Hamelin, piano
ANTHEIL: A Jazz Symphony
David SCHIFF: Stomp
John HARBISON: Remembering Gatsby, foxtrot for orchestra
GERSHWIN: Rhapsody in Blue

March 19, 22, 24, 27, 29; April 1, 4
London, England
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Sondra Radvanovsky (Turandot)
SeokJong Baek (Calaf)
Anna Princeva (Liù)
Adam Palka (Timur)
PUCCINI: Turandot

April 16, 17
Montreal, Canada
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Myriam Leblanc, soprano
Julie Boulianne, mezzo-soprano
Joé Lampron-Dandonneau, tenor
Robert Gleadow, bass
Jean-Willy Kunz, OSM organist-in-residence
OSM Chorus (Andrew Megill, chorus master)
BACH: Prelude and Fugue in B minor, BWV 544
BACH: Jesu, meine Freude, Motet, BWV 227
MOZART: Requiem in D minor, K. 626

April 23, 25
Montreal, Canada
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Anna Prohaska, soprano (Fiordiligi)
Michèle Losier, mezzo-soprano (Dorabella)
Matthew Swensen, tenor (Ferrando)
Gustavo Castillo, baritone (Guglielmo)
Jenny Daviet, soprano (Despina)
Thomas Hampson, baritone (Alfonso) and staging
OSM Chorus (Andrew Megill, chorus master)
MOZART: Così fan tutte, K. 588

April 24
Montreal, Canada
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Kevin Chen, piano
MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat, K. 595
MOZART: Fantasia for solo piano in C minor, K. 475
MOZART: Symphony No. 41 in C, K. 551, “Jupiter”

May 10, 11
San Diego, CA
Jacobs Music Center
San Diego Symphony
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
Unsuk CHIN: Cello Concerto
BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 7 in E

May 16, 17
San Diego, CA
Jacobs Music Center
San Diego Symphony
Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano
SAINT-SAËNS: Piano Concerto No. 5 in F, Op. 103, “Egyptian”
SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 7 in C, Op. 60, “Leningrad”

May 23, 24, 25
San Diego, CA
Jacobs Music Center
San Diego Symphony
Karen Cargill, mezzo-soprano
MAHLER: Symphony No. 3 in D minor

May 28, 29
Montreal, Canada
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano
Nikolai Schukoff, tenor
Elisabeth St-Gelais, soprano
Emma Pennell, soprano
Ana SOKOLOVIĆ (music) and Michelle SYLLIBOY (libretto): You can die properly now
Ian CUSSON (music) and Natasha KANAPÉ-FONTAINE (libretto): Un cri s’élève en moi
MAHLER: Das Lied von der Erde