Composer

One of England’s greatest composers takes center stage. This all–Vaughan Williams program captures the pastoral beauty of the English countryside and the bustling dynamics of London, brought to life through orchestra and choir.

EPSG:4326

This Scepter'd Isle

McMorran Place Theatre

Imperial Theatre

Music for chamber choir and orchestra, including a ravishing setting of Shakespeare by Ralph Vaughan Williams, the energetic Psalm 115 by Felix Mendelssohn, and one of Haydn’s most beloved choral masterpieces, the Lord Nelson Mass, which features trumpet fanfares and a virtuosic soprano solo.

Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra and Bienen Contemporary/Early Vocal Ensemble

Northwestern University

Profound

Künstlerhaus am Lenbachplatz

Nina Tso-Ning Fan Plays The Lark Ascending

Wooddale Church

St. Andrew's Lutheran Church

St. Paul's United Church of Christ

Schubert’s Overture in C Major in the Italian Style opens the concert; the piece was his contribution to the trend of overtures written in the style of the wildly popular Gioacchino Rossini. Huang Ruo’s Tipping Point brings listeners to the present with a timely symphony tackling the climate crisis. Ralph Vaughan Williams’s lively The Wasps: Aristophanic Suite closes the evening, written for a production of Aristophanes’s satirical ancient Greek play The Wasps.

Northwestern University Chamber Orchestra

English folk music

Bochumer Symphoniker

Originally commissioned for the coronation of King George II, Handel’s anthem is a timeless masterpiece exuding majesty, triumph, and divine grandeur—a musical celebration of power, tradition, and unshakable glory!

The Enigmatic Voice

California Theatre

Featuring the PVS Orchestra & Chorus in collaboration with Illumine Vocal Arts Ensemble and Amherst College Glee Club.

Experience a night of transcendent beauty with three masterworks in one unforgettable concert. Gustav Holst’s Walt Whitman Overture bursts forth with energy and optimism, inspired by the poet’s boundless spirit. Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring follows, evoking the American landscape with its warm, pastoral melodies and timeless simplicity. The evening culminates with Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem, a powerful and deeply moving plea for peace, interweaving texts from Walt Whitman, the Bible, and political speeches into a soaring choral masterpiece. This evening journeys through the PVS 87th season theme of hope, resilience, and the universal longing for harmony.

Grant Us Peace

Maestra Tania Miller and the SSO will shake off your winter blues for at least this one March night.

Spring Fever

TCU Place

Ralph Vaughan Williams stepped onto the podium in Leeds on October 12, 1910, his 38th birthday, to conduct the premiere of “A Sea Symphony” with the Leeds Festival Chorus and Orchestra. Composing this piece was a journey of self-discovery for the then-young composer, culminating in this unique and epic choral symphony. This significant work by Vaughan Williams has never before been performed in Estonia.

A Sea Symphony

Pernau Concert Hall

Estonia Concert Hall

Vanemuise kontserdimaja

In a powerful collaboration with the Hickory Choral Society, CVCC Chorus, and LRU A Cappella Choir, the Western Piedmont Symphony presents Grant Us Peace—a moving exploration of humanity’s longing for peace in a turbulent world. Featuring acclaimed baritone Michael Adams and soprano Janinah Burnett, this stirring program blends orchestral and choral masterpieces into a unified call for hope, healing, and harmony.

Masterworks: Grant Us Peace

Lenoir-Rhyne University

Emanuel Ax performs a concerto written for him by movie-soundtrack legend John Williams. Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducts Vaughn Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, a shimmering exploration of the English Renaissance, and Weinberg’s Fifth Symphony, a powerful exploration of dramatic contrasts inspired by the work of Shostakovich, his friend and kindred spirit.

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla & Emanuel Ax

David Geffen Hall

The world-famous Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performs four of the most celebrated and richly textured pieces in orchestral repertoire in the first of two Sunday afternoon concerts.

The celebratory outer movements of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C embrace a glowing Andante forever associated with the romantic tragedy of the Swedish film Elvira Madigan.

Schubert’s Eighth Symphony is the best known of all his orchestral music, despite its famously – and mysteriously – unfinished state, in which darkly ominous yearning bursts into radiant optimism.

Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis perhaps defined Vaughan Williams’ musical personality. Applying to a Tudor theme an admixture of English folksong and translucent orchestral textures learnt in Paris, Vaughan Williams achieved alchemy; a century on, the Fantasia is an established classic, from luminous opening chords to ecstatic counterpoint.

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Classical Greats: Encore

Cadogan Hall 

Beethoven's Eroica Symphony

Tigard Friends Church

University Philharmonia Orchestra

University of Michigan

Join us at our “Vitality” concert where the University Wind Ensemble presents a variety of repertoire in collaboration with guest artists Eighth Blackbird, faculty conductor Jerry Luckhardt, and doctoral candidate conductor Yusri Muhamad. Repertoire includes Bjork Guðmundsdóttir’s Overture from Dancer in the Dark, Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Scherzo alla Marcia, Carlos Simon’s Sweet Chariot, Ida Gotkovsky’s Poeme Du Feu, and Viet Cuong’s Vital Sines.

University Wind Ensemble and Eighth Blackbird Present "Vitality"

University of Minnesota

The Grammy Award-winning Scottish violinist returns for another enthralling Koerner Hall concert, featuring works by Debussy, Chopin, Sarasate, and others, along with new commissions and arrangements of traditional Scottish music.

Nicola Benedetti is one of the most sought-after violinists of her generation. Her ability to captivate audiences and her wide appeal as an advocate for classical music has made her one of the most influential artists of today. Winner of the Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo in 2020, as well as Best Female Artist at both 2012 and 2013 Classical BRIT Awards, Ms. Benedetti’s most recent recording features works written especially for her by jazz musician Wynton Marsalis: Violin Concerto in D Major and Fiddle Dance Suite for Solo Violin.

An Evening with Nicola Benedetti

The Royal Conservatory of Music

Following her hauntingly beautiful music theater performance in 2024’s A Song by Mahler, Jennifer Johnson Cano brings her “voluminous voice with remarkable agility” (Washington Post) back to PCMS. This performance with her husband, acclaimed collaborative pianist Christopher Cano, and St. Louis Symphony Principal Violist Beth Guterman Chu, features solo pieces, duos, and trios that highlight the eloquence and depth of the modern mid-range.

Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo Beth Guterman Chu, viola Christopher Cano, piano

 Benjamin Franklin Hall

French soprano Axelle Fanyo makes her Boston debut with a captivating program showcasing the vocal brilliance and emotional depth that have defined her rising career on opera and recital stages. Praised for her extraordinary expressiveness, Fanyo “does not only embody a character, she tells us the story. She clearly cultivates the art of communication, which gives her singing another dimension” (Forum Opéra).

Axelle Fanyo, soprano & Julius Drake, piano

Longy School of Music of Bard College

The Capricorn Trout

Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz

Jess Walter, New York Times best-selling author, brings us his own witty, irreverent, and lyrical take on Britten’s “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra” (aka “The Inland Northwesterner’s Guide to the Orchestra”).

Masterworks 5: Stolen Melodies

Martin Woldson Theater

From Romantic composers to contemporary musicians, Baroque music remains an inexhaustible source of inspiration. With the help of German countertenor Nils Wanderer, Clemens Schuldt has designed a program as unexpected as it is inspiring. Beyond the irresistible theme of its first movement, Brahms's fourth and final symphony synthesizes the composer's entire musical legacy.

The Nils Wanderer Experience

Montcalm Palace

Join GSO Concertmaster Marjorie Bagley for an evening of Romantic masterworks. Experience the joyous energy of Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture, the serene beauty of Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, and the sweeping passion of Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2

Romantic Reflections

Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts

To mark the 50th anniversary of Benjamin Britten's death, Canterbury Choral Society and Youth Choir will perform his popular cantata St Nicolas. This inventive work features dramatic storms and shipwrecks alongside touching scenes from the saint's life, with audience participation in two hymns.

Joining the choir are the world-renowned London Mozart Players, who will also perform two of the finest English works for string orchestra by Elgar and Vaughan Williams.

Together with Holst's moving Psalm 86, this promises to be an evening of rich enchantment and powerful storytelling.

Canterbury Choral Society presents Britten: St Nicolas

Canterbury Cathedral

Acclaimed tenor Nicholas Phan returns to PCMS with an ensemble of gifted instrumentalists. This event also spotlights the Philadelphia Orchestra’s esteemed Principal Oboist, Philippe Tondre, in performances of seldom-heard works that set poetry to music.

Nicholas Phan, tenor Philippe Tondre, oboe Geneva Lewis, violin Emma Wernig, viola Jay Campbell, cello Evren Ozel, piano

Chamber II:  Tuba soloist Tyler Benedict, plus Grieg & Vaughan Williams

Holy Trinity Lutheran Church (ELCA)

Trinity United Methodist Church, Sequim

Mendelssohn’s travels through Italy inspired a burst of creativity; his much-loved "Italian" Symphony vividly evokes his experiences, from the coronation of a pope to rambles through picturesque countryside and the sun-burnished Mediterranean.

Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony

Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

Violinist Randall Goosby returns to the San Francisco Symphony for an Edward Gardner–led program featuring Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto. Although Bruch lived to be 82 and produced an impressive catalogue of music, he never wrote anything as enduringly popular as his First Violin Concerto. It was an immediate hit, interspersing Hungarian-spiced licks with plenty of crowd-pleasing passagework. Gustav Holst had many esoteric interests, including astrology. The seven movements of The Planets, his best-known composition, range from the brutal rhythms and spooky effects of “Mars, the Bringer of War” to the dissonance and tolling bells of “Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age,” and the closer, “Neptune, the Mystic,” which calls to mind an Impressionist painting of outer space.

Gardner Conducts The Planets

Davies Symphony Hall

Nottingham’s famous Kanneh-Mason family are our Patrons, but this performance of Beethoven’s ‘Triple Concerto’ is the first time that three of them will have appeared together with Sinfonia Viva. Written around the time of the Eroica Symphony it’s an adventurous musical hybrid, playfully combining elements of the piano trio with the concerto and presenting the soloists as a collective force against the grandeur of the orchestra.

The rest of the programme is a feast of Germanic and British orchestral and choral music. Mozart’s Magic Flute Overture launches the concert with both the Masonic solemnity and the comedic high spirits of his opera, whilst the pioneering Emilie Mayer’s Overture in D Minor is an example of her taut and dramatic writing at its best. The two choral items form a fascinating contrast: Brahms’s dramatic cantata Schicksalslied (‘Song of Fate’) was inspired by Friedrich Hölderlin’s poem concerning the Greek mythical titan Hyperion, and the contrast it makes between the blissful lives of the Immortals and the restless existence of human beings, buffeted by fate.

Sinfonia Viva with Braimah, Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason

Royal Concert Hall Nottingham

Start the new year with an enchanting program featuring Corelli’s Christmas Concerto, Ralph Vaughan-Williams’s exquisite Oboe Concerto, and serene works by Pärt and Foote.

Serenading the High Plains

Amarillo Botanical Gardens

Members of Nottingham’s famous Kanneh-Mason family have appeared several times in previous Nottingham Classics seasons but this performance of Beethoven’s ‘Triple Concerto’ is the first time that three of them will have appeared together on our stage. Written around the time of the Eroica Symphony it’s an adventurous musical hybrid, playfully combining elements of the piano trio with the concerto and presenting the soloists as a collective force against the grandeur of the orchestra.

Sinfonia Viva

Join us for a dazzling New Year’s Eve Gala, a Nottingham tradition for nearly 30 years.

New Year’s Eve Gala 2025: Magic and Enchantment

Sounds of the Season returns, featuring the orchestra in a joyous celebration of the holiday season. This festive concert weaves together a rich tapestry of holiday favorites, such as selections from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker with a jazz-infused twist, popular Christmas songs, classic carols, and of course, Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride. Join the orchestra for an audience sing-along and celebrate with music the whole family will enjoy!

Sounds Of The Season

Mayo Civic Center

Very British

Enjoy traditional holiday music in an intimate setting. Bring the family for all your familiar favorites!

Christmas Candlelight Classics

Inspiration Hall

Celebrate the festive season with an array of gorgeous light-filled music with our special guests, the Blackhawk Chorus. Rising-star violinist Simon Hagopian delights us with Vivaldi’s “Winter” and Beethoven’s glorious “Romance.”

Home for the Holidays: Winter Lights

Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church

Guest Conductor Zach Banks joins OES to conduct the holiday favorite, Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. The OES Chorale will join the Symphony in presenting Ralph Vaughn Williams' Fantasia on Christmas Carols with guest baritone soloist Gabriel Elder.

Holiday Music Festival

Hermiston High School

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! From classic carols to heartwarming orchestral favorites, Holiday Cheer brings festive magic to life for all ages. Whether you’re lighting the menorah, trimming the tree, or even airing grievances by an aluminum pole, this concert is your soundtrack to the season.

Holiday Cheer!

Central Presbyterian Church Denver

Mapleton Arts Center

Enjoy festive music from Mexico, Ukraine, Canada, South Africa, Estonia, as well as traditional Celtic favourites, in a kaleidoscopic programme showcasing the rich tapestry of global Christmas music.

Christmas Around the World

Smith Square Hall

Completed in 1936, Dona nobis pacem is scored for choir, vocal soloists and orchestra. A call for peace, the cantata draws on Vaughan Williams’ own experiences of war, and eyes the impending cataclysm. It’s emotionally direct: passionate, anguished and, at times, almost unbearably beautiful.

London Symphony Orchestra: Half Six Fix – Vaughan Williams

Barbican Centre

The Associate and Senior Orchestras, conducted by Leo Eylar, and the CYS Wind Symphony, conducted by Pete Nowlen, will present the annual Holiday Concert at San Mateo Performing Arts Center on December 7, 2025. Once again the orchestras and Wind Symphony will offer the audience a pleasing mix of classical and holiday favorites.

Holiday Concert 2025

San Mateo High School

Holiday Choral by Candlelight 2025

Mission San Rafael Arcángel

USO 2025-26 Season Concert 2

Mendocino College

Celebrate December with the VSO’s festive music at the Flynn and a visit from Santa! Join Music Director Andrew Crust, guest singers, and your Vermont Symphony Orchestra for a concert that delivers a joyful mood for the season. Enjoy favorites like Sleigh Ride and selections from The Nutcracker, a new commission by Vermont composer Michael Schachter inspired by a Jewish folktale, a rousing audience holiday sing-a-long, a musical reading of selections from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and more!

VSO: Holiday Pops

The Flynn

Deck the halls and warm your hearts with festive music perfect for the start of the holiday season. Christmas carols infuse the music of composers Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Quinn Mason. Beloved Bay Area violist Jenny Douglass is our featured soloist in the lyrical music of Vaughan Williams. Tchaikovsky transports us to the wintry world of the snow maiden, and you’ll be treated to one of Otterino Respighi’s most famous works. Extra attraction: In the lobby during intermission, hear holiday carols sung by the Cantabella Children’s Chorus. Put yourself in the holiday spirit with the symphony!

Joyful Sounds of the Season

Livermore Performing Arts Center

Celebrate December with the VSO’s festive music and a visit from Santa! Join Music Director Andrew Crust, guest singers, and your Vermont Symphony Orchestra for a concert that delivers a joyful mood for the season. Enjoy favorites like Sleigh Ride and selections from The Nutcracker, a new commission by Vermont composer Michael Schachter inspired by a Jewish folktale, a rousing audience holiday sing-a-long, a musical reading of selections from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and more!

Holiday Pops – Barre

Barre Opera House

Paramount Theatre, VT

Music Education seniors Avery Brutosky and Eric Luebke come together with singers from Concert Choir and Chorale to perform their senior conducting recital.

Avery Brutosky & Eric Luebke – Senior Recital

University of Wisconsin-Madison

NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Konstantin Krimmel / Andris Poga

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

Kristen Diederichs – DMA Oboe/English Horn Recital

Hamel Music Center

The Orchestra Now Resident Conductor Zachary Schwartzman returns with the orchestra to Symphony Space for another free concert. The concert opens with Strauss’s beloved tone poem Don Juan. Then tenor Ryan Michki, a winner of the 2024 Bard Conservatory Concerto Competition, performs Vaughan Williams’ emotional English song cycle On Wenlock Edge, written after the composer had spent three months studying with Maurice Ravel in Paris. Also on the program are Steven Stucky’s arrangement of Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary, originally composed 330 years ago in 1695, and Samuel Barber’s epic and expansive Symphony No. 1 in One Movement.

The Orchestra Now: "Don Juan" and Vaughan Williams

Peter Jay Sharp Theatre at Symphony Space

Enjoy baked goods and sweet treats from Marlene Buller’s Frosted Memories, as well as hot food from Wok Me Up and Inspired Eats food trucks. 15% of all food sales support HSO’s education programs, so eat up!

Holland Symphony Youth Orchestra –  Fall 2025 Concert

West Ottawa High School Performing Arts Center

Eric Luebke is a fourth year music education student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. As a singer, Eric has performed in the University Opera and in the community of Madison through solo and chamber performances with First United Methodist Church, Madison Youth Choirs, and Just Bach. Eric also plays piano, bass guitar, and percussion, and has worked at the UW–Madison Summer Music Clinic for three consecutive seasons. As a composer, Eric recently premiered his original work, “She Walks in Beauty,” featuring text by Lord Byron, with C8dence, a chamber ensemble at the university.

Eric Luebke – Senior Voice Recital

A Voyage of Discovery and Fate

Albert Hall Conference Centre

Homage

Travis Park United Methodist Church

Experience a sublime Five Variations of Dives and Lazarus by Vaughan Williams, take a tour of the Isle of the Dead with Rachmaninoff and hear skeletons perform the Danse Macabre with Saint-Saëns. Music of the Macabre

Hidden Creek Community Center

The unique timbre of the viola—rich, dark, and soulful—has made it the instrument of choice for composers seeking to add even more luscious beauty to chamber ensembles. CMS proudly offers a one-of-a-kind program that includes a pair of violas in every work: from Vaughan Williams’s haunting Phantasy Quintet, to violist-composer Brett Dean’s poignant lament, to Mozart’s joyful and uplifting C-major Quintet, one of six he composed that truly put the viola quintet on the chamber music map.

Beethoven, Mozart, and Vaughan Williams

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

Making her debut with the TSO, Yura Lee solos on not one, but two instruments! In a rare turn, Lee will perform both the Walton Viola Concerto and Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending on violin on a program of contrasts.

Strauss and Britten

Linda Ronstadt Music Hall

With this concert, Sir Donald Runnicles assumes his position as chief conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic and simultaneously opens our British Festival. The evening, full of European and British music history, begins with Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis," a deeply emotional and majestic piece that highlights the beauty of the English music tradition. William Walton's Concerto for Viola and Orchestra puts the larger sister of the violin in the spotlight. With virtuosic solo passages and dynamic orchestral accompaniment, this piece creates goosebump moments and showcases the viola in all its versatility and expressiveness. The crowning finale is Johannes Brahms' Fourth Symphony, a masterpiece that initially faced challenges at its inception. Its beginning appeared too abstract to contemporaries. Today, 140 years after its creation, the poetry of this beginning, the exuberance of the third movement, and the solemnity of the finale make Brahms' Fourth one of the most beloved symphonies of all time.

Sir Donald with Brahms

Palace of Culture

A program full of adventure and triumph! Vaughan Williams’ Overture to The Wasps buzzes to life with lively energy, followed by his lyrical and playful Tuba Concerto, featuring San Antonio’s own Justin Benavidez, praised as a “true virtuoso” by Fanfare Magazine. The evening ends with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, taking us from its famous opening notes to a thrilling, victorious finale!

Beethoven’s Fifth

Canyon HS Performing Arts Center

Viola Celebration: The unique timbre of the viola — rich, dark, and soulful — has made it the instrument of choice for composers seeking to add even more luscious beauty to chamber ensembles.

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

California Institute of Technology

CMS Lincoln Center

Maestro Peter Rubardt conducts Haydn’s Symphony No. 102 along with Ralph Vaughan Williams’ string showcase Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto.

Classically Connected

Saenger Theatre Pensacola

Famous for its infectious rhythms and soaring themes, Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony simply bursts with life and energy. It’s the climax of a concert celebrating song in all its forms. The inspirational RSNO Changed Voices toast their 20th anniversary with a new piece by Cheryl Frances-Hoad and baritone Andreas Landin hits the road in Vaughan Williams’ lovely Songs of Travel based on the poetry of Scotland’s own Robert Louis Stevenson.

Beethoven Seven

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Usher Hall

We turn to nature in tonight's concert, opening with Vaughan Williams' overture to The Wasps. Revelling in the majesty and serenity of England's countryside, the overture, based on the Aristophanes comedy of the same name, opens with the raspy buzz of swarming wasps sent to rescue the imprisoned father of the works narrative.

BBC NOW - Sounds of Nature

Brangwyn Hall

Join the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at St Paul's Cathedral for a concert celebrating one of the UK’s most accomplished living composers and icon of choral music, conducted by the man himself, Sir John Rutter.

Sir John Rutter’s Birthday Celebration

St. Paul's Cathedral London

From haunting drama to epic adventure, this evening explores the deep connection between orchestral music and film. Mussorgsky’s thrilling Night on Bald Mountain, famously featured in Disney’s Fantasia, sets the stage with its dark, dramatic energy. Vaughan Williams’ lyrical Prelude from 49th Parallel captures the emotional heart of a wartime story, while Hanson’s lush and romantic Symphony No. 2, used in the final scene of Alien, showcases emotional depth behind bold storytelling.

YOSA Presents: Cinema Classics

Tobin Center for the Performing Arts

The oceans, after all, are the key to life on our blue planet, and as part of the LPO’s Harmony with Nature theme, Sir Mark Elder explores two very different perspectives on the sea: Vaughan Williams’ epic symphony of the human spirit, and Sibelius’ powerful depiction of the ocean waves.

Southbank Centre

‘Behold, the sea itself!’ With a ringing fanfare, and a mighty shout from the London Philharmonic Choir, Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony unleashes a flood tide of inspiration. The oceans, after all, are the key to life on our blue planet, and as part of our Harmony with Nature theme, Sir Mark Elder explores two very different perspectives on the sea: Vaughan Williams’s epic symphony of the human spirit, and Sibelius’s powerful depiction of the ocean waves. With soloists Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha and David Stout, this should be a true voyage of discovery.

Faculty Chamber Concert

The University of Iowa School of Music - Voxman Building

Jean Sibelius’ Violin Concerto is a timeless favourite, though its debut was a disaster, leading Sibelius to withdraw it. Thankfully, he later reworked the piece into a breathtaking masterpiece. Composed while living in the Finnish countryside, its soaring melodies evoke Nordic landscapes. Anders Hillborg’s King Tide also captures nature’s essence, portraying a desolate terrain swept by a piercing wind. Similarly, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Sixth Symphony reflects a world scarred by two world wars. With its unrelenting drama and powerful opening, this symphony leaves a profound impression.

Sibelius' Violin Concerto

Queen Elisabeth Hall

Music Center De Bijloke

In A Sea Symphony, his only full choral symphony, Ralph Vaughan Williams gives voice to the drama and spirituality of the ocean, bringing musical life to sea poems from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. The English composer worked on this monumental piece for seven years in his quest to match the power of Whitman’s words. New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Principal Conductor Gemma New returns after leading us in our lauded 2023/2024 season performance of Vaughan Williams’ Antarctic Symphony. A Sea Symphony is paired with American composer Gabriella Smith’s Lost Coast, a piece for cello and orchestra that expresses wonder and grief for Earth’s last wild places.

Vaughan Williams A Sea Symphony

Benaroya Hall

Described by The Guardian as 'a handpicked supergroup', whose rare 'live performances are a special occasion', the orchestra will be joined for this performance by British tenor Laurence Kilsby and British horn player Christopher Parkes.

Composer

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Events

Upcoming events

19 - 22 Mar, 2026

This Scepter'd Isle · International Symphony Orchestra

20 - 21 Mar, 2026

A London Landscape · Alabama Symphony Orchestra

Mar 21, 2026

Vaughan Williams and Meredith · Fulham Symphony Orchestra

26 - 27 Mar, 2026

The Language of Eden · Scottish Chamber Orchestra

Mar 28, 2026

Elgar’s Enigma · Paducah Symphony Orchestra

Past events

19 - 22 Mar, 2026

This Scepter'd Isle · International Symphony Orchestra

Mar 15, 2026

Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra and Bienen Contemporary/Early Vocal Ensemble · Northwestern Bienen School of Music

About

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