Composer

Experience the bold energy and lyrical beauty of Julia Perry’s A Short Piece for Orchestra, followed by the emotional depth and virtuosity of Barber’s Cello Concerto. Concluding with Copland’s Symphony No. 3, patrons will be swept away by its grand, uplifting finale that embodies the spirit of American optimism.

EPSG:4326

Celebrating America: From Cello to Copland

DeVos Performance Hall

"Paul Jacobs is one of the great living virtuosos … he is utterly without artifice,” declares The Washington Post. Witness the musicianship of the first and only organist to win a Grammy Award as Jacobs performs Saint-Saëns’s “Organ” Symphony, a work so expressive the composer claimed, “I have given all that I had to give.” Jacobs also performs Samuel Barber’s exuberant Toccata Festiva. Beethoven penned four unique overtures to his opera Leonore; the MSO performs the sumptuous third iteration here, as well as brand new music by composer Edmund Finnis.

Saint-Saëns “Organ” Symphony

Warner Grand Theater

A piano climbing from darkness to light. A pulsing rhythm, bright with energy and colour. And a passionate melody, soaring against a storm-swept sky. The opening of any piece of music draws you into a new emotional world, and however familiar the melodies that follow, a great live performance makes you feel like you’re experiencing it for the first time.

Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto

City Halls

In 1934 at Carnegie Hall, Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony received its New York premiere, which was met with wild enthusiasm by audiences. Prominent critics called it “the most distinctive and promising American symphonic proclamation which has so far been achieved” (New York American). Tonight, The Met Orchestra offers a rare opportunity to hear this now-shockingly neglected work, which remains every bit as powerful today. Plus, hear Metropolitan Opera star Isabel Leonard in a favorite from West Side Story and Barber’s gorgeous Knoxville: Summer of 1915. The concert concludes with the spirited suite from Fancy Free, Bernstein’s first collaboration with choreographer Jerome Robbins.

The Met Orchestra 2026 Concert 1

Carnegie Hall

It is not every day you get to hear a saxophone virtuoso reimagine seminal works composed for bassoon, cello, and voice on his deeply expressive instrument of choice. In his Cal Performances debut, Steven Banks, “the saxophone’s best friend, fiercest advocate, and primary virtuoso in the classical realm” (Washington Post) and the first saxophonist to win the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant, offers a whirlwind musical tour on the mighty baritone saxophone.

Steven Banks, baritone saxophone Xak Bjerken, piano

University of California, Berkeley

Don’t miss the opportunity to hear the classical stars of tomorrow – today. Rising Stars is a unique and forward-looking collaboration between 23 of Europe’s leading concert halls, all part of ECHO – the European Concert Hall Organisation. Each year, a select group of young artists and ensembles from across Europe are given the opportunity to tour all of the venues and perform for international audiences. Time and again, the artists chosen for Rising Stars go on to enjoy internationally successful careers.

ECHO Rising Stars with Soprano

Stockholm Concert Hall

Join us at The Wertheim for an extraordinary evening of piano artistry as duo pianists Meeyoun Park & Matthew Gianforte, professors of piano at Murray State University, perform a riveting program for piano four-hands and two pianos on concert Steinways.

FIU Piano Recital Series: Meeyoun Park & Matthew Gianforte

Herbert & Nicole Wertheim Performing Arts Center

Valerie Coleman opens with Umoja , a vibrant hymn to unity and peace. This short but intense introduction, inspired by African traditions, deploys a rhythmic and melodic energy that ideally prepares us for the works to come. Then comes American lyricism with Samuel Barber's Cello Concerto , magnificently served by the sensitive playing of Maximilian Hornung. Alternating virtuoso passages and profound melancholy, this work reveals the full expressive range of the cello, dialoguing with an orchestra that is by turns tender and tumultuous. As a grand finale, Brahms' Symphony No. 1 displays its beautiful architecture and tormented lyricism. After fifteen years of doubt, the composer delivers a masterful response to Beethoven's legacy, culminating in a finale with a triumphant theme that has become legendary.

Symphonic Bridge

Opéra Berlioz

Guest conductor Leonard Slatkin brings his "special flare for Americana" (The New York Times) to serve up two great American works from the past century. The young violin virtuoso Randall Goosby plays Samuel Barber's uber-romantic Violin Concerto. Then the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra pulls out all the stops for Aaron Copland's gripping Third Symphony, a piece that guarantees the goosebumps with its finale, Fanfare for the Common Man. The concert opens with the American premiere of Mr. Slatkin’s own musical joy ride through the mind of 19th-century genius Franz Schubert.

America @ 250: Copland + Barber

The Woodruff Arts Center

Movie Night

CongressCentrum Pforzheim CCP

The orchestra welcomes our 2024-25 Parness Competition Senior Winner Esme Arias-Kim in ​America PLUS! Featuring Barber’s Violin Concerto and Brahms’ Symphony No. 3.

America PLUS!

Robert Frost Auditorium

Conducting legend Marin Alsop unlocks the luminous jewel case that is Brahms’s Symphony No. 2: overflowing with gorgeous melodies that melt the heart, it ends with a triumphant burst of pure joy. Love is the unifying thread in Bernstein’s Serenade (After Plato’s “Symposium”), performed with dazzling virtuosity by Concertmaster Yoonshin Song. An all-American first half opens with Barber’s heartfelt Second Essay for Orchestra.

Marin Alsop Conducts Brahms 2

Jones Hall

For the first time, Iceland, with the Harpa in Reykjavik, is participating in the European Concert Hall Organization's annual "Rising Stars" program, which sends young artists on tour through the continent's major concert halls. And with Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir, a singer from the Nordic island nation was directly nominated. She loves the poetic, mystical traditions of her country and is currently performing brilliantly not only on the major opera stages in Basel and Berlin, but also realizing unusual projects as a photographer and video artist.

Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir, Soprano

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

Barber’s Overture to The School for Scandal launches this thrills-filled program with quicksilver energy and playful charm. Inspired by Sheridan’s classic comedy, Barber’s first orchestral work captures both the wit and elegance of high society gone delightfully off the rails. Bright melodies, rapid shifts, and sparkling orchestration create a lively musical portrait full of surprises.

Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony & Ravel Piano Concerto in G major with Barber

The Parker

The College of the Florida Keys

New World Center

January Chamber Concert

Praxis Fiber Workshop

We’re bringing back one of our former Young Artists Competition Grand Prize winners, Amaryn Olmeda.  She’s gone on to have a big international career, and we’re lucky to have her return to play Barber’s beautiful Violin Concerto.
We’ll also feature Mozart’s Symphony No. 38 and a special spotlight on our wind section with Strauss’s Wind Serenade.

Masterworks II: Amaryn Olmeda & Mozart 38

Placer High School Theater

Celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr. in a program highlighting some of the most influential African American artists and composers of our time. Margaret Bonds’ Montgomery Variations, her tribute to civil rights leader Rosa Parks, is infused with themes of struggle, resistance and dignity. Bass Morris Robinson narrates an original poem by Rita Dove, former Poet Laureate Consultant to the Library of Congress, against Barber’s solemn Adagio for Strings, and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Wynton Marsalis takes the 12-bar blues and explodes it into a lyrical, kaleidoscopic history of American music.

American Voices

Cincinnati Music Hall

Journey through the rich tapestry of African American musical traditions with Florence Price's evocative Ethiopia's Shadow in America and Carlos Simon's trombone concerto Troubled Water featuring LPO Principal Trombone Austin Richardson and feel the raw energy of Samuel Barber's unbridled Symphony No. 1 before the exhilarating finale: Aaron Copland's beloved Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo – a joyous celebration of the American West.

Copland's Rodeo

Orpheum Theater

A rhapsody on Gypsy tunes, an American masterwork played by an American soloist, and Beethoven at his sunniest. Rising star William Hagen brings Samuel Barber’s violin concerto, on a program with Zoltán Kodály’s whirling Dances of Galánta and Beethoven’s beloved bucolic romp, his Pastoral symphony.

Beethoven and Barber

The Forum Auditorium

Acclaimed conductor Dalia Stasevska returns to conduct Mahler’s serenely lovely Fourth Symphony on a program with Barber’s melodic Violin Concerto, performed here by violinist Augustin Hadelich, a riveting artist who “appears to fuse entirely with the violin, as if he were the human personification of a glissando” (Bachtrack).

Mahler’s Symphony No. 4

Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

Johannes Brahms was seen by many in his own time (and today) as Beethoven’s successor in the German symphonic tradition — and the Fourth Symphony, his last, is his greatest symphonic achievement. Compositionally complex yet emotionally direct and moving, we invite you to experience your Kansas City Symphony’s performance of this powerful work that will take you to the height of German Romanticism. Clara Wieck, who later married the composer Robert Schumann (and became good friends with Brahms), wrote her piano concerto when she was only 15. A perfect counterpoint to the gravity of Brahms’s symphony, the piece shines with youthful vigor and virtuosity.

Brahms' Fourth Symphony

Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

Alevtina Ioffe returns to conduct richly and unusually textured works by three 20th-century titans. Bernstein’s Serenade, written for Isaac Stern, showcases the virtuosity of Ukrainian-Israeli violinist Vadim Gluzman. This work for violin, percussion and string orchestra is based on The Symposium, Plato’s Socratic dialogue on love, and ranges from solemnly contemplative to jazzy and sprightly. Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony is another work of mesmerizing contrasts: haunting folk song-like melodies are followed by nimble passages evoking adventure, while playful dancing flourishes develop ominous undertones. The mysterious intermezzo from Barber’s Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Vanessa rounds out the program.

Bernstein & Rachmaninov

Benaroya Hall

Randall Goosby Returns

Mayo Performing Arts Center

New Jersey Performing Arts Center

State Theatre New Jersey

Princeton University

How do you celebrate New Year's Eve? Raclette, champagne, and fireworks? Looking back and looking ahead? Perhaps good conversations, with or without a party? For us, New Year's Eve is, above all, music, with which we bid farewell to the old year and toast the new one with you. We're already looking forward to seeing you again on New Year's Eve: The wonderful conductor Elim Chan has already fascinated and enchanted us in four concert programs.

New Year's Eve

Cologne Philharmonie

With the end of the 2024/2025 season, Axel Kober has stepped down as General Music Director of the Duisburg Philharmonic. It was a long and fruitful collaboration, for which the conductor is now being honored with the 2025 Duisburg City Music Prize, sponsored by the Köhler-Osbahr Foundation. For him, the award is a wonderful acknowledgment – ​​"to receive feedback, so to speak, after the years spent together that what we have done has left its mark." And, of course, he will try "to continue to remain connected to Duisburg's musical life." A promise he immediately fulfills in the 4th Philharmonic Concert. After programming Arnold Schoenberg's powerful "Gurre-Lieder" in his farewell concert as General Music Director, he returns to his former orchestra conducting works by two American composers and combining them with Beethoven's Symphony No. 7: Charles Ives' "The Unanswered Question" sounds mystical and transcendental, creating an iconic work of American modernism. Meanwhile, in Samuel Barber's popular Violin Concerto, violin virtuosity and voluptuous melodies enter into a delightful liaison. Dance-like rhythms then characterize Beethoven's Seventh, which, with the Allegretto, also contains one of the greatest hits of the Viennese classic.

American and European classics

CityPalais

For almost 50 years, the "El Sistema" initiative, Venezuela's large-scale music development program, has been a fixture in national and international musical life. The youth orchestras, in particular, have made a name for themselves under the direction of renowned conductors – the most famous example is the orchestra named after freedom fighter Simón Bolívar, with its chief conductor Gustavo Dudamel, which, strictly speaking, is no longer a youth orchestra. The successor orchestra, featuring highly talented and motivated young musicians, star conductor Sir Simon Rattle, and Gustav Mahler's beloved First Symphony, is now coming to Hamburg.

National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela / Sir Simon Rattle

A quiet pulse, and a long, chant-like melody that seems to breathe the air of old Russia – it’s an unlikely way to begin one of the most difficult and brilliant piano concertos ever created. Rachmaninov’s Third has been called the “Everest of piano concertos” but if anyone’s equipped to scale it, it’s the superb young British virtuoso Isata Kanneh-Mason and the BBC SSO’s newly-appointed Principal Guest Conductor Delyana Lazarova.

Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto

Music Hall, Aberdeen

Mozart's music had already captivated Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. "Listening to it gives me unadulterated joy, evokes a feeling of warmth within me," he once wrote. In his Romantic era, minor-key works such as Mozart's Piano Fantasy K. 397 were particularly popular.

Mozart – Fantastic!

Zeughaus Neuss

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

The COP's second concert features a different set of the three B's!  We hope you enjoy these rarely played works by Britten and Barberas well as a favorite Bach Concerto performed by Amaury Morales.

The Other Three B's

Rodef Shalom Congregation

Music that brings stillness. It may sound paradoxical, but that’s exactly the goal of Casco Phil’s INKEER concerts. Together with a professional meditation specialist, Casco Phil’s string quartet offers a counterbalance to our hectic, digital, hyper-fast daily lives. The quest for inner peace is timeless. From the intricate vocal weavings of Palestrina, Allegri and Mechelen-born Philippus de Monte to the impressionistic colour palettes of Ravel and Debussy: old and new meet in a search for inner calm that makes you forget time—even if just for a moment.

[inkeer]

Mechelen Public Library Het Predikheren

Lidiya Yankovskaya returns to conduct Rimsky-Korsakov’s beloved Sheherazade, inspired by Arabian Nights featuring concertmaster soloist Rolf Haas. Ten-time Grammy Award Winner and 2024 Kennedy Center Honoree Arturo Sandoval performs his very own Trumpet Concerto No. 2, inpired by his Latin Jazz roots and his love of Rachmaninoff. Samuel Barber’s Second Essay for Orchestra rounds out the program.

Scheherazade and Sandoval

Phoenix Convention Center

You can't beat the beauty of Barber! Anthony Parnther leads the Orchestra through three of the composer's most iconic works: the gorgeous Adagio for Strings, the evocative Symphony in One Movement, and the dazzling Violin Concerto — featuring soloist Amaryn Olmeda, winner of the First Prize and Audience Choice awards at the 24th Annual Sphinx Competition. Plus, we'll voyage to the stars with dynamic galaxy-inspired pieces by Jessie Montgomery and Missy Mazzoli.

Best of Barber: Adagio + More

Arts Commons

Augustin Hadelich performs Barber’s Violin Concerto, full of expressive melodies for soloist and orchestra alike. Dima Slobodeniouk conducts Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2, with moods ranging from pastoral to ecstatic, and Stonework by Finnish composer Sebastian Fagerlund, whose music has been called “fiercely energetic and glitteringly intricate” (BBC Music Magazine).

Augustin Hadelich Performs Barber

David Geffen Hall

A concert to transport your imagination through storytelling and tall tales - from the romp that is Strauss’ Overture to Die Fledermaus, relating the farcical misadventures of a man dressed as a bat, to romantic tales of the Arabian Nights in Rimsky Korsakov’s Scheherazade. En route, drift off to a place of great calmness and tranquillity with Barber’s sublime Adagio for Strings and hear the tumultuous life story of an imaginary soldier in Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kije Suite.

Basingstoke Symphony Orchestra

The Anvil

VoicesOfAmerica: Bernstein Barber & World Premiere

Sandler Center for the Performing Arts

Experience an evening of drama and lyricism with music that stirs the soul. Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet overture-fantasy sets the tone with its passionate and timeless depiction of Shakespeare’s tragic lovers. Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, featuring soprano Kathryn Mueller, captures the tender nostalgia of childhood and simpler times. The program concludes with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, a masterful exploration of fate and triumph, brought to life in its full emotional grandeur

Romeo & Juliet

Michigan Theatre

Two: Scenes of Life

Valdosta State University

Platoon, Death in Venice, 2001: A Space Odyssey… picture those classic movies and you can already hear the music of Samuel Barber, Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. But there’s no cinema on earth that can beat the sound of a full symphony orchestra playing these masterpieces live. That’s what we’re doing tonight, and there’s a bonus feature too, as violinist James Ehnes premieres a brand-new showpiece by Hollywood legend James Newton Howard (The Sixth Sense, The Hunger Games).

Also sprach Zarathustra

Usher Hall

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Perth Concert Hall

Platoon, Death in Venice, 2001: A Space Odyssey… picture those classic movies and you can already hear the music of Samuel Barber, Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. But there’s no cinema on earth that can beat the sound of a full symphony orchestra playing these masterpieces live. That’s what we’re doing tonight, and there’s a bonus feature too as violinist James Ehnes premieres a brand-new showpiece by Hollywood legend James Newton Howard (The Sixth Sense, The Hunger Games). The young musicians of Big Noise Raploch get the evening off to a rousing start with a special side-by-side with the musicians of the RSNO.

Perth Concert Series: Royal Scottish National Orchestra - Also Sprach Zarathustra

Sacred music was never meant to be this much fun! ‘Part monk, part hooligan’ was how one contemporary described the French composer Francis Poulenc, and they might have been talking about his Gloria, too: a huge, irreverent shout of joy for a great chorus. The City of London Choir joins the RPO and conductor Daniel Hyde to raise the roof today; first, though, there’s another choral blockbuster from France (this time by Lili Boulanger), music reminiscent of a holiday in Provence from the composer of Carmen and Debussy’s beautiful moonlit serenade. We also hear not one but two musical letters from America. Everyone loves the deep emotion of Barber’s Adagio – but when you hear soprano Sally Matthews sing Knoxville, his tender memoir of a vanished youth, we think you’ll fall in love all over again.

Poulenc's Gloria

Cadogan Hall 

Sacred music was never meant to be this much fun! “Part monk, part hooligan” was how one contemporary described the French composer Francis Poulenc, and they might have been talking about his Gloria too: a huge, irreverent shout of joy for a great chorus.

The City of London Choir joins the RPO and conductor Daniel Hyde to raise the roof today; first, though, there’s another choral blockbuster from France (this time by Lili Boulanger), music reminiscent of a holiday in Provence from the composer of Carmen, and Debussy’s beautiful moonlit serenade.

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

We are rarely confronted with death in our culture. We don't talk about it and we move it to nursing homes and hospices. Perhaps a new attitude towards death and grief is slowly emerging, but we still lack rituals and spaces to face them, because studies show that grief is fundamentally lonely in our society. The concert series 'The Tones of Death' will attempt to create such a space, perhaps a modern mourning ritual, where death is existential and where we can be together about it.

In 2021, the Danish Entertainment Orchestra performed the first concert with 'The Tones of Death', which was framed by excerpts from Naja Marie Aidt's 'If death has taken something from you, give it back. Carl's book', selected and read by the author herself. Since then, there have been successful concerts in 2022 and 2023 with, among others, Søren Ulrik Thomsen and Maren Uthaug as literary guests.

Death Tones

The Royal Danish Academy of Music

Journey through memory and place with Mendelssohn’s sunny Italian Symphony, Barber’s nostalgic Knoxville Summer of 1915 featuring soprano Stefanie Anduri, and Ginastera’s Variaciones Concertante, celebrating the diverse voices of the orchestra. A musical exploration of landscapes and identities that shape us.

Echoes: of Memory and Identity

The Lincoln Center

An American Salute

Mechanics Bank Theater

The November concert by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Robert Jindra, will present remarkable works of American and French music. Samuel Barber wrote Toccata Festiva, Op. 36 for the inauguration of the new organ at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. It will be performed at the Municipal House in Prague by the excellent organist Christian Schmitt.

Saint-Saëns “Organ”

Municipal House

Our 65th Anniversary Season opens with ECHOES — a concert that blends traditions of remembrance and celebration. Inspired by All Saints Day and Día de los Muertos, this program highlights the power of music to uplift, connect, and bring joy. From David Conte’s Three Mexican Folk Songs to Dan Forrest’s Introit-Kyrie from Requiem for the Living, Ēriks Ešenvalds’ O Salutaris Hostia to Bach’s Dona Nobis Pacem, and more, the afternoon unfolds in a rich tapestry of sound.

Echoes

San Dieguito United Methodist Church

St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral

Eunice Keem is the Associate Concertmaster for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and is a founding member of Carnegie Mellon University’s Starling Quartet, with whom she toured Costa Rica, China and the United States in their series of concerts and masterclasses

Barber & Beethoven

Charles W. Eisemann Center for Performing Arts and Corporate Presentations

Voces Intimae – literally “inner voices” – is a programme where strings speak the language of the soul. Since the early Romantic era, composers have considered the string quartet the ideal medium for their most personal confessions. Beethoven, for example, composed his Eleventh String Quartet during a time of unrequited love and increasing deafness. The result is a deeply introspective and expressive work. Samuel Barber, decades later, rose to fame with his heartbreaking Adagio for Strings, originally the slow movement of his own quartet – now a timeless 20th-century classic.

Voces Intimae

Cinema Walburg

A radiant force in the new generation of pianists, Avery Gagliano brings insight, imagination, and a bold interpretive voice to the stage. Hailing from Washington, D.C., Gagliano is a recent graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and a mentee of Sir András Schiff at the Kronberg Academy in Germany. Lauded by The Philadelphia Inquirer as “a pianist who conveys a vivid musical personality and bold imagination,” Gagliano is a familiar and beloved presence on Washington Performing Arts stages. Her program traverses Romantic fervor, American lyricism, Hungarian fire, and the introspective intensity of late-Romantic Russian works—each piece a canvas for her expressive brilliance.

Avery Gagliano, piano

Washington Performing Arts

Written during a time of political and personal turmoil, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 4 unfolds with boldness and intensity. Never performed by the CSO, the massive symphony reflects Shostakovich’s defiance and anguish, marked by shifts from lush orchestration to aggressive dissonance. In contrast, Stella Chen, Gramophone 2023 Young Artist of the Year, joins the CSO for one of the most beautiful violin concertos of all time, wherein Barber’s signature lyricism tugs on heartstrings through his haunting, melancholic melodies.

Barber & Shostakovich

Feel the magic of Delirium Musicum as they take the Main Stage for a performance that will leave you spellbound! Delirium Musicum envisions a world inspired by the ecstatic interpretation of music. Led by visionary violinist Etienne Gara, Delirium Musicum pushes the boundaries of classical music with electrifying energy and boundless creativity.

Delirium Musicum

Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center

Rancho Campana High School

Learn more about the music, artists, and personalities of Brilliance & Beyond with composer and Professor of Music at Pacific Lutheran University, Gregory Youtz, and Symphony Tacoma Music Director Sarah Ioannides.

Brilliance & Beyond (2025-2026 Season)

Pantages Theater

Transatlantic Sounds

Prinzregententheater

Koo Conducts Barber

Athenaeum Center for Thought & Culture

Martin Beaver, first violin of the famed Toyko String Quartet, makes his NWS debut to join Fellows for quartets by Schubert and Barber.

Reserve your seats today and enjoy unbeatable savings by subscribing to New World Symphony’s Chamber Music Series. Starting at just $10 a concert, the 2025-26 series features six glorious afternoons with the music of Franz Schubert, J.S. Bach, Kaija Saariaho, Julius Eastman, Samuel Barber, Meredith Monk and more.

Farrenc + Tower

Lyric Opera of Chicago presents Medea, a tale of infidelity and revenge like no other. Euripides’s millennia-old tragedy comes to life — and gruesome death — in this presentation of acclaimed director Sir David McVicar’s iconic, grand-scale production.

Featuring Lyric’s own Music Director Enrique Mazzola on the podium, this intense spectacle stars international powerhouse soprano Sondra Radvanovsky in one of the fiercest, most demanding roles ever written. She shares the stage with equally formidable tenor — and Lyric favorite — Matthew Polenzani.

Medea

Lyric Opera House

Of Thee I Sing kicks off CSO’s Celebrating America Season with vocal fireworks from soprano Christie Conover! She will join the orchestra for songs by beloved American composers Barber and Bernstein. In addition, you’ll hear Bernstein’s Candide Overture and play “name that tune” with the American folk songs quoted in Ives’ Symphony No. 2.

Of Thee I Sing

Cheyenne Civic Center

October 2025 Concert

Downey Theatre

Curtis Symphony Orchestra launches its 2025–26 series with a dynamic program tracing the evolution of orchestral music. The evening opens with Overture to The School for Scandal, Curtis alumnus Samuel Barber’s witty and fast-paced overture inspired by Sheridan’s 18th-century comedy. Grammy-winning conductor Christoph Eschenbach leads Krzysztof Penderecki’s Concerto Grosso for Three Cellos, featuring Curtis alumni Nicholas Canellakis, Yumi Kendall, and Christine Jeonghyoun Lee—a striking work that blends lyrical beauty with bold dissonance and rhythmic intensity.

A Voyage Through Symphonic Expression.

Experience the power and majesty of the organ reverberate through Legacy Hall as the CSO welcomes organist Christopher Houlihan for The King of Instruments. Unlike any other concert this season, this rare and resplendent program places the mighty organ center stage paired with the grandeur and sonic brilliance of a symphony orchestra. Strauss’ Feierlicher Einzug opens with bold brass and noble procession, followed by Barber’s Toccata Festiva, where Houlihan dazzles with commanding virtuosity and color. During an extended intermission, enjoy a festive reception with hand-crafted desserts and drink pairings. The night culminates in Saint-Saens’ “Organ” Symphony No. 3, a breathtaking fusion of orchestra and organ that builds to a triumphant finale.

CSO: The King of Instruments

RiverCenter for the Performing Arts

Pergolesi’s sacred masterpiece, the Stabat Mater, is filled with gorgeous, spine-tingling music that explores the nature of grief, hope and healing. These emotions also course through Barber’s sublime Adagio for Strings and Carlos Simon’s Fate Now Conquers, a high-spirited tribute to Beethoven. CSO Piccolo Jennifer Gunn solos as the mercurial protagonist in Thea Musgrave’s Piccolo Play.

Piccolo Play & Adagio for Strings

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Our opening concert, “Made in America,” will showcase Grammy Award-winning violinist Anne Akiko Meyers in Barber’s Violin Concerto—one of the great lyrical American classical concertos, complete with technical fireworks. The orchestra will be featured in Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, his final symphonic work written entirely in America and premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra. We open with Dvořák’s Carnival Overture, written just before Dvořák traveled abroad from Prague to live in the US to teach in New York City. This overture was seen as both a farewell to his native country and as a hello to New York.

Made in America

Baylor University

About the program  Dmitri Shostakovich is always an exciting acquaintance, which has taken on a new twist here, as his five preludes for piano from 1919-21 are performed at this concert in an arrangement for piano and cello by composer Lera Auerbach (born 1973).

Marianna Shirinyan & Torleif Thedéen

Mogens Dahl Koncertsal

Viennese Classical meets American Classical. We present the latter with one of the most established violinists in the USA. Philippe Quint has been nominated for several Grammy Awards. The New York Times and the British Daily Telegraph rave about the poetry of his playing, his "consummate musicality, richness of sound, and passion." He has demonstrated how apt this assessment of the critics is in his collaborations with some of the world's finest orchestras.

1. Classical on Sunday

Exhibition Hall 4

Music Director Andreas Delfs leads our soaring season opener with a thrilling mix of energy and elegance. Esteemed American violinist Anne Akiko Meyers brings her signature radiance to Barber’s deeply expressive Violin Concerto, a work of lyrical beauty and dazzling virtuosity. Mason Bates’ high-octane Mothership launches the program with modern flair, while Dvořák’s joyous Symphony No. 6 fills Kodak Hall with rich melodies and Bohemian spirit. An awe-inspiring start to an unforgettable season!

RPO: 25/26 Season Opener! Breathtaking Barber

Kodak Center

25/26 Season Opener! Breathtaking Barber

Eastman Theatre

Camellia Symphony Orchestra: New World Visions

C.K. McClatchy High School

The Knox-Galesburg Symphony opens the 2025-2026 season with a powerful tribute to American spirit and local legacy. Under the direction of Richard Cangro, this program features Lincoln Portrait by Aaron Copland, with actor Steven Duchrow portraying Carl Sandburg as narrator—a nod to Sandburg’s Grammy-winning 1960 performance. Also on the program are Copland’s stirring Fanfare for the Common Man, Barber’s deeply moving Adagio for Strings, and Gershwin’s vibrant An American in Paris. This unforgettable evening blends music, poetry, theater, and the enduring presence of Carl Sandburg in the heart of Galesburg.

Composer

Samuel Barber

Events

Upcoming events

Oct 2, 2024 - Apr 14, 2026

Chamber Music for Winds · The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University

6 - 7 Feb, 2026

Celebrating America: From Cello to Copland · Grand Rapids Symphony

6 - 7 Feb, 2026

Saint-Saëns “Organ” Symphony · Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

Feb 7, 2026

A Special Collaboration with Voces Solis · Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh

Feb 7, 2026

Rhapsody · Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra

Past events

6 - 7 Feb, 2026

Celebrating America: From Cello to Copland · Grand Rapids Symphony

6 - 7 Feb, 2026

Saint-Saëns “Organ” Symphony · Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

About

Samuel Barber hasn't added a bio