Composer

BNY Classics showcases unforgettable performances by your Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, featuring timeless masterpieces, thrilling premieres, and renowned guest artists.

Beethoven's Eroica

Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts

Giordano Bellincampi leads a program rich in sweeping landscapes and deep emotional resonance. Vaughan Williams’ Toward the Unknown Region soars with adventurous choral harmonies, while Barber’s Violin Concerto, performed by Concertmaster Adelya Nartadjieva, balances tender lyricism with fiery brilliance. The evening concludes with Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony, a dramatic and evocative masterpiece inspired by Scotland’s rugged beauty.

EPSG:4326

Barber & Mendelssohn

Jacoby Symphony Hall

Prepare to be mesmerized as two extraordinary violin masters, Gilles Apap and Eric Silberger, return to the stage for Dueling Violins—not as rivals, but as creative counterparts. Highlighting their individual artistry through solo works like Sinding’s Suite in A Minor for Violin and Orchestra, Barber’s deeply expressive Violin Concerto, Op. 14, and Sarasate’s fiery Zigeunerweisen, the two will also join forces for Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor. Anchoring the program is Haydn’s Symphony No. 47 in G Major, a luminous work that brings balance and depth to an unforgettable evening.

Dueling Violins

Overture Center for the Arts

Cliburn Festival America 250: American Roots

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

Your toes will be tapping when The Santa Fe Symphony presents Symphonic Dances from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, just one of the works featured on this high-spirited afternoon of symphonic dances. In what promises to be another stunning performance led by Music Director Guillermo Figueroa, the concert also includes a side-by-side performance with members of The Santa Fe Symphony Youth Orchestra performing Moncayo’s Huapango. Gabriela Lena Frank’s Three Latin American Dances and Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 round out the program.

symphonic dances

Lensic Performing Arts Center

Henley Symphony Orchestra’s 55th season continues with a flourish in Reading Concert Hall with an exhilarating programme of some of the greatest orchestral music of the 20th century American classical repertoire. Gershwin, Copland, Barber, and Bernstein were all prominent American composers who cultivated a distinct American sound by blending European traditions with American folk and jazz influences.

March 2026 Concert

Reading Concert Hall

March Concert 2026

Pomona College

Violinist Tessa Lark and conductor Shiyeon Sung make welcome returns for a program of Lili Boulanger, Barber’s Violin Concerto, and music from Bizet’s classic opera Carmen.

A traditionalist in the era of atonality, Barber’s concerto contrasts lyricism with folk-like melodies and an incredibly breakneck finale. An American classic, it remains one of the most performed 20th century violin concertos.

Bizet and Barber

Linda Ronstadt Music Hall

Rising star violinist Alexi Kenney and Principal Guest Conductor at the Metropolitan Opera Daniele Rustioni join together for one of the most-performed 20th century masterpieces. From the first note, the violin makes its presence known with soaring, lyrical serenity and, traversing a lush middle movement of somewhat darker hue, plunges into a moto perpetuo (perpetual motion) with wild abandon that calls on all of the soloist’s virtuoso resources. You’ll also be treated to a first-time DSO performance of Casella’s Second Symphony, described by Gramophone as “a turbulent, lusciously opulent outpouring,” reminiscent of Strauss, Mahler and Rimsky-Korsakov.

Alexi Kenney Plays Barber

Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center

Maestro Tausk leads the orchestra in Sergei Prokofiev’s exhilarating Fifth Symphony, written at the height of WWII and considered by the composer to be one of his best works. Virtuoso Paul Huang, known for his “masterly account of Barber’s Violin Concerto” (The New York Times) returns to dazzle Vancouver audiences with this lyrical masterpiece. Savour the delicate beauty of O Rose by former VSO Composer in Residence, the late Jocelyn Morlock.

Tausk Conducts Prokofiev 5

Orpheum

Violinist Erin Keefe, Concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra and a Curtis faculty member, leads this conductorless chamber orchestra of young musicians from the Curtis Institute of Music. The program includes Mozart’s masterful Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola, and orchestra, performed by Keefe and Curtis President and renowned violist Roberto Díaz.

Curtis Chamber Orchestra Erin Keefe, violin Roberto Díaz, viola

Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

Join us for an inspiring evening of music that reflects the spirit, diversity, and rich cultural tapestry of America. In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States, this program features works rooted in American identity and history – both homegrown and seen through the eyes of an admirer. The evening opens with William Grant Still’s Miniatures for Woodwind Quintet – a charming collection of folk-inspired vignettes drawn from various cultures across the Americas, followed by Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, and concluding with Antonín Dvořák’s “American” String Quartet, a work infused with the rhythms and melodies of African American spirituals and Native American music.

American Impressions

Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist

With a French perspective

Bochumer Symphoniker

A stirring send-off to our beloved Maestro. The final Classical concert with our Conductor Gordon Gerrard—a momentous occasion marking the close of an extraordinary chapter in our orchestra’s story.

Echoes Of A Decade

Conexus Arts Centre

You should always be prepared for surprises with this young man. Asked what he would do if he had a whole day off, Sterling Elliott replied: "Work on my car. At the moment I'm trying to get the gearbox back into my car, a two-man job that I'm stubbornly trying to teach myself. It is not only in the garage that he is ambitious, otherwise the young man from Virginia would not have catapulted himself to where he now stands artistically: in the premier league of cellists of his generation. Elliott has long been a sought-after performer in the USA, but now he is also making a name for himself on this side of the Atlantic. Sterling Elliott presents himself in the Debut series and has another ambassador of the US classical music scene on board with the highly romantic Cello Sonata by Samuel Barber.

Sterling Elliott, Violoncello

Alte Oper

" My Father Explains Our Night Sky to Me Every Saturday " ... how poor the world would be without mnemonics ! This one , about the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus , and Neptune, also belongs in our educational luggage. The celestial body Pluto is no longer on our mnemonic list; a few years ago it was deemed too small and therefore rigorously banished from the planetary sky.

Galactic

Cologne Philharmonie

The Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra offers a wide-ranging program of American music to celebrate the 250th birthday of the United States. Joan Tower's bold Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman and Leonard Bernstein's unforgettable Symphonic Dances from West Side Story will contrast deeply contemplative music by Samuel Barber and Jonathan Bailey Holland. John Williams' cool jazz score for the film Catch Me if You Can is reimagined as a spellbinding concerto for alto saxophone, expertly played by Champaign's own Taimur Sullivan. The lively Fandangos of Roberto Sierra will bring the evening to an uproarious close.

Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra: Happy Birthday, America! American Highlights

Krannert Center for the Performing Arts

The Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra offers a wide-ranging program of American music to celebrate the 250th birthday of the United States. Joan Tower’s bold Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman and Leonard Bernstein’s unforgettable Symphonic Dances from West Side Story will contrast deeply contemplative music by Samuel Barber and Jonathan Bailey Holland. John Williams’ cool jazz score for the film Catch Me if You Can is reimagined as a spell-binding concerto for alto saxophone, expertly played by Champaign’s own Taimur Sullivan. The lively Fandangos of Roberto Sierra will bring the evening to an uproarious close.

Happy Birthday, America!

This electrifying program celebrates the bold sounds and unmistakable spirit of American music. Gershwin’s “An American in Paris” brims with jazzy swagger, while Adams’ “Absolute Jest” spins Beethoven into a playful whirlwind. Barber’s Adagio for Strings offers a moment of breathtaking beauty, and Still’s “Afro-American” Symphony blends classical tradition with the soul of the blues in a powerful tale of resilience and joy.

An American Portrait: Gershwin, Barber & Beyond

Benjamin & Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center

The always-evolving Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble features musicians from the legendary Met Orchestra in a variety of unique programs. Together, along with special guest artists from the Metropolitan Opera and beyond, they explore a boundless world of chamber music, adapting to fit the instrumental needs of any piece—from all-time classics to hard-to-find hidden gems and standout works by many of today’s significant composers. In this Sunday matinee, they perform works by American composers Caroline Shaw, Copland, Beach, G. Walker, Barber, and John Adams, joined by Yannick Nézet-Séguin as pianist and conductor.

The Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble 2026 Concert 4

Carnegie Hall

Barber American Voices

University of Nevada

Barber + Blue Cathedral

Riverview Theatre

MSM Symphony Orchestra and MSM Opera Theatre present Opera in Concert

Manhattan School of Music

Join members of OSL for an evening of music by three defining American composers.
A legendary orchestrator and one of the rare EGOT winners, Jonathan Tunick returns to OSL following his 2024 appearance conducting his arrangement of A Little Night Music. This program features the premiere of his newly commissioned clarinet quintet, as well as select songs by Stephen Sondheim, a tribute to Tunick’s long-standing collaboration with the iconic musical theater composer.

Barber, Sondheim, and Tunick

The Great American Songbook, Classically Speaking

Music Building and Recital Hall

For over 25 years, the Miró Quartet has performed on the world’s most prestigious stages, showcasing their “collective intelligence [and] uncanny precision” (Musical America). Their program includes excerpts from master works by Samuel Barber and Florence Price, as well as a PCMS co-commission for soprano and quartet by the genre-defying, Brooklyn-based composer Tamar-kali. The new work spotlights Philadelphia’s own soprano Karen Slack, who brings “the right mix of grace and fire” (Schmopera) to this much-anticipated local premiere.

Miró Quartet Karen Slack, soprano

A former Horizons Young Artist, Elliott has soloed with the Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra and New York Philharmonic, among other leading orchestras. A dynamic and engaging musician, his program features works by 20th-century masters.

Sterling Elliott, cello Janice Carissa, piano Union College

Union College

Symphony IV:  James Garlick plays Barber's Violin Concerto, plus Dvorak's 7th and Copland's Quiet City

Port Angeles High School

It’s an evening in and out of the opera pit with imaginative works by Johann Strauss II, Montgomery, and Stravinsky, and Francisco Fullana’s Omaha debut on Barber’s renowned Violin Concerto.

Stravinsky’s Firebird

Omaha Performing Arts

Romantic Revelations

Zeiterion Performing Arts Center

Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

The ingenious Barbara Hannigan conducts an all-American evening that’s capped by an orchestral suite of timeless tunes from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. Rounding out this cross-country road trip are bold, evocative works by American mavericks Carl Ruggles and George Crumb, and Barber’s nostalgic Knoxville: Summer of 1915, based on a poem by James Agee and featuring award-winning Swedish soprano Johanna Wallroth.

Hannigan Conducts Gershwin

Severance Music Center

Step into the rich soundscape of American music with a concert that celebrates sweeping melodies, heartfelt lyricism, and bold orchestral colors. William Schuman’s New England Triptych sets the stage with vibrant energy, drawing inspiration from the spirit of early American composer William Billings. Rising star Amaryn Olmeda then takes the spotlight in Barber’s Violin Concerto, a masterpiece of lush beauty and breathtaking virtuosity. The evening reaches a glorious conclusion with Howard Hanson’s Symphony No. 2, "Romantic", a soaring work filled with passion, grandeur, and one of the most unforgettable melodies in American symphonic music.

Romance & Revolution

Williamsburg Community Chapel

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 Piano Concerto No.2

Usher Hall

Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto in Edinburgh

USO 2025-26 Season Concert 3

Mendocino College

Geneva Lewis Plays Barber

Hemmens Auditorium

We start the New Year with a special collaboration with our friends, Voces Solis.  Don't miss this wonderful performance with songs from the heart.

A Special Collaboration with Voces Solis

A celebration of one of the most beloved piano pieces in history, along with a beloved masterpiece. Natasha Paremski performs Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, also featuring Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9. ‘From The New World’ and Barber’s Adagio for Strings.

SBSO: Rachmanninov & Dvorak

Temple Theatre

Born in South Korea, Ms. Jung began studying marimba at age three, a rarity among percussionists. Since launching her career as a soloist, she has performed concertos with such leading orchestras and conductors as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra with Marin Alsop, the Sarasota Orchestra with Giancarlo Guerrero, the Houston Symphony with Daniel Hege, the Aspen Festival Orchestra with Michael Stern, the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra with Peter Oundjian, the Colorado Springs Philharmonic with JoAnn Falletta, the Grand Rapids Symphony with Marcelo Lehninger, and the Boise Philharmonic with Eric Garcia.

Rhapsody

Ridgefield Playhouse

"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

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.

Celebrating America: From Cello to Copland

DeVos Performance Hall

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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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).

Composer

Samuel Barber

Events

Upcoming events

Oct 2, 2024 - Apr 14, 2026

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

27 - 28 Mar, 2026

Barber & Mendelssohn · Jacksonville Symphony

27 - 29 Mar, 2026

Beethoven's Eroica · Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

Mar 28, 2026

Seven Last Words From The Cross · Britten Sinfonia

Mar 28, 2026

Cliburn Festival America 250: American Romantics · The Cliburn

Past events

27 - 29 Mar, 2026

Beethoven's Eroica · Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

27 - 28 Mar, 2026

Barber & Mendelssohn · Jacksonville Symphony

About

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