Final Symphony features stunning orchestral suites based on the music from FINAL FANTASY VI, VII and X, originally composed by Nobuo Uematsu and Masashi Hamauzu. Final Symphony offers a new kind of orchestral concert experience, not just for gamers, but for anyone who simply loves beautiful music.

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Final Symphony: Music from Final Fantasy

Phoenix Convention Center

Newly appointed Music Director Designate Paolo Bortolameolli opens the 2026-27 season and a new era in the Phoenix Symphony’s history with Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5, a triumph of power, lyricism and irony. Premiered war-torn Soviet Union in 1945 with victory over Nazi Germany within reach, Prokofiev’s popular symphony is famous for its sweeping melodies, rhythmic drive and rich orchestration. The curtain rises with Mikhail Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla, a dazzling opening to the new season. Featured prominently in the 1996 film “Shine,” Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 is one of the most technically challenging works in the repertoire. Russian pianist Olga Kern, Gold Medalist of the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, who performed all of Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos in 2012 for the Phoenix Symphony’s Rachmaninoff Festival, is soloist in the concerto that’s respected and even feared by pianists.

Paolo Conducts Rachmaninoff & Prokofiev

Apart from its vivid, romantic melodies, what makes Felix Mendelssohn’s Overture to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” a remarkable work is the composer was just 17 and a half years old when he wrote it, making it the most youthful work in the orchestral repertoire that’s regularly heard today. Arnold Schoenberg and Ludwig van Beethoven, conversely, both were 32 and at turning points in their development when they made their contributions to this program. Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1 for just 15 musicians not only was his first effort for chamber orchestra, it also came at a pivotal stage in his transition from late-Romantic to atonal music. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 – bold and energetic with touches of humor – was one of his final pieces in a purely classical style. Though the optimistic and innovative work has hints of Haydn and Mozart, it also foreshadows the Beethoven yet to come.

Mendelssohn & Beethoven’s 2nd Symphony

Musical Instrument Museum

Notes fly off the page in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, an elemental, propulsive work full of driving energy that pushes an orchestra to its absolute limit. What audiences also remember is the gravitas of the second movement, featured in the climactic scene of the 2010 film “The King’s Speech.”  Guest conductor Rei Hotoda, Music Director Designate of the Las Vegas Philharmonic, opens the evening with “blue cathedral,” a poignant tone poem by three-time Grammy Award winner Jennifer Higdon, winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music. Though Frédéric Chopin was just 20 years old when he premiered his Piano Concerto in F minor, he composed an intimate work of bold drama, indescribable beauty and a lively mazurka inspired by his Polish heritage. Pianist Natasha Paremsky, a 2006 Gilmore Young Artist and 2007 winner of the Prix Montblanc, returns to Phoenix as soloist in the concerto by one of the greatest pianists who ever lived.

Beethoven’s 7th Symphony & Chopin’s 2nd Piano Concerto

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Many composers have written serenades – lighter, less intense, works with catchy melodies. Such is Johannes Brahms’ Serenade No. 1. Unsatisfied with the first version for just nine instruments, the often picky 25-year-old composer destroyed the original and rewrote it for chamber orchestra. As a serenade, it bridges the transition from Mozart to emerging Romanticism in music, and audiences continue to enjoy it for its spontaneous, pastoral nature. Igor Stravinsky’s “Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto, commissioned for the 30th wedding anniversary of U.S. diplomat Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss, is a lively neoclassic masterpiece for just 15 instruments, but its shape pays homage to Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. Conductor Alejandro Gomez Guillen also leads Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question, a brief, eclectic work that’s a musical expression of a deep philosophical question. Today, the three-layer musical collage is one of the iconoclastic composer’s most popular works.

Brahms’ Serenade No. 1

Phoenix Symphony Artistic Partner Tito Muñoz leads the orchestra in music by four young composers who all were in their 30s when these works were written. Grammy Award-winning violinist Jennifer Koh, winner of the 1994 International Tchaikovsky Competition, returns to play Samuel Barber’s Violin Concertos. Its delicious melodies, poignant harmonies and restless momentum make it one of the composer’s most beloved works. Composing in a burst of energy, Robert Schumann completed his Symphony No. 1 in just four days. Nicknamed “Spring” Symphony, the joyous masterpiece, radiating optimism, was premiered by none other than Felix Mendelssohn on the podium. Two short works inspired by poems complete the program. “This Midnight Hour,” a mesmerizing, captivating piece by contemporary British composer Anna Clyne; and Sensemayá by Silvestre Revueltas, a brief work that first brought the Mexican composer to international attention, though not before his untimely death in 1940 at age 40.

Muñoz Conducts Schumann & Barber

As he gazed on rugged terrain off the island of Staffa off the coast of Scotland, Felix Mendelssohn was moved to jot down a melody that would become The Hebrides Overture. Also known as “Fingal’s Cave,” the evocative overture is a work that audiences love to hear. That trip in 1829 to the Scottish Highlands also inspired the beginning of Mendelssohn’s “Scottish” Symphony No. 3, though it took the German composer 13 years to complete the moody, romantic symphony. Conversely, Max Bruch would not visit Scotland until the year after the premiere of his Scottish Fantasy in 1881. Nevertheless, the German composer based the popular work on four Scottish folk tunes. Violinist Rolf Haas, concertmaster of the Phoenix Symphony, is soloist in the program led by Anthony Parnther, music director of the San Bernadino Symphony Orchestra and a frequent conductor of film and TV scores.

Bruch & Mendelssohn with Rolf Haas

Four-time Oscar-nominated film composer Danny Elfman needs little introduction. If you’ve seen such films as “Men in Black,” “Edward Scissorhands” or “Good Will Hunting,” you’re familiar with his music. Premiered in 2023, the Suite for Chamber Orchestra reflects Elfman’s taste for fast-paced, dance-like rhythms, propelling melodies that spin in all sorts of directions. Guest conductor Matthew Kasper leads “Capriol Suite” by Peter Warlock. Composed in 1926, the suite is a vibrant, modern reimagining of 16th century French dance melodies as well as the British composer’s most popular work. Winner of the 2022 Sphinx Competition, double bassist Kebra-Seyoun Charles composed the technically demanding concerto Nightlife. Premiered in October 2025 by the American Composers Orchestra in New York’s Carnegie Hall, its movements, with titles such as “in the streets” and “in the club,” explore popular dance through the lens of classical music.

Warlock, Charles & Elfman

Fully of sunny optimism, sarcastic wit and energetic piano playing, Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 is considered by many to be the finest of his six piano concertos. Joyce Yang, Silver Medalist at the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, is back to play the brilliant, melodic work that’s a staple of piano competitions. Returning to Phoenix for two separate programs this season, Katharina Wincor, a former assistant conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and guest conductor with the Seattle Symphony and Detroit Symphony, leads the Phoenix Symphony in Dmitri Shostakovich’s jubilant “Festive Overture” and in contemporary composer Lera Auerbach’s “Icarus,” inspired by the ancient Greek tale of the winged boy who flew too close to the sun. Originally a one-act ballet telling a brutal tale, Béla Bartók’s “The Miraculous Mandarin,” with its intense rhythmic energy and maniacal, folk-inspired melodies, is an exhilarating horror score for the concert hall.

Katharina Conducts & Joyce Yang Plays Prokofiev

Widely regarded as Europe’s greatest living composer at the end of the 18th century, Joseph Haydn was at the height of his popularity when he visited London twice in the 1790s to thunderous acclaim. For the occasions, Haydn composed 12 symphonies that delighted enthusiastic English audiences. Katharina Wincor conducts Symphony No. 101, nicknamed “The Clock,” because of its ticking pizzicato pulse in the second movement. Joseph Leutgeb, considered the finest hornist of his day in Vienna, inspired both Haydn and Wolfgang Mozart to compose for him. Leutgeb premiered Mozart’s noble, richly orchestrated Horn Concerto No. 3, which TPS principal hornist Gabriel Kovach will perform as soloist. Rounding out the program is a movement from Mozart’s “Gran Partita” Serenade No. 10 for 12 winds and double bass; and a movement from Felix Mendelssohn’s Sinfonia No. 5. What’s remarkable about Mendelssohn’s String Symphony is, when he composed it, he was just 11 years old!

Mendelssohn, Mozart & Haydn

Music revised or reimagined for other occasions is a theme of this program. Though Wolfgang Mozart’s Flute Concerto in D Major began life as a work for oboe, Mozart rearranged it a year later, in a new key, for flute and orchestra to fulfill a commission. TPS principal flutist Viviana Cumplido-Wilson is soloist in the sparkling showpiece for flute, backed by witty and charming orchestral accompaniment. Composed to express some of the challenges facing society in the aftermath of World War II, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony originally was a string quartet. Guest conductor Daniel Wiley leads an arrangement for orchestra created more than 40 years after its 1946 premiere. In 1817, Italian music was all the rage in Vienna. Channeling the effervescent spirit of opera composer Gioachino Rossini, who debuted “The Barber of Seville” one year earlier, Franz Schubert rose to the occasion to compose his Overture in the Italian Style in C Major.

Viviana Performs Mozart

Guest conductor Carlos Izcaray leads three works composed during tumultuous times, beginning with his own “Geometric Unity,” a virtual orchestral piece composed during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. No composer is more important to his people than the composer of “Finlandia,” Jean Sibelius. Not long after its premiere, as the Finnish people struggled to break free of Russian domination, Sibelius composed his popular Symphony No. 2. Dubbed the “Symphony of Independence,” it was a tremendous success and would become the most frequently performed and recorded of all his symphonies. Phoenix audience favorite Bella Hristova, first prize winner in the Michael Hill International Competition and Young Concert Artists International Auditions, returns for the third time in four years to play Benjamin Britten’s youthful Violin Concerto. Composed as war clouds descended on Europe and premiered after the outbreak of World War II, it’s one of Britten’s most beautiful and deeply emotional works.

Bella, Britten & Sibelius

Experience the electrifying music of Broadway sensation Lin-Manuel Miranda like never before, brought to life by powerhouse vocalist Mandy Gonzalez and The Phoenix Symphony. From the groundbreaking hits of Hamilton and In the Heights to the magic of Moana, Encanto, and The Little Mermaid, this unforgettable symphonic concert celebrates Miranda’s genius with soaring vocals, full orchestral brilliance, and hidden gems fans will adore.

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