Our 2025/2026 season culminates with the ultimate symphony — Beethoven’s Ninth, featuring an all-star cast of soloists chosen by Music Director Xian Zhang and joined by the massed forces of the Seattle Symphony Chorale. Revolutionary, epic and at 200 years old, still as driven as Beethoven’s own sense of our shared destiny, he crowned this summit of his music with the stunning addition of voices in a song for humanity, hope and joy. Xian pairs it with Artist in Focus Steven Mackey’s RIOT, for chorus, vocalist and the composer himself on electric guitar. This inspiring music places race and resilience in the foreground with a setting of words by Tracy K. Smith — culminating in positive affirmation and a celebration of perseverance, commitment and community.

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Xian Conducts Beethoven 9

Benaroya Hall

Andrew Litton conducts the classic Firebird Suite, drawn from the dazzling ballet that shot Stravinsky into the 20th-century classical music pantheon almost overnight. The Seattle Symphony Chorale joins the orchestra for Poulenc's first choral work with orchestra, the 12-movement Stabat Mater — penned in response to the sudden death of his friend. Poulenc was inspired by his pilgrimage to the holy shrine of the Black Madonna of Rocamadour, which reinvigorated his Catholic faith, and the medieval Stabat Mater hymn to the Virgin Mary.

Stravinsky The Firebird

Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony encompasses eternal questions of life and death and the ultimate power of love to illuminate darkness. The journey begins with the funereal, followed by a respite of nostalgic innocence, which leads to a finale full of hope and transcendence.

Mahler Resurrection

O fortuna! So begins Carl Orff’s famous work for chorus and orchestra, Carmina burana. But there’s more to this epic masterpiece than the thunderous opening chorus, known far and wide for its use in Hollywood films and advertisements. Drawn from medieval poems that vividly celebrate the secular topics of love, lust, excess and indulgence, Carmina burana spans the full range of musical styles, ranging from the power and majesty of full orchestra and chorus to the delicate intimacy of a single human voice.

Carmina Burana

Start your New Year off right with the grandeur of Beethoven's monumental Ninth Symphony! The beauty and drama of this uplifting masterpiece, with its crowning jewel of the "Ode to Joy" chorus, is a wonderful way to end the calendar year and look boldly to the year ahead.

New Year's Eve Concert, Countdown & Party

A triumph of music and text, Handel’s Messiah is a matchless December tradition. The exquisite choral writing and the exultant “Hallelujah” chorus — featuring the Seattle Symphony, Chorale and a strong cast of soloists — honor Handel’s greatest work.

Handel's Messiah with the Seattle Symphony

Tan Dun’s Buddha Passion is the first of its kind in a centuries-old tradition: a passion not inspired by a Christian narrative, but rather, a Buddhist one. Stirred by the city of Dunhuang and its ancient caves, Tan Dun created a powerful score that weaves chants, stories and sounds into a breathtaking vocal masterpiece, capturing the Buddha’s teachings and timeless concepts of love, forgiveness, sacrifice and salvation.

Tan Dun Buddha Passion

Alternating between sublime lyricism and dramatic power, Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem offers the thrill and drama of a grand opera, from muted sorrow in the opening movement to the sheer terror of the work’s infamous Dies irae. The Seattle Symphony has gathered an extraordinary cast of soloists to join the orchestra and Seattle Symphony Chorale for this monumental work.

Verdi Requiem

Nathalie Stutzmann conducts the Seattle Symphony and Chorale in Brahms’ German Requiem, one of the great Romantic choral works of the 19th century. Instead of setting the traditional mass for the dead, Brahms' selected texts from the Lutheran Bible create a unique and beautiful offering of hope and comfort.

Seattle Symphony Chorale

18 - 21 Jun, 2026

Xian Conducts Beethoven 9

19 - 21 Mar, 2026

Stravinsky The Firebird

Seattle Symphony Chorale