When Past, Present, and Future Merge
January 31, 2025The Philadelphia Orchestra announces a bold 2025–26 season to celebrate its 125th birthday
Above photo by Pete Checchia
By Paul J. Horsley
The orchestra of the 21st century gazes into the past and the future simultaneously as it draws inspiration from its foundational principles to forge a solid yet innovative path forward. As The Philadelphia Orchestra marks its 125th anniversary during the 2025–26 season, it embraces old and new as one, tapping into the peerless heritage of master composers and interpreters with an ongoing resolve to continue refreshing the repertoire with new points of view.
The Orchestra will also celebrate the intersection of its own 125th birthday with America 250—the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. The season shines light on a diverse range of American composers, invites the world’s best performers, engages the community in education and outreach programs, and presents milestones of the repertoire that the Orchestra helped bring to America during its 125-year history.
“The 2025–26 season of The Philadelphia Orchestra is a joyful celebration—of the Orchestra’s 125 years of musical brilliance and of America’s 250th birthday,” said Music and Artistic Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. “In this year-long musical fête, we will illuminate works by Bartók, Ravel, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Stravinsky, and more—many of which The Philadelphia Orchestra introduced to America. We will honor the significant yet often overlooked voices of Amy Beach, Julius Eastman, and William Grant Still, whose contributions to American music reflect the cultural landscape of our nation. And, as always, we will create a path for the future of music with 21st-century commissions from John Adams, Wynton Marsalis, Tyshawn Sorey, Julia Wolfe, and Du Yun, and other contemporary voices. Please come celebrate with us—everyone is welcome!”
The Orchestra also brings works by American composers John Williams (Tuba Concerto, with Principal Tuba Carol Jantsch), Leonard Bernstein (Candide Overture, “Jeremiah” Symphony, and Symphonic Dances from West Side Story), George Gershwin (Piano Concerto), and Kevin Puts (Contact, with Time for Three).
The creation of new repertoire by the most prominent composers has been central to the Orchestra’s mission since its earliest days. Running like a thread through the 2025–26 season is a selection of significant pieces that The Philadelphia Orchestra introduced, and which are now acknowledged as masterworks.
Among these storied world premieres is Jennifer Higdon’s Concerto for Orchestra, which was part of the Orchestra’s Centennial Commissions nearly 25 years ago and which caused a minor sensation at its premiere in June 2002. “It’s a piece that this Orchestra commissioned, and which has gone on to be one of the most successful American contemporary works of the new millennium,” said Chief Programming Officer Jeremy Rothman.
Other historic past world premieres on the season include Béla Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with 2022 Van Cliburn Competition Gold Medalist Yunchan Lim and Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto with soloist Augustin Hadelich.
Many of these commissions, often made during times of war, were from composers who had sought refuge in America from hostile regimes abroad. “We are celebrating works this Orchestra brought to America,” Rothman said, “and celebrating the composers, some of whom were in exile from their own countries when they came here.”
Among the compositions on the 2025–26 season that were presented as United States premieres are Ravel’s Une Barque sur l’océan (led by former Principal Guest Conductor Stéphane Denève), celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States Navy’s founding in Philadelphia; Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5 and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, both with Yannick; Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Seong-Jin Cho; Falla’s original version of El amor brujo with guest conductor Rafael Payare; and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 6 with Santtu-Matias Rouvali in his long-awaited debut.
What is striking is how fresh these works sound today. “The Rite of Spring still sounds as surprising and shocking and avant-garde as it did over 100 years ago,” Rothman said.
In addition, selections from William Grant Still’s tone poem Wood Notes are presented in a new version prepared by Principal Librarian Nicole Jordan and former Assistant Conductor Austin Chanu, as part of the Orchestra’s revival of the music of this prolific and enormously gifted Black composer.
Past and present mingle in other ways throughout the upcoming season. Just as earlier generations of Philadelphians witnessed composer-conductors such as Zoltán Kodaly, Virgil Thomson, Leonard Bernstein, and Luciano Berio interpreting their own works, the 2025–26 season features Matthias Pintscher conducting his Assonanza with violin soloist Leila Josefowicz.
The new season celebrates a cornucopia of world-renowned conductors, many of whom are women, including Dalia Stasevska, Xian Zhang, Jane Glover, and Elim Chan—as well as Payare, Rouvali, and András Schiff, the latter also appearing as solo pianist in concertos by Bach and Mozart.
Some of the world’s most prominent soloists will grace the stage of Marian Anderson Hall, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma; pianists Lang Lang, Marc-André Hamelin, and Hélène Grimaud; violinists Gil Shaham, Lisa Batiashvili, María Dueñas, Concertmaster David Kim, and Hilary Hahn; pipa player Wu Man; and soprano Ying Fang and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato appearing in Mahler’s magisterial Second Symphony (“Resurrection”). Pianist Emanuel Ax marks the 50th anniversary of his Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 1975 with performances of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3.
The film series returns with The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring with Howard Shore’s peerless score performed live; Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets with masterful music by that most prolific of American nonagenarians, John Williams; and Fantasia in Concert, the epochal film for which The Philadelphia Orchestra provided the original soundtrack. The Orchestra After 5 series, which had a tremendous debut in the 2023–24 season, continues, with its informal one-hour concerts examining specific works (“great introductions to these pieces in a more casual environment,” Rothman said).
The Spotlight Series includes recitals by pianist Víkingur Ólafsson and a joint performance by violinist Hilary Hahn and pianist Lang Lang. The annual holiday programs include Handel’s Messiah, with Yannick conducting; The Glorious Sound of Christmas with guest conductor Enrico Lopez-Yañez; and the annual New Year’s Eve Celebration led by Anthony Parnther. And the Chamber Orchestra of Europe visits Marian Anderson Hall with an all-Brahms program conducted by Yannick.
The Orchestra also presents familiar masterpieces throughout the season, including Strauss’s Alpine Symphony with Denève; Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 with Esa-Pekka Salonen; Brahms’s Third and Fourth symphonies with Yannick; Mozart’s Requiem with Glover; Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 with Zhang; Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, both with Stasevska; Mahler’s Second and Fifth symphonies with Yannick; and Musorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition with Chan.
“The Philadelphia Orchestra continues to interpret music in a way that few orchestras can match,” said Rothman. “We are fortunate to have the direction and vision that Yannick brings to the mix, as we head undaunted into the future of music in America and the world.”
Paul Horsley is performing arts editor for the Independent in Kansas City. Previously he was music and dance critic for the Kansas City Star and program annotator and musicologist for The Philadelphia Orchestra.