The Philadelphia Orchestra Celebrates 60 Years at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center

Above photo by Ironglass Productions

The Philadelphia Orchestra celebrated its 60th anniversary at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) in summer 2026 with three weeks of concerts and educational programs. The residency featured Music and Artistic Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Principal Guest Conductor Marin Alsop, Josh Groban, Emanuel Ax, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Michelle Cann, and others, alongside special performances celebrating the Orchestra’s six-decade history at SPAC.

SPAC was built specifically for The Philadelphia Orchestra and New York City Ballet. Then-Music Director Eugene Ormandy was instrumental in helping design the amphitheater and its acoustics, and he led the Philadelphians in their first performance at the venue on August 4, 1966. That concert included Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, which was performed this summer as part of the 60th anniversary celebrations.

The Philadelphia Orchestra’s Three-Week 2026 SPAC Residency 

Principal Guest Conductor Marin Alsop opened the 2026 residency leading three concerts: the annual Tchaikovsky Spectacular, featuring the 1812 Overture with live cannons; Mahler’s Symphony No. 1; and a program entitled American Dreams with actor and vocalist Brian Stokes Mitchell. The week closed with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, led by Justin Freer. The second week opened with Daniele Rustioni leading two concerts, one with violinist Bomsori Kim making her Philadelphia Orchestra debut and one with audience favorite Emanuel Ax. Josh Groban brought his Stage, Screen, and Symphony concert to a sold-out house, and Philadelphia Orchestra Music and Artistic Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin closed the week with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

The final week of the residency saw Concertmaster David Kim play dual roles of conductor and soloist in a program featuring an ingenious pairing of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and Astor Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. Guest conductor Gemma New led Michelle Cann in two piano concertos, Ravel’s G-major and Florence Price’s. Star Wars: A New Hope was shown while the Orchestra played John Williams’s brilliant score, led by Damon Gupton. And the residency came to an appropriately celebratory close with Gregory Alan Isakov.

20th- and 21st-Century Music at SPAC

Works from the 20th and 21st centuries played a major part in this year’s residency. Aaron Copland’s 1942 Fanfare for the Common Man was composed as part of a series of fanfares meant to open the wartime concerts of the Cincinnati Symphony. Forty-four years later, Joan Tower composed Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, an ironic response to Copland’s work. Alsop conducted the two works side-by-side. She also led Ukrainian composer Iryna Aleksiychuk’s Go where the wind takes you …, dedicated to “Ukrainian women who, despite all the horrors of the war against Ukraine, do not lose their Courage, Hope, and Faith in our Victory,” and Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, which uses the president’s actual words, drawn from letters and speeches. Copland himself conducted the piece with The Philadelphia Orchestra at SPAC for the nation’s Bicentennial in 1976, with Marian Anderson as narrator.

Yannick led William Grant Still’s Wood Notes, which was inspired by the American South and the poetry of Joseph Mitchell Pilcher. Still originally composed Wood Notes as a five-movement orchestral work. Sometime after the premiere, however, his publisher decided it functioned “better” as a four-movement piece for a smaller ensemble and that was how the piece was published. Former Philadelphia Orchestra Assistant Conductor Austin Chanu and Principal Librarian Nicole Jordan, with assistance from Still’s daughter, Judith Anne; the Library of Congress; and materials preserved in Still’s archive at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, reinstated the fifth movement and now the work is available as Still intended.

Philadelphia Orchestra Educational and Community Programs at SPAC

Each season the Saratoga Performing Arts Center presents two signature Philadelphia Orchestra educational programs: Sound All Around, which introduces young listeners ages 3 and up to a member of the string, woodwind, brass, or percussion family, and a PlayIN, which invites musicians of all ages to sit side-by-side with members of The Philadelphia Orchestra for a collaborative performance.

Assistant Principal Yumi Kendall and Principal Bass Joseph Conyers participated in a social media takeover on the Orchestra’s Instagram story on August 15, sharing highlights from their day beginning with rehearsal in the morning all the way through to the performance of Still’s Wood Notes and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Yannick. Click the summer 26 story highlight on our Instagram page to view the takeover.

With a three-week residency at SPAC every summer, many of the musicians think of it as a second home. Performing in the beauty of upstate New York and for a welcoming audience, some of whom have come to performances since 1966, it truly feels like family.