New York Classical Review

Carnegie Hall’s 2026-2027 schedule promises some of the most substantial and out-of-the-ordinary satisfactions for classical music lovers from any institutions in the next season. Announced Thursday morning, it is centered around two compelling events: concert performances of Wagner’s complete Ring Cycle; and a season-long Mahler Symphony Cycle, played by three different orchestras.

The season-opening gala concert, October 8, is a hefty appetizer in itself for this feast of music: Kirill Petrenko leads the Berliner Philharmoniker—with tenor Jonas Kaufmann—in the Overture to Verdi’s La forza del destino, opera arias, and Respighi’s Fountains of Rome and Pines of Rome. That is the first of four concerts from the Berlin orchestra. Pianist Daniil Trifonov appears with them Oct. 9 and 11, playing Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1, with Strauss’  Also sprach Zarathustra, and the Oct. 10 program is Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4.

The Ring Cycle opens March 18, 2027, with Das Rheingold, and runs through March 23’s Götterdämmerung (one performance of each opera). Gianandrea Noseda will conduct the Orchestra of the Zurich Opera House in its Carnegie debut—and the cast includes Michael Volle as Wotan/The Wanderer, Klaus Florian Vogt as Siegfried, Camilla Nylund as Brünnhilde, Christopher Purves as Alberich, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke as Mime, Tanja Ariane Baumgartner as Fricke, David Leigh as Fafner, and Noa Beinart as Erda.  Die Walküre is scheduled for March 19 and Siegfried for March 21.

And there will be more opera in the hall. In a much-needed initiative in a global city with now only one regular opera company, the New York Philharmonic and incoming music director Gustavo Dudamel will launch a five-year series of operas in concert at Carnegie. For this inaugural season, the performances are Puccini’s Tosca, November 13 and 15, with Marina Rebeka in the title role, Kaufmann as Cavaradossi, and Ludovic Tézier as Scarpia.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin is the sole conductor for the Mahler Cycle. He will be leading the Met Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Vienna Philharmonic. Played out of numerical order, the cycle begins Oct. 13 with Philadelphia playing Symphony No. 5 (the program also including Webern’s Im Sommerwind and Julia Wolfe’s Liberty Bell, a Carnegie co-commission). The remaining schedule is: Vienna playing Symphony No. 9, February 26; Symphony No. 4, Feb. 27, with soprano Christiane Karg (and Yuja Wang playing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3); the Symphony No. 2, Feb. 28 (Karg and mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča; Philadelphia with Symphony No. 7, April 2; and Symphony No. 3, with mezzo-soprano Karin Cargill, May 18; then playing Symphony No. 1, June 4, with music from Florence Price and Caroline Shaw. There will be three performances of Symphony No. 8, Jun. 10-11, from the Met Orchestra with sopranos Angela Meade, Elza van den Heever, and Erin Morley, mezzos Ekaterina Gubanova and Cargill, tenor Russell Thomas, baritone Will Liverman, and bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green. The same orchestra plays Symphony No. 6 on Jun. 18. Das Lied von der Erde is not part of this cycle, nor is any of Symphony No. 10.

Caroline Shaw holds the season’s Debs Composer Chair, and her music will be featured in concerts from the Miró Quartet (Oct. 23), the Ariel Quartet (December 8), Decoda, with soprano Ariadne Greif (January 28), Junction Trio (Feb. 4), and Shaw with the Attacca Quartet (Feb. 5), her own duo Ringdown (May 15), and others. Two other American composers, and the two most important ones of the last sixty years, will be honored as each reaches their 90th birthday. Steve Reich’s day is October 22, and the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Ensemble Signal, Nico Muhly, Lisa Kaplan, and Bryce Dessner will play Electric Counterpoint, Two Pianos, Double Sextet, Jacob’s Ladder, and the U.S. premiere of In All Your Ways, a Carnegie co-commission. 

Philip Glass turns 90 on January 31, and that Sunday afternoon the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and eminent Glass interpreter conductor Dennis Russell Davies with perform the “Mechanical Ballet” from The Voyage, Violin Concerto No. 1 with Robert McDuffie, and the New York premiere of Symphony No. 15 “Lincoln,” with baritone Zachary James. As an addendum, pianist Víkingur Ólafsson will play music by Glass on his Mar. 2 recital program, in company with Rameau and Debussy.

Maxim Vengerov is presenting a Perspectives Series during the season. March 13-14, he plays the Beethoven Violin Concerto and Triple Concerto, respectively, with the London Symphony Orchestra, conductor Antonio Pappano, and in the latter cellist Alisa Weilerstein and pianist Kirill Gerstein. March 27 he appears with Orchestra of St. Lukes, conducted by Semyon Bychkov, for the Rostropovich Centenary Gala, playing Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 1. In three concerts, Apr. 23-25, he and pianist Martha Argerich will play all ten Beethoven Sonatas, and May 23 he and cellist Gautier Capuçon and pianist Evgeny Kissin play Beethoven piano trios, including the “Archduke” and “Ghost.”

Beethoven is a mainstay of the Carnegie season. The plethora of other notable performances include Quatuor Ébène playing the complete String Quartets across six concerts, Mar. 23-25, Apr. 2-4; violinist Hilary Hahn scheduled for Apr. 28, playing Beethoven with cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and pianist Benjamin Grosvenor; and pianist Igor Levit beginning a complete sonata cycle performance that will reach into the following season, with concerts Apr. 8-11. This season will include the “Waldstein,” “Les Adieux,” and “Appassionata” sonatas.

carnegiehall.org