Rafael Payare’s 2026–27 Season Highlights

Sep 17, 2026

Conductor Rafael Payare leads full seasons of performances in 2026–27 as Music and Artistic Director of both California’s San Diego Symphony (SDSO) and Canada’s Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (Montreal Symphony Orchestra/OSM), while also returning to the New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, and San Francisco Symphony.

Highlights of Payare’s season with the SDSO include their recent release of Shostakovich’s Seventh “Leningrad” Symphony on Delos / Outhere, named an “Editor’s Choice” in the upcoming October issue of Gramophone. Continuing and expanding the Shostakovich theme, the orchestra’s eighth season under Payare’s baton emphasizes performances of the late-Romantic and early 20th-century masterpieces. A starry roster of concerto soloists joins them in the SDSO’s recently renovated home, the Jacobs Music Center. Their opening program this season pairs Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, performed by soloist Yefim Bronfman (Oct 3 & 4). Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony shares the bill with violinist Sergey Khachatryan’s performance of Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto (Oct 10 & 11), and Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony is programmed with Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto performed by Daniil Trifonov, making his long-awaited SDSO debut (Nov 14 & 15). Payare’s expertise as a Mahler interpreter is on display this season when he conducts Mahler’s “Tragic” Symphony No. 6 along with Liszt’s First Piano Concerto – quoted in Mahler’s symphony – featuring Inon Barnatan (Nov 20 & 22); and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique is paired with Alisa Weilerstein’s performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto (Jan 29 & 30). Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto is also featured in multiple settings this season, first marking the SDSO debut of violinist Joshua Brown, a 2025 recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant (March 20 & 21) and then performed by Leonidas Kavakos at most of the stops on the orchestra’s first European tour next spring. The remainder of the tour repertoire, in various combinations, comprises Schumann’s Piano Concerto performed by Spanish pianist Javier Perianes, Grammy Award-winning Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz’s Kauyumari, Bernstein’s “Symphonic Dances” from West Side Story, Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin, and Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite (April 28–May 6).

Payare and the OSM open their 2026–27 season with an all-Mahler concert featuring selections from the song cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn (“The Boy’s Magic Horn”) and the rarely performed cantata Das klagende Lied in its full three-part version. Soloists are soprano Miah Persson, contralto Rose Naggar-Tremblay, tenor Clay Hilley, and baritone Matthias Goerne (Sep 16 & 17). Their California tour in October includes Leonidas Kavakos performing, at different destinations, both Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor. Tour repertoire also includes Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, which Payare led on OSM’s European tour in 2022; Montreal composer Samy Moussa’s Elysium; and Stravinsky’s complete Firebird ballet (Oct 25–29). In the spring, Payare and OSM are joined by Alisa Weilerstein for performances of Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote, a tone poem with cello and viola soloists respectively portraying the title character and his squire. The program also features two other Strauss tone poems: Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks and Don Juan (May 19 & 20). Payare and the OSM release their fifth recording on the Pentatone label on October 30, comprising Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

Payare’s two orchestras close out their respective seasons with the same program, featuring a work they co-commissioned: the Symphony No. 6, “Monarch” by Jimmy López, who recently completed a two-year residency with both ensembles. The symphony draws inspiration from the migration of monarch butterflies and reflects on the fragile harmony between life and environment; the Montreal performance marks the world premiere of the work (May 25–27), followed by the U.S. premiere in San Diego (June 4–6). Also on both programs will be Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with separate soloists and chorus at each location: Montreal soloists are soprano Lauren Margison, mezzo-soprano Fleuranne Brockway, tenor Robert Watson, and bass Alexander Vinogradov; while the San Diego performance will feature the SDSO debuts of mezzo-soprano Nikola Printz and baritone Hansung Yoo, along with the returns of tenor Viktor Antipenko and soprano Tasha Hokuao Koontz.