Rafael Payare is Preludium magazine’s February 2026 cover story ahead of his debut leading the Concertgebouw Orchestra this week. The feature highlights Payare’s musical journey, beginning with his early years as a musician in Venezuela to his rise as leading conductor and music director of both San Diego Symphony and Orchestre symphonique de Montréal.
Says Payare of his upcoming debut in Amsterdam:
“I think it’s a fantastic honor. I know the orchestra’s history with Willem Mengelberg and Gustav Mahler. You couldn’t find many recordings in Venezuela, but when we toured with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, we were the first to run to a CD store in every city. A small group of us agreed, ‘If you buy this in Vienna, I’ll buy that in Berlin.’ And then we listened and exchanged experiences.”
Read the full piece here and listen to the Spotify playlist below.
Next season the San Diego Symphony brings 19 programs of orchestral monuments, guest soloists’s show-stopping performances, and an exploration of a world of music of shimmering color and intoxicating rhythms—all designed to share deeply human storytelling through sound. Programming features 13 symphonies, 15 concertos and five solo features, and 15 works new to the San Diego Symphony, including one U.S. premiere.
Works range from the heroic to fantastical, dramatic to atmospheric. Audiences will take sonic journeys to landscapes and waterscapes around the world—North Atlantic seas, Venezuelan plains, Nordic vistas, American prairies, and West Coast Monarch migration paths—and into the dances, songs, stories and cultures of the world, expressed through music. The recently extended contract with Music and Artistic Director Rafael Payare ensures the continuation of his artistic vision and ambitions for the Symphony, shaping the San Diego Sound through an ongoing exploration of the hall’s rich acoustic possibilities. Payare will open and close the season in heroic fashion, conducting Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben on opening weekend and presenting a season finale blockbuster of the U. S. premiere of Jimmy López’ Symphony No. 6, Monarch and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. In between, Payare continues his devoted survey of Shostakovich (10th) and Mahler (Sixth) symphonies, and he also leads performances of Bruckner’s Ninth along with works of extraordinary artistic imagination including Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique, Bartok’s The Miraculous Mandarin, Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite, Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, and Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.
Jimmy López continues the second year of his two-season residency with both the San Diego Symphony and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM) as composer-in-residence. The Symphony will perform two of his works: Shift, Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra and his Symphony No. 6, Monarch (2025), co-commissioned by the San Diego Symphony and OSM. Monarch draws inspiration from the migration of monarch butterflies and reflects on the fragile harmony between life and environment.
The San Diego Symphony will perform 15 works for the first time in the orchestra’s history, spanning a wide range of styles and eras: Isaac Albéniz’ Rapsodia española; Béla Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 1; Inocente Carreño’s Margariteña; Antonín Dvořák’s The Wood Dove; Alberto Ginastera’s Concierto argentino; Sofia Gubaidulina’s Fairytale Poem; Gideon Klein’s Partita for Strings; Jimmy López’ Shift, Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra, and Symphony No. 6, Monarch (U.S. premiere); Felix Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Op. 27; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Chaconne from Idomeneo; Matthias Pintscher’s Assonanza for Violin and Chamber Orchestra; Francis Poulenc’s Suite from Les biches (The Does); Maurice Ravel’s Tzigane; and Esa-Pekka Salonen’s kínēma.
“The Jacobs Music Center has become a truly inspiring place for our orchestra and community to come together for concerts,” says Payare. “For the 2026-27 season, I am excited to continue this collaboration with the wonderful musicians of the San Diego Symphony—to bring moments of beauty to audiences who have embraced us so warmly. This connection is at the heart of our art form, and I am incredibly grateful and excited to share these incredible orchestral works with our fantastic audiences.”
A San Diego Symphony special presentation of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal will be performed at the Jacobs Music Center on Thursday, October 29 at 8 p.m., led by Music and Artistic Director Rafael Payare, and featuring violinist Leonidas Kavakos. The program opens with Elysium (2021) by Canadian-German composer Samy Moussa, a luminous meditation on the afterlife envisioned as the ultimate reward for an ethical life, followed by Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, one of the repertoire’s most beloved works, renowned for its lyrical beauty, romantic intensity, and dazzling virtuosity. The evening concludes with Stravinsky’s The Firebird, presented in its complete ballet form, promising a richly colored and imaginative night of music.
See the full season schedule here.
In the spring, Rafael Payare makes his Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra debut leading violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann in Frank Martin’s Violin Concerto, on a program with Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony and Sofia Gubaidulina’s Fairytale Poem, inspired by Miloš Macourek’s The Little Piece of Chalk (Feb 18, 19). Following these performances, Payare conducts the Shostakovich by itself in the orchestra’s “Essentials” series (Feb 20).
For a return engagement with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Payare leads Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with concertmaster David Kim as the soloist, along with Manuel de Falla’s El Amor Brujo – of which The Philadelphia Orchestra gave the U.S. premiere in 1922 – and pioneering Indigenous American composer Louis Wayne Ballard’s Devil’s Promenade (Feb 5–7).
In March, Payare conducts The Cleveland Orchestra in Miami with members of the New World Symphony. The program of Sibelius and Stravinsky comprises the former composer’s Swan of Tuonela and Violin Concerto in D minor with violinist Sergey Khachatryan as soloist, along with Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (March 27, 28).
For Payare’s last U.S. guest appearance of the season, he joins the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and pianist Yulianna Avdeeva for performances of Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto, sharing the bill with a second interpretation of The Rite of Spring and Jimmy López’s Perú Negro (April 10, 12).
After winter performances of Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony in San Diego and the Tenth with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the same composer’s Symphony No. 7 – which Payare also conducts in Montreal this season – is the vehicle for his return to the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, paired with a reprise of Billy Childs’s Diaspora, Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra, featuring saxophonist Steven Banks (June 7).
The San Diego Symphony has extended Rafael Payare’s tenure as Music and Artistic Director through the 2028-29 season, marking 10 years of his transformative leadership at the helm.
This period has been a historic one for the San Diego Symphony, highlighted by the opening of two landmark venues—the acclaimed Rady Shell at Jacobs Park on the San Diego Bay and the beautifully restored Jacobs Music Center in downtown San Diego.
“We are delighted that Rafael has extended his time with us,” says Symphony President and CEO Martha Gilmer. “Rafael’s vision for the orchestra and his inspiring musicianship have transformed our Orchestra, deepening both the artistic excellence our musicians regularly bring to the stage as well as our bond with the San Diego community. During his tenure we have opened two extraordinary venues, welcomed 26 new members to our orchestra, performed countless new works, and reached deeper into our community taking our musicians to many communities, civic centers, schools, and hospitals. As we look forward to the years ahead, we will take the sound of our orchestra even further. Expanding our reach in our region, nationally and internationally, and developing a deeper connection with audiences is our top priority. As Rafael has always said, ‘the sky’s the limit’ and we continue to set our sights high. We look forward to this next chapter of extraordinary collaboration and creativity.”
Says Payare:
“The artistic partnership I share with my wonderful San Diego Symphony continues to thrive, and I’m proud to be part of shaping the orchestra’s evolving sound. The extraordinary venues here in San Diego inspire us and allow us to explore and present music in new ways. Together, we’ll continue to deepen the orchestra’s artistry, achieve new heights, and keep expanding the repertoire. I am so very happy to share this remarkable journey with our audiences.”
Read more here.
