Rafael Payare and the San Diego Symphony are launching Beyond Borders: North American Music Initiative, a growing network of artistic relationships connecting San Diego with communities and cultural institutions in Mexico and Canada. The initiative builds on the Symphony’s sustained work in Baja California and expands that cross-border perspective north through a new artistic relationship with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM). Together, the relationships create new opportunities for musicians, young artists, cultural institutions and audiences to connect across Mexico, the United States and Canada, with San Diego as a meeting point.
The initiative’s first major collaboration with Montréal takes place October 29–30, when OSM and San Diego Symphony musicians come together in San Diego under the leadership of Payare, Music and Artistic Director of the San Diego Symphony and Music Director and Artistic Director of OSM. On Thursday, Oct. 29, at 7:30 p.m., Payare will conduct OSM at Jacobs Music Center in a program featuring Montréal-based composer Samy Moussa’s Elysium, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with internationally acclaimed violinist Leonidas Kavakos, and Stravinsky’s The Firebird. The following day, Friday, Oct. 30, at 7:30 p.m., Payare will bring his two ensembles together on one stage for a free concert at The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park. Titled “Sound of Two Cities,” the performance will offer San Diego audiences a unique opportunity to experience the distinct musical perspectives of San Diego and Montréal while bringing musicians of the San Diego Symphony and OSM together for a meaningful artistic exchange. The program features works by Bartók and Ravel performed by each orchestra individually, followed by Prokofiev’s Scythian Suite and Respighi’s Pines of Rome, performed by the combined ensembles. The concert is free and open to the public, but it is recommended that people RSVP at sdsymph.org/sdso-osm26.
Says Payare:
“Music reminds us that we are connected. When we cross borders with an orchestra, we are not just bringing a concert—we are creating a conversation. We celebrate our neighbors, learn from one another, and create a future through collaboration and creativity. We believe cultural exchange can bring our continent closer together. From Mexico to the United States to Canada, we share so many stories, traditions, and hopes. Through music, we can listen to one another and inspire the next generation of artists and audiences.”
The artistic relationship between San Diego and Montréal continues beyond the OSM’s West Coast visit. Jimmy López serves as composer-in-residence with both the San Diego Symphony and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. The two orchestras have co-commissioned López’s Symphony No. 6, Monarch, which both ensembles will perform in 2027.
López described the symphony’s poetic concept using the migration patterns of monarch butterflies as a metaphor. “They encompass all of North America. Their breeding grounds are in the Midwestern United States, then they go all the way to Southern Canada, and then they fly all the way to their wintering sites in Mexico, and back to the States. This cycle happens within a year and over three generations of monarch butterflies. He continued, “It reminds us that borders are something that we humans invented, but that actually, the natural world doesn’t acknowledge.”
In San Diego, Monarch will receive its U.S. premiere and close the Symphony’s 2026–27 season, performed alongside Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Choral at Jacobs Music Center June 4–6, 2027. “Monarch is a wonderful symbol of what can happen when artistic relationships cross borders,” says Payare. “It is a work shared by two orchestras, written by a composer whose life and work cross cultures, and it will be performed for audiences in two countries. That is the kind of connection we want to keep building.”The Symphony’s North American vision will continue to develop in the seasons ahead, with additional exchanges and performances planned with partners in Mexico and opportunities to expand its cultural relationships in Canada.
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.
Marking their first recording with Delos/Outhere Music (OH Music), the San Diego Symphony (SDSO) and Music and Artistic Director Rafael Payare announce the release of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, “Leningrad,” recorded live in May 2025 in the recently renovated Jacobs Music Center and representing the first release to highlight the enhanced acoustics of the celebrated venue. The album was released digitally on August 28, and the CD is available for purchase now.
Payare comments:
“There are works that test an orchestra not only in size or stamina, but in its ability to hold a vast musical and emotional landscape together over time. Shostakovich’s Seventh is one of those works. It demands power, certainly, but also patience, control, and the capacity to sustain tension across an immense arc. These are qualities I feel the San Diego Symphony can bring to it in a very compelling way. And in Jacobs Music Center, with its extraordinary acoustical richness and clarity, we have the kind of space that allows a work of this scale to speak with its full force and depth.
“I feel a very deep connection to Shostakovich’s music. It expresses brutality, oppression, and human resilience in a way that still feels painfully current, but what has always moved me is the extraordinary depth beneath the surface. In his music, there is often a sense of something withheld; as if behind the power and immediacy there is another voice, more private and more difficult to name. That tension, between what is said openly and what remains hidden, is part of what makes this music so powerful, and why it continues to reveal something new each time you return to it.”
Listen now.
The San Diego Symphony announces a major milestone in its history: the Orchestra’s first-ever European tour, taking place over nine days in spring 2027. Under the direction of Music and Artistic Director Rafael Payare, the Symphony will perform five concerts in some of Europe’s most prestigious venues, introducing international audiences to the “San Diego Sound.”
This tour represents a significant moment of artistic arrival for the Symphony, reflecting years of growth, investment, and deep community connection. Since Payare’s appointment in 2019, the organization has expanded its national and international profile, bolstered by the transformation of the Jacobs Music Center and the opening of The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, which have helped redefine the region’s cultural landscape. The Orchestra’s artistic reputation has also been strengthened by international acclaim for Payare’s artistry and his palpable connection with orchestras and audiences, both in the concert hall and on recordings. The Orchestra’s recent Delos label recording of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, Leningrad—the first recording made in the newly renovated Jacobs Music Center—has further elevated its international profile, earning enthusiastic reviews for both the performance and the recording.
The tour opens April 28, 2027, at Barcelona’s Palau de la Música Catalana, featuring Spanish pianist Javier Perianes performing Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor. This program also includes Kauyumari by Grammy-winning composer Gabriela Ortiz, Symphonic Dances from West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein, and the Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin Suite by Béla Bartók.
The Symphony then continues to Toulouse, Hamburg, Paris, and Dublin where they will be joined by violinist Leonidas Kavakos performing Dmitri Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1. Additional repertoire heard in these cities includes The Firebird Suite (1919) by Igor Stravinsky, highlighting the orchestra’s programmatic versatility.
“In Europe, a visiting orchestra’s performance represents more than a concert—it is a cultural exchange,” says Payare. “The San Diego Symphony has a voice with such brilliance and spirit, it should be heard in concert halls around the world.”
The 2027 European tour represents both an introduction and an offering: a chance to share the artistic energy, diversity, and cultural vitality of the San Diego region with audiences abroad. It also reflects a full-circle moment for the Symphony, which has long brought the world’s music to San Diego and now joins the global stage in return. This tour marks the beginning of a broader international presence for the San Diego Symphony in the years ahead.
