Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony will be a cornerstone of Rafael Payare’s performances with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (Montreal Symphony Orchestra/OSM) this summer, in Quebec and on tour. They perform three programs at Quebec’s Festival de Lanaudière in July and August, with the first program featuring the Shostakovich along with Beethoven’s Egmont Overture and Gabriela Ortiz’s recent Grammy-winning Dzonot cello concerto, with dedicatee Alisa Weilerstein as soloist (July 18). Another staple of the OSM’s repertoire, Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, which they released on a 2024 album on Pentatone, is the focus of the second Festival program. Complementing that work are Debussy’s L’isle joyeuse, heard in Bernardino Molinari’s 1923 symphonic arrangement made from the solo piano original, and Berlioz’s song cycle Les nuits d’été featuring mezzo-soprano Marie-Nicole Lemieux (July 31). The third and final Festival de Lanaudière program will feature pianist Bruce Liu. He performs both Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s Third Piano Concerto – his last completed work – on a program that also includes two movements of Penderecki’s Sinfonietta No. 1 and Prokofiev’s Scythian Suite (Aug 1).
Following those concerts, Payare leads the OSM on its 60th international tour, taking in major cities in Scotland, Poland, and Denmark before culminating at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie (Aug 19–28). Tour highlights include performances of both the Shostakovich and Strauss works; Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s monumental cantata trilogy, The Song of Hiawatha (Aug 19); a tribute to Canada’s Indigenous peoples by Canadian composers featuring works by Ana Sokolović and Ian Cusson (Aug 20); performances of Chopin’s two Piano Concertos by young pianists Kevin Chen (Aug 23) and Eric Lu (Aug 24); and Weilerstein’s reprising of her performance of Gabriela Ortiz’s Dzonot (Aug 20, 26 & 28).
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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 will be available exclusively on Apple Music Classical for two months beginning Friday, June 26, coinciding with the opening night of the SDSO summer season at their acclaimed Rady Shell venue on the San Diego waterfront, where Payare and the orchestra perform an all-Russian program that opens with Shostakovich’s Festive Overture. The worldwide digital release of the album follows on August 28, and CDs will be available for purchase starting September 11.
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.”
Martha Gilmer, the President and CEO of the San Diego Symphony, adds:
“We are so excited to mark this milestone in our partnership with Outhere Music and its Delos label, along with the initial release on Apple Music Classical. Our conversations have reinforced a shared commitment to the highest standards of recording. Having listened to both the performance and the finished recording, I could not be more pleased with the result and the opportunities it creates for future recordings. It is so important for a wider audience to hear our orchestra in the newly renovated Jacobs Music Center. The artistry of our musicians and the leadership of Rafael Payare are a powerful combination, and I am happy that listeners around the world will now have the opportunity to experience it for themselves.”
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Canada’s Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (Montreal Symphony Orchestra/OSM) has just announced the renewal of Music and Artistic Director Rafael Payare’s contract for a five-year term through the 2031–32 season. Payare will devote 14 to 16 weeks each season to the Montreal orchestra. The OSM places a strong emphasis on international tours, studio recordings, and broadcasts, and Payare’s tenure has already resulted in four albums on the Pentatone label and four international tours since 2022 – in South Korea, the U.S., and twice in Europe – with a fifth and a sixth scheduled for coming months. The conductor looks forward to taking the podium this summer for an additional European tour (Aug 19–28), followed by a tour to California in the fall (Oct 25–29).
Since being appointed by a unanimous vote as the OSM’s 9th Music Director in 2021, Payare has consolidated the ensemble’s place at the forefront of major North American orchestras while reaffirming its role as a cultural institution firmly rooted in the Montreal, Quebec, and Canadian communities. He elaborates:
“The love and connection I share with the orchestra’s musicians, just like the warm reception I continue to receive from the Montreal community, make me blessed to carry forward this wonderful relationship with the OSM. My family and I have made Montreal our home out of love for this cultural and gastronomical metropolis, and we are proud to be Montrealers. Since my appointment, I have pursued cycles devoted to the works of Mahler and Shostakovich, while also giving pride of place to Québécois, Canadian, and Latin American works and artists. In recording, I enjoyed the opportunity of delving into the post-Romantic Germanic repertoire and returning to the sources of the OSM with the French repertoire, notably Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique and Ravel’s ballet Daphnis et Chloé. So many beautiful programs have been achieved since 2022, which makes me even more eager for what we can build together in the future.”
The renewal of Payare’s contract also heralds a continued commitment to education and the community. A pillar of the OSM’s mission since 1934, education holds particular significance for the conductor, shaped both by his roots in El Sistema and by his commitment to training emerging Quebec and Canadian musicians. Fulfilling a long-held dream, Payare created the Programme El Sistema OSM to enable young people from Montréal-Nord to learn orchestral music completely free of charge. Other educational initiatives include masterclasses, collaborations with the conservatory network, the OSM Competition, and the Orchestral Immersion project, all with the fundamental goal of supporting the next generation of musicians. Likewise, community engagement initiatives include free or low-cost concerts, school matinees that accommodate over 30,000 young people annually, and large-scale concerts in parks.
From August 15 to 29, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal will undertake its 60th international tour; less than two months later, the OSM will land in California to commence its 61st. After South Korea, Europe, and the United States, these will be the OSM’s fifth and sixth tours under the baton of Rafael Payare.
Says Payare:
“To lead the OSM on its 60th international tour, within major European festivals, marks a deeply meaningful milestone—a moment to reflect on the Orchestra’s extraordinary journey while bringing our sound to places where musical tradition feels almost tangible. As we continue with the 61st tour in California, particularly in San Diego, the experience becomes more personal, where different parts of my musical life come together. These tours bring Canadian composers and soloists into dialogue with the international repertoire, fulfilling our mission to share Montréal’s unique musical voice with audiences around the world.”
On August 15, the orchestra embarks on a tour of European festivals in Edinburgh, Warsaw, Aarhus, and Hamburg, under the direction of Payare. The OSM will be joined by several distinguished soloists for this tour featuring various programs. In two concerts at the Edinburgh International Festival, the OSM will perform Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s monumental Song of Hiawatha with the Festival Chorus. Indigenous sopranos Elisabeth St-Gelais and Emma Pennell will then join the orchestra in a performance of two Canadian works by Ana Sokolović and Ian Cusson, set to libretti by Indigenous poets Michelle Sylliboy and Natasha Kanapé Fontaine. Cellist Alisa Weilerstein will also team up with the OSM in a performance of Gabriela Ortiz’s Dzonot, which recently won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Composition. She will perform this same work with the OSM in Aarhus, during the orchestra’s first visit to Denmark, and again in Hamburg. On a final stop in Warsaw, Chopin will be celebrated in two concerts: on August 23, Canadian pianist Kevin Chen, second prize winner of the most recent Chopin Competition, will join the orchestra; then on August 24, Eric Lu, winner of the same competition, will share the stage.
From October 24 to 31, the OSM will return to California to give three concerts, respectively in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. The OSM will perform as a guest of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony for the first time in 37 years—an honor for the Orchestra. For this occasion, violinist Leonidas Kavakos will join the OSM to perform Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major, op. 35, and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, op. 64. Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 10 is also on the program for these two concerts, and the orchestra will present Elysium by Montreal composer Samy Moussa at the concert on October 27 in Los Angeles. To conclude this California tour, Payare will have the pleasure of conducting the OSM for the San Diego public, who already know him well as the Musical and Artistic Director of the San Diego Symphony. For this concert, the OSM will perform Stravinsky’s The Firebird, as well as Moussa’s Elysium and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major, op. 35, with Kavakos.
