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.
The 2026/27 season marks Rafael Payare’s fifth as Music Director of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. They will open OSM’s 93rd season in grand style with the expressive power of Mahler, continuing the cycle begun in 2022. The opening concert on September 16 and 17 will bring together Das klagende Lied (Song of Lamentation), an early work based on an epic tale, and excerpts from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn) with its highly refined instrumentation and musical exploration of the folk-tale universe.
On September 23, for the first time in over a decade, the OSM will welcome pianist Lang Lang in a performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 5 under Payare’s direction. On October 21 and 22, Leonidas Kavakos joins the Orchestra on stage to play Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, op. 35, in a program conducted by Payare, completed by Elysium by Canadian composer Samy Moussa and Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird. In December, Stravinsky’s Petrushka features in a program where the OSM welcomes German violinist Veronika Eberle, whom we will hear in Mozart’s Violin Concerto no. 5.
On January 12 and 13, Payare and the OSM will usher in 2027 by welcoming celebrated soprano Renée Fleming, who will perform Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene, the product of Fleming’s collaboration with National Geographic. This multimedia concert explores humanity’s relationship with its environment. The first movement of composer-in-residence Jimmy López’s Symphony no. 4 will also be a feature of this concert’s program.
April brings the return of the Mozart Festival, which threads together three different programs. On April 8 and 11, the piano takes center stage as Payare and the OSM join with award-winning performers Charles Richard-Hamelin, Meagan Milatz, and Kevin Chen for a rare event: a performance of the Concerto no. 7 for three pianos. In the week after, Mozart’s vocal and operatic works will take the spotlight, in two programs. First, make way for the Great Mass in C minor, the Exsultate, jubilate and the serenade Eine kleine Nachtmusik. Then, on April 15 and 17, the cycle of Mozart/Da Ponte operas will reach its conclusion with Don Giovanni, featuring, among others, Michèle Lozier, Gustavo Castillo, and Jenny Daviet.
In May, cellist Alisa Weilerstein will join the OSM and Payare in three programs exploring the symphonic imagination of Richard Strauss. Finally, a resounding season finale is planned for May 25 and 26, with Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 and the world premiere of Jimmy López’s Symphony no. 6, “Monarch,” co-commissioned by the OSM and the San Diego Symphony.
“Every new season with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal opens a door on another musical adventure. In 2026–2027, music becomes storytelling, as each work tells its own story, stirs the imagination and draws out the orchestra’s colors. This season promises to be just like Montreal: vibrant, ambitious, teeming with life, and unique. Music invites us to hear the world differently … immerse yourselves in the best it has to offer.”—Rafael Payare, OSM Music Director
Learn more about the full season here.
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.
