San Diego Symphony and Payare Announce 2026/27 Season

Feb 2, 2026

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.