Walt Disney Concert Hall 2026-27 Season
Join Classical California and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Walt Disney Concert Hall for the following sponsored shows:
Kwamé Ryan Leads Mozart & Copland
Sponsored Concert Date: Fri 10/2/2026
LA Phil
Concert Dates: Fri Oct 2, 2026 8PM Sat Oct 3, 2026 8PM Sun Oct 4, 2026 2PM
Artists: Los Angeles Philharmonic Kwamé Ryan, conductor Bing Wang, violin Ben Ullery, viola
Grammy-winning conductor Kwamé Ryan makes his LA Phil debut with a program of Copland, Mozart, and John Adams.
About the Performance: Hailed as a “dynamic conductor” by the Baltimore Sun, Kwamé Ryan makes his LA Phil debut on a night of effortless joy and excitement.
Acting Concertmaster Bing Wang and Principal Viola Ben Ullery share the spotlight for Mozart’s enduring Sinfonia Concertante, a work that bursts with the delight of exploring new sounds and possibilities.
The program begins with the thrills of John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine and ends with the mighty power and heroism of Copland’s Symphony No. 3. Composed during the final years of World War II, Copland’s symphony soars with victorious brass and shimmering strings, capturing the essence of 1940s Americana. In the words of Leonard Bernstein, this symphony is “an American monument, like the Washington Monument or the Lincoln Memorial.”
Debussy & Stravinsky with Elim Chan
Sponsored Concert Date: Thu 10/22/2026
LA Phil
Photo Credit: LA Phil
Concert Dates: Thu Oct 22, 2026 8PM Sat Oct 24, 2026 2PM Sun Oct 25, 2026 2PM
Artists: Los Angeles Philharmonic Elim Chan, conductor Karen Gomyo, violin
Debussy’s dreamlike colors, Stravinsky’s vivid energy, and Goymo premieres Adams’ Violin Concerto.
About the Performance: Elim Chan leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic in two enchanting and colorful orchestral favorites. Debussy’s hues in Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun are otherworldly if hazy and in watercolor. The Impressionistic atmosphere Debussy conjures exudes a fragile beauty that set off a revolution, which Pierre Boulez said “breathed new air into the art of music.” By contrast, Stravinsky paints with bold, contrasting blocks of sound. Petrushka’s Picasso-esque approach to musical color and movement sets the stage for the story of a mischievous puppet, packed with Russian folklore and misadventure.
In between, Karen Gomyo—who has been described as “a first-rate artist of real musical command, vitality, brilliance, and intensity” by the Chicago Tribune—gives the world premiere of Samuel Adams’ Violin Concerto. The two combined for the premiere of Adams’ “mesmerizing, soulful” (The Independent) Chamber Concerto in 2018. The son of LA Phil Creative Chair John Adams, Samuel Adams writes in a musical style that combines his own background as a jazz bassist with his interest in European modernism and acoustic-digital sounds.
Daniel Harding & Leif Ove Andsnes
Sponsored Concert Date: Sat 11/7/2026
LA Phil
Concert Dates: Fri Nov 6, 2026 8P Sat Nov 7, 2026 8PM Sun Nov 8, 2026 2PM
Artists: Los Angeles Philharmonic Daniel Harding, conductor Leif Ove Andsnes, piano Avery Amereau, mezzo-soprano
Daniel Harding leads Bernstein’s prophetic symphony and Brahms’ concerto of refined beauty.
About the Performance: Leif Ove Andsnes calls Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto “glorious and happy music” that sets soloist and orchestra in a perfectly balanced dialogue. Despite its fiendish technical difficulty and symphony-like scale, Brahms’ Second doesn’t wear its heart on its sleeve but instead glows with carefully crafted elegance—especially in Andsnes’ capable hands that “[blend] intimacy and bravura” in the piece (Chicago Classical Review). By contrast, Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1, nicknamed “Jeremiah” for the Biblical prophet, bristles with raw emotional power. Daniel Harding leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic through Bernstein’s haunting and poetic First, expressing the composer’s self-described “crisis of faith” in a modern and tumultuous world.
The concert begins with the colorful, jazz-infused Latest by Paris-based composer Betsy Jolas, who turns 100 years old in 2026. Aptly titled, this percussive piece is one of Jolas’ more recent works, but certainly not her last. “Old age has fortunately not diminished my curiosity,” she says. “I’m still learning and I’m still trying things I’ve never done before.”
Celebrating Christmas with Le Concert d’Astrée
Sponsored Concert Date: Fri 12/18/2026
LA Phil
Concert Dates: Fri Dec 18, 2026 8PM Sat Dec 19, 2026 8PM Sun Dec 20, 2026 2PM
Artists: Los Angeles Philharmonic Emmanuelle Haïm, conductor Carlo Vistoli, countertenor Thomas Hooten, trumpet James Wilt, trumpet Le Concert d’Astrée Choir
Early music expert Emmanuelle Haïm leads seasonal gems with one of the foremost ensembles in the field of historically informed performance practice.
About the Performance: “Unleashing the wild and daring side of the Baroque has been [Emmanuelle] Haïm’s mission for decades” (The New York Times). And now, she unlocks its festive side, too. As Artist Collaborator, Haïm reunites the Los Angeles Philharmonic with the choir from her acclaimed early music ensemble, Le Concert d’Astrée, for a special holiday celebration.
Joyous and uplifting, Gloria is one of Vivaldi’s most beloved pieces of sacred music. Strings, trumpet, and oboe burst into jubilant action as the singers cry out “Glory to God on high!” Haïm brings her “passionate, energetic approach…one that is as attractive as it is infectious” (Bachtrack) to Vivaldi’s choral masterpiece as well as his buoyant double trumpet concerto and feisty In furore iustissimae irae (In the fury of your righteous ire).
The first half of the program beams with bright, lively music, including Handel’s rollicking Concerto Grosso No. 5 and Corelli’s “Christmas Concerto,” a piece from 1690—a time when dancing was still prohibited in the church. Despite this, Corelli blended recognizable rhythms and abstract tempos from France’s most popular dances.
Mitsuko Uchida & Esa-Pekka Salonen
Sponsored Concert Date: Thu 1/21/2027
LA Phil
Concert Dates: Thu Jan 21, 2027 8PM Fri Jan 22, 2027 11AM Sat Jan 23, 2027 8PM Sun Jan 24, 2027 2PM
Artists: Los Angeles Philharmonic Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor Mitsuko Uchida, piano
Berlioz’s opium-fueled, love-obsessed fantasy meets Ravel’s jazz-inflected piano concerto.
About the Performance: Widely considered one of the most revered musicians of our time, pianist Mitsuko Uchida teams up with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the first time in over 20 years. Together, they’ll perform Ravel’s bright, jaunty, and jazz-inflected Piano Concerto in G, a work that, in the composer’s words, “dispense[s] with drama and depth.” Bachtrack champions Uchida for her “lightness of touch and purity of tone [adding] delicacy to a concerto more often known for its drive and high spirits.”
Bookending the program is Salonen’s palindrome-style fanfare and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique—a feverish, kaleidoscopic fantasy that chronicles an artist’s love-obsessed delirium and opium-fueled nightmares.
Esa-Pekka Salonen Conducts Mozart and Ligeti
Sponsored Concert Date: Thu 2/11/2027
LA Phil
Concert Dates: Thu Feb 11, 2027 8PM Fri Feb 12, 2027 8PM Sat Feb 13, 2027 2PM Sun Feb 14, 2027 2PM
Artists: Los Angeles Philharmonic Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor Jennifer France, soprano Beth Taylor, mezzo-soprano Laurence Kilsby, tenor Michael Sumuel, bass-baritone Los Angeles Master Chorale, Choir Grant Gershon, Artistic Director Jenny Wong, Associate Artistic Director
Esa-Pekka Salonen pairs two requiems: Mozart’s final musical expression of mortality and Ligeti’s mesmerizingly thick and cloudlike Mass of the Dead, memorably included in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
About the Performance: Presented as part of the LA Phil’s Rituals festival, curated by Creative Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, this pairing of requiems brings us face to face with questions of faith, humanity, and mortality.
Mozart’s Requiem owes some of its timeless staying power to the composer’s death prior to its completion. It unfolds as a sacred rite suspended between fear and hope. From its booming Dies irae to its heart wrenching Lacrimosa, the unfinished mass is a powerful yet gentle statement on salvation and eternal rest.
György Ligeti’s Requiem, in the composer’s words, is “hysterical, hyperdramatic, and unrestrained.” When Salonen led the Los Angeles Philharmonic in its first performance of the work in 1998, The New York Times wrote that it felt like a “physical evocation of cold sweat.” Striking, substantial, and, sopping with terror, the music “bears the imprint of a long time spent in the shadow of death” Ligeti says. Sci-fi film fans might recognize its unsettling murmurs and sounds of cosmic dread from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Sponsored Concert Date: Thu 3/18/2027
LA Phil
Concert Dates: Thu Mar 18, 2027 8PM Fri Mar 19, 2027 11AM Sat Mar 20, 2027 8PM
Artists: Los Angeles Philharmonic Philippe Jordan, conductor Jan Lisiecki, piano
Philippe Jordan leads Brahms’ First Symphony and reunites with Jan Lisiecki for a dark an intense Mozart concerto.
About the Performance: Celebrated Swiss conductor Philippe Jordan brings his structural insight and expressive restraint to two contrasting Thirds. Schubert’s Symphony No. 3 brims with youthful confidence and rhythmic vitality. Written while the composer was still in his teens, the symphony is a short cheerful journey with rustic dances, sparkling melodies, and hints of Haydn and Rossini.
Brahms’ Third offers a more introspective journey of a seasoned composer at age 50. The shortest of his symphonies and considered the hardest to conduct, Brahms’ Symphony No. 3 churns between euphoria and introspection, storm clouds and stunning beauty—all before each movement ends not with triumphant conclusion but an unresolving whisper.
Pianist Jan Lisiecki makes his LA Phil debut with the surprising dark intensity of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20. Lisiecki made his orchestral debut at nine and recorded the concerto by the time he was 15. The Canadian pianist offers his “immaculate technique and poetic insight” (The New York Times) to Mozart’s concerto that balances operatic turbulence with moments of luminous calm.
Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto
Sponsored Concert Date: Sat 4/24/2027
LA Phil
Concert Dates: Fri Apr 23, 2027 8PM Sat Apr 24, 2027 8PM Sun Apr 25, 2027 2PM
Artists: Los Angeles Philharmonic Joana Mallwitz, conductor Francesco Piemontesi
Rachmaninoff’s herculean concerto, lively folk dances, and a symphony dedicated to art.
About the Performance: Perhaps no work in the piano literature captures as much awe and terror as Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto. At first thought to be impossible to play, it now rests at the apex of the repertoire, celebrated for both its technical demands and swelling melodies. Soloist Francesco Piemontesi, who “combines stunning technique with an intellectual capacity that few can match” (The Spectator), scales this acme with Joana Mallwitz, one of ELLE’s “Creatives Shaping Culture in 2025.”
Before intermission, Mallwitz dives into 1930s Europe with Kodály’s charming Dances of Galánta, based on the folk tunes the composer heard on his trips from Budapest to Vienna. Written in 1934, a year after the Nazi Party seized control of Germany, Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler Symphony encounters nothing less than German culture, tradition, and the artist’s duty in society.
The Rite of Spring with Salonen
Sponsored Concert Date: Thu 5/13/2027
LA Phil
Concert Dates: Thu May 13, 2027 8PM Fri May 14, 2027 8PM Sat May 15, 2027 8PM Sun May 16, 2027 2PM
Artists: Los Angeles Philharmonic Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor Hilary Hahn, violin
One of music’s most iconic ritualistic expressions meets Prokofiev’s “melody of the highest beauty” (Bachtrack)
About the Performance: Presented as part of the LA Phil Rituals festival, curated by Creative Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, this program explores one of music’s most iconic ritualistic expressions—The Rite of Spring.
In his book Conversations, Stravinsky wrote, “I had dreamed of a scene of pagan ritual in which a chosen sacrificial virgin danced herself to death.” Orchestrating his dream with ferocious harmonies and pounding rhythms, Stravinsky helped usher in the Modern era of music.
Also on the program is Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto performed by three-time Grammy winner Hilary Hahn. Among the pieces she best known for, Bachtrack says this concerto is “an extremely compelling vehicle for her astounding technical and musical talents…Hahn’s lush tone and affectionate shaping of the opening theme of the last movement convinced one that this angular theme was a melody of the highest beauty imaginable.”