Music and artistic director Yannick Nezet-Seguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra have announced the details of their 125th anniversary season of concerts to be performed in the newly and deservedly renamed Marian Anderson Hall. The theater is the major venue in the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, located at Broad & Spruce Streets in Center City.

Highlights of the 2025/26 season include Nezet-Seguin’s exploration of the monumental symphonic works of Gustav Mahler, performances of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” the score of the Disney film, “Fantasia,” performed in concert, the premiere of Wynton Marsalis’ Symphony No. 5, and the appearances of such major classical music luminaries (with local connections via the Curtis Institute of Music) such as violinist Hilary Hahn and pianists Yuja Wang and Lang Lang. 

"Opening Night” for the 2025-26 season is set for Thursday, Sept. 25, at 7 p.m., with Yannick Nezet-Seguin on the podium and soloist Yuja Wang, an alumna of the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with Gary Graffman. The former head of the piano department as well as Curtis’ former director and president, Graffman personifies the long legacy of pianistic excellence of which Wang is a part. Graffman’s pedigree includes studies with Isabelle Vengerova, Rudolf Serkin and Vladimir Horowitz. 

Wang will be the soloist in Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, The program also includes Arturo Marquez Navarro’s “Danzon No. 2” and the Suite No. 2 from Ravel’s ballet, “Daphnis and Chloe.” 

Nezet-Seguin will lead concerts Saturday, Jan. 31 at 8 p.m., and Sunday, Feb. 1 at 2 p.m. The highlight of the program will be a performance of Igor Stravinsky’s groundbreaking ballet score, “The Rite of Spring,” which I consider the greatest orchestral work of the 20th and 21st centuries. Joining Nezet-Seguin will be pianist Seong-Jin Cho for Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Ravel’s "Mother Goose” Suite will fill out the roster.

Pianist Lang Lang, another Curtis alumnus who studied with Graffman, will join Nezet-Seguin for a one-night-only performance of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto Tuesday, April 7, at 7:30 p.m. The maestro will also conduct Brahms’ Second Symphony.

Rounding out a trio of Curtis grads will be violinist Hilary Hahn playing the Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 with Santtu-Matias Rouvali on the podium. Tchaikovsky’s “Capriccio italien” and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 6 will round out the roster of music.

For a full view of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s 125th anniversary season visit philorch.org/2526season.

 ‘In Praise of the Organ’

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Chestnut Hill, continued its season of concerts celebrating the restoration and renovation of its 114-rank Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ Sunday, Feb. 23, with a program of music for organ, baritone soloist and chorus. The event, which drew well over 100 music lovers, capped the celebration of the life of Richard Alexander, the parish’s longtime director of music, who passed away earlier in February. Alexander was a tireless proponent of the church’s magnificent organ.

Current director of music, Andrew Kotylo, conducted the parish’s Adult Choir, baritone Logan Dell’Acqua, and organists Alan Morrison and Andy Brown in a program of works by William Mathias, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Marcel Dupre, Herbert Howells, Richard Shephard, and Zoltan Kodaly. Morrison is the head of the organ department of the Curtis Institute of Music; Brown is the organ scholar at St. Paul’s Church and a student at Curtis.

The program’s two major works were Vaughan Williams’ “Five Mystical Songs” and Kodaly’s “Laudes organi.” Interestingly, both the English Vaughan Williams and the Hungarian Kodaly lived to be 85 years old. However, while the “Five Mystical Sons” came early in the former’s career in 1911, “Laudes organi” was composed in 1966, the year before the latter’s death.

Baritone Dell’Acqua caught and projected the varied moods of Vaughan Williams through effortless resonance and crystalline diction, while Kotylo, the choir and Morrison at the console supported him superbly. All hands were also on deck for the Kodaly. They filled St. Paul’s stunning neo-gothic sanctuary with muscular tones and tart lyricism. Earlier in the program Brown gave a masterful reading to Dupre’s “Variations sur un Noel.”

‘Cosi fan tutte’ at AVA

The Academy of Vocal Arts continued its 2024-25 season of fully staged opera productions with a devilish interpretation of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte” in its intimate Warden Theater in Center City. The mounting opened Feb. 22 and continued through March 1. Robert Kahn conducted and Jose Maria Condemi stage directed.

Composed in 1790 to a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, “Cosi” is a textbook example of a ludicrous narrative inspiring a musical masterpiece. While nary a word in “Cosi” makes any sense whatsoever, every note is sublime – and AVA’s cast of aspiring opera singers all gave superb performances.

For more information about AVA visit avaopera.org.

You can contact NOTEWORTHY at Michael-caruso@comcast.net.