In Thursday’s (1/29) Philadelphia Inquirer, Peter Dobrin writes, “Simon Rattle is returning to the Philadelphia Orchestra after a decade. New works are being unveiled by Spirited Away composer Joe Hisaishi. And a major orchestral piece by Leonard Bernstein is receiving its world premiere—sort of. The Philadelphia Orchestra’s 127th season will be a mix of standard repertoire, newly minted scores, film music, family concerts, and guest artists new and familiar. Emanuel Ax has been dubbed ‘artist of distinction’ for the season … The Philadelphians will perform their first-ever complete Bach Christmas Oratorio. Following on the heels of last season’s Tristan und Isolde, the orchestra takes on Wagner’s Lohengrin for the first time…. Music and Artistic Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin … will lead 12 weeks of programs in 2026-27 (plus special concerts), with podium appearances by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Anthony Parnther, Dima Slobodeniouk, Jane Glover, Fabio Luisi and others…. Marin Alsop, the orchestra’s principal guest conductor, leads three weeks of programs plus special concerts…. Among the premieres, or first performances by the Philadelphia Orchestra, are works by Reena Esmail, Julia Wolfe, Unsuk Chin, Anna Meredith, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Gabriela Ortiz, and Caroline Shaw…. A Marin Alsop program includes the world premiere of The Party, a collaboration between composer Austin Fisher and conceptual artist Alex Da Corte … commissioned by the orchestra…. Garth Edwin Sunderland, a composer and vice president of creative projects at the Leonard Bernstein Office, was engaged to create Symphonic Rituals from Mass, which contains about 40 minutes of music—a ‘new’ work drawn from Bernstein’s [1971] score.”
