The Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s 2026-27 season will include concert performances of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, with Ildebrando D’Arcangelo in the title role, and Bach’s St. John Passion.
Both works will be conducted by music director Fabio Luisi, who’ll lead eight other programs in the Classical Series of 20.
There will be some reshuffling of performance days, with the Thursday night series reduced to eight programs, versus this season’s 12. Friday and Saturday series will remain at 16 programs each, Sundays at 14.
One concert each in the Thursday and Sunday schedules will be in a shortened format without intermission.
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The acclaimed Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki will make her DSO debut, as will Elim Chan, David Danzmayr, Samuel Lee, Michele Mariotti and Emmanuel Tjeknavorian. Returning to the Meyerson Symphony Center podium will be Stéphane Denève, Kevin John Edusei, Matthew Halls, Jaime Martín and Matthias Pintscher.
Aristo Sham, gold medalist of the 2025 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, will make his DSO debut, performing the Prokofiev Second Concerto. Other soloists will include cellist Yo-Yo Ma; pianists Daniil Trifonov, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Lise de la Salle and Cédric Tiberghien; and violinists Karen Gomyo and Randall Goosby.
DSO principals Daniel Hawkins (horn), David Buck (flute), Emily Levin (harp), and Alexander Kerr (violin) also will be featured.
Pianist Lang Lang will present a solo recital.
The schedule includes two world premieres: a triple concerto by Iranian composer Golfam Khayam (with star violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, violist and cellist ) and, featuring cellist Tommy Mesa, a cello concerto by American Michael Abels.
Other recent works will include the Concierto mistico y profano by Mexican composer Arturo Márquez (featuring guitarist Pablo Sáinz Villegas), a violin concerto by Canadian Samy Moussa (with Gomyo as soloist) and Contact, a triple concerto by American Kevin Puts (to be performed by the trio Time for Three).
There’s a fair cross-section of standard orchestral repertory, including a Mahler First Symphony to be conducted by Luisi. Representation of mainstream 20th-century American music is limited to Gershwin’s American in Paris, Dance Episodes from Bernstein’s On the Town and Alan Hovhaness’ Mysterious Mountain. More off-the-beaten-path works include the Scriabin Piano Concerto, the Suite No. 2 from Albert Roussel’s Bacchus et Ariane and Darius Milhaud’s La création du monde. And the Dallas Symphony Chorus will be heard in Brahms’ gorgeous but rarely performed Schicksalslied.
Once again, the Meyerson’s big Fisk organ will get minimal use in the symphonic repertory, although resident organist Bradley Hunter Welch will perform in the Saint-Saëns Third Symphony. Solo organ recitals will be performed by Anna Lapwood, who’s become an international social media sensation, and Raúl Prieto Ramírez.
As usual, there will be numerous concerts around the Christmas holiday, plus a New Year’s Eve concert.
The gala concert will be a pops program, with vocalist Idina Menzel. Enrico Lopez-Yañez, principal conductor of Dallas Symphony Presents, will be on the podium, as well as for pops concerts featuring music of Elvis Presley (with Frankie Moreno and his band), music of pop queens of the ’90s and ’00s and vocalist Mandy Gonzalez singing Lin-Manuel Miranda. Jeff Tyzik, principal pops conductor emeritus, will lead two programs: “Rock Legends of the 60s and 70s: Sounds of Laurel Canyon” and “Summer Breeze: Yacht Rock Classics.”
The DSO’s movies-in-concert series will include Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Hocus-Pocus, The Muppet Christmas Carol, Up and Barbie.
Season subscriptions are now on sale at 214-849-4376 and dallassymphony.org. Single tickets will be available in July.
CORRECTION, 10:44 a.m., Feb. 26, 2026: An earlier version of this story misstated part of the title for the program called “Rock Legends of the 60s and 70s: Sounds of Laurel Canyon.”
CORRECTIONS, 12:02 p.m., Feb. 26, 2026: An earlier version of this story included incorrect information about the season’s performance days.