Carnegie Hall

The world-renowned Philadelphia Orchestra strives to share the transformative power of music with the widest possible audience, and to create joy, connection, and excitement through music in the Philadelphia region, across the country, and around the world. Through innovative programming, robust education initiatives, a commitment to its diverse communities, and the embrace of digital outreach, the ensemble is creating an expansive future for classical music, and furthering the place of the arts in an open and democratic society. In June 2021, the orchestra and its home, the Kimmel Center, united to form The Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center, Inc., reimagining the power of the arts to bring joy, create community, and effect change.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin is now in his 11th season as music director of The Philadelphia Orchestra. His connection to the ensemble’s musicians has been praised by both concertgoers and critics, and he is embraced by the musicians of the orchestra, audiences, and the community.

The Philadelphia Orchestra takes great pride in its hometown, performing for the people of Philadelphia year-round, in Verizon Hall and community centers, in classrooms and hospitals, and over the airwaves and online. In response to the cancellation of concerts due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the orchestra launched the Digital Stage, providing access to high-quality online performances, keeping music alive at a time when it was needed most. It also inaugurated free offerings: HearTOGETHER, a podcast on racial and social justice, and creative equity and inclusion, through the lens of the world of orchestral music, and Our City, Your Orchestra, a series of digital performances that connects the orchestra with communities through music and dialogue while celebrating the diversity and vibrancy of the Philadelphia region.

The Philadelphia Orchestra’s award-winning education and community initiatives engage more than 50,000 students, families, and community members of all ages through programs such as PlayINs; side-by-sides; PopUP concerts; Our City, Your Orchestra Live; School Concerts; the School Partnership Program and School Ensemble Program; and All City Orchestra Fellowships.

Through concerts, tours, residencies, and recordings, the orchestra is a global ambassador and one of our nation’s greatest exports. It performs annually at Carnegie Hall, the Mann Center, the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, and the Bravo! Vail Music Festival. The orchestra also has a rich touring history, having first performed outside Philadelphia in its earliest days. In 1973, it became the first American orchestra to perform in the People’s Republic of China, launching a five-decade commitment of people-to-people exchange.

Under Yannick’s leadership, the orchestra returned to recording with 12 celebrated releases on the Deutsche Grammophon label, including the Grammy Award–winning Florence Price Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3. The orchestra also reaches thousands of radio listeners with weekly broadcasts on WRTI-FM and SiriusXM. For more information, please visit philorch.org.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin is currently in his 11th season as music director of The Philadelphia Orchestra. Additionally, he became the third music director of the Metropolitan Opera in 2018. Yannick, who holds the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Chair, is an inspired leader of The Philadelphia Orchestra. His intensely collaborative style, deeply rooted musical curiosity, and boundless enthusiasm have been heralded by critics and audiences alike. The New York Times has called him “phenomenal,” adding that “the ensemble, famous for its glowing strings and homogenous richness, has never sounded better.”

Yannick has established himself as a musical leader of the highest caliber and one of the most thrilling talents of his generation. He has been artistic director and principal conductor of Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain since 2000, and in 2017 he became an honorary member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He was also music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra (he is now honorary conductor). He has made wildly successful appearances with the world’s most revered ensembles and at many of the leading opera houses. Yannick signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon in 2018. Under his leadership, The Philadelphia Orchestra returned to recording with 12 releases on that label, including Florence Price’s symphonies nos. 1 and 3, which recently won a Grammy Award.

A native of Montreal, Yannick studied piano, conducting, composition, and chamber music at Montreal’s Conservatory of Music and continued his studies with renowned conductor Carlo Maria Giulini; he also studied choral conducting with Joseph Flummerfelt at Westminster Choir College. Among Yannick’s honors are an appointment as Companion of the Order of Canada; Companion to the Order of Arts and Letters of Quebec; an Officer of the Order of Quebec; an Officer of the Order of Montreal; an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres; Musical America’s 2016 Artist of the Year; ECHO Klassik’s 2014 Conductor of the Year; a Royal Philharmonic Society Award; Canada’s National Arts Centre Award; the Prix Denise-Pelletier; the Oskar Morawetz Award; and honorary doctorates from the University of Quebec, the Curtis Institute of Music, Westminster Choir College of Rider University, McGill University, Université de Montréal, University of Pennsylvania, and Laval University. To read Yannick’s full bio, please visit philorch.org/conductor.

Grammy Award–winning pianist Daniil Trifonov—Musical America’s 2019 Artist of the Year—has established a reputation as a solo artist, champion of the concerto repertoire, chamber and vocal collaborator, and composer. With Transcendental, the Liszt collection that marked his third title as an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon (DG) artist, he won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Solo Album of 2018. He first appeared with The Philadelphia Orchestra at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in 2013 and made his subscription debut in 2015, just weeks after DG released the Grammy-nominated recording Rachmaninoff Variations with him, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and The Philadelphia Orchestra. Also on DG with Yannick and the orchestra, he has recorded Destination Rachmaninoff: Arrival and Destination Rachmaninoff: Departure.

In the 2021–2022 season, Mr. Trifonov released Bach: The Art of Life on DG and toured the US and Europe with a recital program based on the album. Other highlights included Brahms’s First Piano Concerto with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Philharmonia Zurich and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 with Rome’s Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. He performed all five Beethoven piano concertos in various combinations with eight different orchestras, including the New York and Munich philharmonics, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. In January 2022, he joined The Philadelphia Orchestra for the world premiere of Mason Bates’s new Piano Concerto, composed for Mr. Trifonov and co-commissioned by The Philadelphia Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony. He also performed the concerto with the San Francisco and New Jersey symphonies and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

In recent seasons, Mr. Trifonov has served as artist in residence of the New York Philharmonic—a residency that included the New York premiere of his own Piano Quintet—and curated and performed a seven-concert Carnegie Hall Perspectives series, crowned by a performance of his Piano Concerto. He has played solo recitals around the world since his Carnegie Hall debut in the 2012–2013 season. In 2016, he was named Gramophone’s Artist of the Year, and in 2021 he was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.