Carnegie Hall

The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra is regarded as one of the world’s finest orchestras. Since the Met’s inception in 1883, it has worked with leading conductors in both opera and concert performances, and has developed into an orchestra of enormous technical polish and style. The musicians maintain a demanding schedule of performances and rehearsals during the 32-week Lincoln Center season, with as many as seven performances per week in repertory that this season encompasses 18 operas. In addition to its opera schedule, the orchestra has a distinguished history of concert performances, including an annual series at Carnegie Hall.

The history of the Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble goes back to 1998, when then–Music Director James Levine organized the group’s first performance at Carnegie Hall in an effort to showcase the artistry and virtuosity of the orchestra members, and to create an opportunity for the musicians to perform more intimate repertoire. The chamber ensemble gave performances until 2016, when the concerts were discontinued.

In 2021, the group returned in a new initiative of the Met, with an artistic committee of orchestra members planning its repertoire in collaboration with Met administration and music staff. All orchestra members have the opportunity to participate in the series, and the programs often feature guest singers from the Met’s roster. This season, the chamber ensemble presents six performances in Weill Recital Hall.

Visit metorchestramusicians.org to read bios for individual orchestra members.

Canadian-born conductor and pianist Yannick Nézet-Séguin became the Metropolitan Opera’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director with the beginning of the 2018–2019 season. He made his company debut in 2009 with a new production of Bizet’s Carmen and has since returned every season, leading more than 200 performances of 25 operas, as well as numerous galas and concerts with the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and on tour in Europe and Asia. He also serves as artistic director of the company’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. During the 2024–2025 season, he returns to the podium to conduct the Met premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s Grounded, new productions of Verdi’s Aida and Strauss’s Salome, revivals of Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten and Puccini’s Tosca and La Bohème, and concerts with the Met Orchestra and Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble at Carnegie Hall. In August 2024, the Met and Mr. Nézet-Séguin announced the extension of his tenure as music director through the 2029–2030 season.

He has been music director of The Philadelphia Orchestra since 2012 and held the same position with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra—where he now serves as honorary conductor—between 2008 and 2018. Since 2000, he has served as artistic director and principal conductor of Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain. From 2008 to 2014, he was principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and during the 2019–2020 and 2020–2021 seasons, he was a Carnegie Hall Perspectives artist.

He enjoys close collaborations with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Vienna Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and has led performances at La Scala, Covent Garden, Dutch National Opera, Vienna State Opera, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, and the festivals of Salzburg, Edinburgh, Lucerne, Grafenegg, Lanaudière, Vail, and Saratoga. His extensive recording catalog includes Kevin Puts’s The Hours, Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas, Terence Blanchard’s Champion and Fire Shut Up in My Bones, A Concert for Ukraine, Verdi’s Requiem: The Met Remembers 9/11, and Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice with the Met; his first solo piano album, Introspection: Solo Piano Sessions; Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene, with soprano Renée Fleming; and numerous albums with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. He has received five Grammy Awards (of 16 nominations), winning most recently for conducting the soundtrack for the film Maestro.

The 2010 recipient of the Met’s Beverly Sills Artist Award, established by Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman, soprano Susanna Phillips made her debut with the company in 2008 as Musetta in La Bohème and has since appeared as Mimì in La Bohème, Countess Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, Donna Elvira and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Micaëla in Carmen, Clémence in the Met premiere of Saariaho’s L’Amour de Loin, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus, Antonia/Stella in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte.

A frequent collaborator with Boston Baroque, she has sung Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare and the title role of Agrippina with the ensemble, and she has also starred in performances at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Cincinnati Opera, The Dallas Opera, and Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu. Dedicated to symphonic works, she has collaborated with highly esteemed ensembles that include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and her native Huntsville Symphony Orchestra. An avid chamber-music collaborator, she has performed a tribute concert to Clara Schumann at the Library of Congress and has sung for Washington Performing Arts in a program co-curated by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

In 2005, she was a Grand Finals Winner of the Met’s National Council Auditions (now the Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition) and won First Place and the Audience Prize in the Operalia competition. She has also claimed the top honor at the Marilyn Horne Foundation Competition and first prizes from the American Opera Society and Musicians Club of Women. Other highlights of her 2024–2025 season include engagements with the Seattle Symphony, Musica Sacra, Oratorio Society of New York, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony, as well as a tour with her chamber ensemble, SPA Trio.

A graduate of the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung returns to the company this spring as Herodias in a new production of Salome, following past performances in Tannhäuser, Tristan und Isolde, the Ring cycle, the world premiere of Tan Dun’s The First Emperor, Les Troyens, the company premiere of The Makropulos Case, Die Zauberflöte, Aida, The Ghosts of Versailles, Idomeneo, Dialogues des Carmélites, and Death in Venice. She has also appeared in multiple concerts with the Met Orchestra. Elsewhere this season, she appears in concert with the Louisville Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

She appears frequently with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the New York, Los Angeles, and Vienna philharmonics; Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and BBC symphony orchestras; Minnesota, Philharmonia, and Royal Philharmonic orchestras; The Cleveland Orchestra; San Francisco Symphony; Orchestre de Paris; Bavarian State Opera Orchestra; Staatskapelle Berlin; São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra; and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. She has also appeared at the prestigious festivals of Ravinia, Tanglewood, Aspen, Cincinnati, Saito Kinen, Edinburgh, Salzburg, Saint-Denis, and Lucerne, and in recital at the University of Chicago, Weill Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Cal Performances in Berkeley, SUNY–Purchase College, Calvin College, Roy Thomson Hall, Thèâtre du Châtelet, Edinburgh International Festival, London’s Wigmore Hall, and Brussels’s La Monnaie.

A three-time Grammy Award winner, she is the founder of Ensemble Charité, an organization that supports various charities while also fostering young, emerging musicians through community performances of chamber concerts with seasoned professional musicians.

A native of Prairie Village, Kansas, tenor Ben Bliss is a graduate of the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program and was a 2021 recipient of the Met’s Beverly Sills Award, established by Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman. He made his debut with the company in 2014 as Kunz Vogelgesang in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and has since appeared as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s Progress, Ferrando in Così fan tutte, the Steersman in Der Fliegende Holländer, Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor. He recently concluded a run of performances as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, having also opened the company’s 2024–2025 season as Eric in the Met premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s Grounded.

Elsewhere this season, he sings Mozart’s Requiem with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Tom Rakewell at the Opéra de Paris, Jupiter in Semele at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Covent Garden, and a concert with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Recent performances include Pelléas in Pelléas et Mélisande and Tamino in Die Zauberflöte at the Bavarian State Opera; Ferrando at the Vienna State Opera; Don Ottavio at the Opéra de Paris, Canadian Opera Company, and Staatsoper Berlin; and Roméo in Roméo et Juliette at Lyric Opera of Kansas City.

Concert highlights include his debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel and the New York Philharmonic as Tony in Bernstein’s West Side Story Concert Suite No. 1 with Alan Gilbert, Haydn’s Die Schöpfung and Cassio in Otello at the Cincinnati May Festival under James Conlon, a house and role debut as Camille de Rosillon in The Merry Widow in concert at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu, and a US recital tour with pianist Lachlan Glen.