National Philharmonic Unveils 2025-2026 Season at Strathmore

National Philharmonic has revealed its 2025-2026 Season, which opens in September with a program primarily featuring rarely performed works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, celebrating NatPhil’s new album release of the composer’s music. The full season includes four orchestral concerts; a choral concert marking the third year of the partnership between NatPhil and The Washington Chorus (TWC); two performances of Handel’s Messiah; and the return of pianist Brian Ganz in recital. All season concerts will be held at The Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, Maryland, the orchestra’s longstanding home in Montgomery County.
 
The 2025-2026 Season is the first to be fully programmed by the newly established National Philharmonic Artistic Strategy Committee, co-chaired by Laura Colgate, NatPhil Concert Leader and Executive & Artistic Director of Boulanger Initiative, and Richard Scerbo, Co-Director of Artistic Programming of The Clarice at the University of Maryland and Director of the National Orchestral Institute + Festival. Formed in 2024, the goal of the committee is to shift artistic programming responsibilities from a single music director to a group bringing unique perspectives to programming that result in equitable concert programs.
 
 
Notable repertoire and guest artists in the upcoming season include:
 
a concert comprising three works by British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, two of which feature on NatPhil’s album of the composer’s music to be released by Avie Records on August 1, 2025, coinciding with Coleridge-Taylor’s 150th birthday. Violin soloist Curtis Stewart joins NatPhil, conducted by Michael Repper, for Ballade Op. 4 for Violin and Orchestra; the orchestra also performs Toussaint L’Ouverture by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Sussex Landscape by Avril Coleridge-Taylor, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 (September 20, 2025).
 
a reunion with The Washington Chorus for One Song: Exultávit!, conducted by TWC Artistic Director Eugene Rogers and featuring J.S. Bach’s Magnificat and Reena Esmail’s This Love Between Us, whose seven movements juxtapose the words of seven major religious traditions of India (Buddhism, Sikhism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Islam), and specifically how each of these traditions approaches the topic of unity, of brotherhood, and of being kind to one another (October 25, 2025).
 
the final recital in pianist Brian Ganz’s Extreme Chopin project, on which he has performed every work by Frédéric Chopin over 16 years (April 11, 2026).
 
The Blue Hour, an evening-length work co-composed by Rachel Grimes, Angélica Negrón, Shara Nova, Caroline Shaw, and Sarah Kirkland Snider, setting the text of Carolyn Forché’s poem “On Earth.” The piece is being performed by soprano soloist Shara Nova and led by conductor Deanna Tham (May 9, 2026).
 
guest artists in their first appearance with NatPhil, including conductors Andrew Grams, Michael Repper, Deanna Tham, and Cosette Justo Valdés; violinists Benjamin Beilman and Curtis Stewart; sopranos Shara Nova and Sarah Hayashi; tenor Brian Giebler; baritone Edmund Milly; and harpist Bridget Kibbey.
 
returning artists, including conductors Anthony Blake Clark (Music Director of Baltimore Choral Arts Society) and Eugene Rogers (Artistic Director of The Washington Chorus); pianist Brian Ganz; and mezzo soprano Lucia Bradford.