Kendall Square Orchestra to Present 2026-27 Season at Sanders Theatre
Narrator Sean K. Ellis and cellist Leland Ko join conductor Kristo Kondakçi for works by Copland, Beethoven and Brahms.
The Kendall Square Orchestra (K²O) today announced its new 2026-27 concert season, opening October 9 AT Sanders Theatre. Led by Music Director Kristo Kondakçi, the season's four performances explore themes of freedom, identity, personal growth and human connection.
'What does it mean to be free?' says Kondakçi. 'Who are we, who are we becoming and who are we to one another? These are ancient questions, but they feel especially urgent now. An orchestra, together with its audience, gives us a way to ask them together. We listen, respond, adapt, and create something none of us could make alone. That shared act reminds us how deeply connected we are.'
VOICES OF FREEDOM
Friday, October 9, 2026 7:30pm
Sanders Theatre
Kristo Kondakçi, conductor
Sean K. Ellis, narrator
The subject of Netflix's acclaimed documentary Trial 4, Sean K. Ellis was wrongly convicted due to police cover-up and jailed for 21 years before winning his freedom. He narrates Aaron Copland's stirring Lincoln Portrait. The concert begins with Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, and includes excerpts from William Grant Still's Afro-American Symphony, the first symphony by a Black American composer to be performed by a major American orchestra. Beethoven's spirited Seventh Symphony concludes the evening.
WORLDS WITHIN AND WITHOUT
Friday, January 8, 2027 7:30pm
Sanders Theatre
Kristo Kondakçi, conductor
Leland Ko, cello
Missy Mazzoli's luminous 'These Worlds In Us,' musical poetry where grief, memory and joy exist side-by-side, opens the concert. Then, Avery Fisher Career Grant winner Leland Ko performs Haydn's sparkling Cello Concerto. Brahms' powerful, epic First Symphony crowns the evening.
BURST, BODY, BECOMING
Saturday, March 20 2027 7:30pm
Sanders Theatre
Kristo Kondakçi, conductor
An evening of energy, reinvention, and transformation. Australian Elena Kats-Chernin's cinematic Big Rhap crackles with rhythmic vitality, setting the tone for the evening. Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis takes themes by Carl Maria von Weber and reshapes them with orchestral color and rhythmic ingenuity. Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony then confronts fate with overwhelming force, sweeping through anguish, tenderness, defiance, and ultimately blazing celebration.
ALONE TOGETHER
Saturday, May 22 2027 7:30pm
Sanders Theatre
Kristo Kondakçi, conductor
The Kendall Square Orchestra's season finale explores friendships, memories, and stories through which we connect. Copland's Quiet City begins in solitude, its haunting stillness filled with the longing to be seen and understood. Elgar's Enigma Variations transforms friendship into music, painting the people closest to him with tenderness, humor, and warmth. Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade concludes the season with some of the most vivid storytelling in music. From quiet isolation to radiant connection, Alone Together celebrates the relationships we build, the stories we inherit, and the humanity we discover in one another.
About Kendall Square Orchestra
The Kendall Square Orchestra (K²O) is where Boston's innovation economy meets world-class symphonic sound, a cultural laboratory where art, science, and community collide. Founded in 2018 in Cambridge, MA, this volunteer ensemble of more than 70 classically trained musicians, many from the region's science, tech, and academic sectors, turns the concert hall into a space for connection, discovery, and purpose.
With its mantra Orchestrate. Collaborate. Innovate., K²O has performed everywhere from biotech conferences and Cambridge city parks to Boston's Symphony Hall. Its biennial Symphony for Science benefit brings together corporate sponsors, community partners, and audiences to raise awareness, funds, and hope for causes in healthcare, STEM education, and equity, generating substantial support for local organizations. Whether performing timeless masterworks or producing immersive, cause-driven events, K²O treats every program as an experiment in connection - part art, part activism, all heart.
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