MSO Reveals 2027 Season Lineup

 

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has announced its upcoming season that celebrates Australian stories and talent, honoring the 200th anniversary of Beethoven's death. Season 2027 is an exploration of what happens when we give our full attention to music and gather to share moments of extraordinary scale, intensity and beauty. Audiences can escape to A Midwinter Feast, featuring works from Britten, Elgar & Walton; share big hits at Classical Spectacular; celebrate community and country at NAIDOC Week with Australian storyteller Troy Cassar-Daley; or immerse themselves in Mahler's deeply moving works, Das Lied von der Erde and his Fourth Symphony.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra CEO Richard Wigley said, “As we continue the journey from our 120th year towards our 125th, we do so with a clear sense of purpose – it's all about great music,” Mr Wigley said.  “In 2027, we give our full attention to outstanding symphonic music and create experiences that ask us to listen as deeply and thoughtfully as the world's finest composers intended.”

Chief Conductor Jaime Martín said Season 2027 is “a celebration of the spirit of discovery”: “2027 will be my sixth season as Chief Conductor of this wonderful group of supremely talented musicians whose every turn of a musical phrase is pure poetry. Whether we are revisiting cherished masterpieces or introducing music you may be hearing for the first time, Season 2027 will offer something to surprise, move and inspire.”

Marking the 200th anniversary of Beethoven's death, Martín opens the 2027 Season with a program of three Beethoven works including his Ninth Symphony – a masterpiece featuring the much-loved 'Ode to Joy'.

Across the Season, Hamer Hall audiences will immerse themselves in the classics when Martín leads the MSO in performances of Schubert & Mahler, Mozart & Brahms, Rachmaninov & Dvořák, Mozart & the Mendelssohns and Sibelius & Shostakovich.

The performance of Mahler & Brett Dean features the Australian premiere of Dean's The World's Wife (an MSO co-commission), which premiered at the 2026 BBC Proms with UK Soprano Claire Booth as soloist. MSO's sumptuous feast of Britten, Elgar & Walton, features William Walton's exhilarating biblical telling of Belshazzar's Feast and cello favourite Li-Wei Qin performing Elgar's much-loved cello concerto.

In Symphonic Swing renowned cross-genre specialist conductor Clark Rundell leads the MSO for the Australian premiere of Wynton Marsalis' Trumpet Concerto featuring extraordinary Austrian trumpeter Selina Ott in her MSO debut. The concert includes works from the greats of the American classical-jazz blend, Gershwin and Bernstein, and the performance of a new commission by jazz composer turned orchestral composer Vanessa Perica.

International Artists include conductors Chloé van Soeterstède (France) and Rodolfo Barráez (Venezuela), acclaimed British pianist Paul Lewis, and MSO's 2027 Featured Artist, Romanian pianist Alexandra Dariescu, who performs across four events. Making their Australian debuts with the MSO include conductors Yutaka Sado (Japan) and Eva Olikainen (Finland), soprano Claire Booth (UK), violinist Inmo Yang (South Korea) and mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron (UK/Singapore).

New Australian Music & Artistry

MSO commissions and co-commissions continue to grow the burgeoning canon of new Australian work; Season 2027 features 13 world premieres of MSO commissions:

For centuries, the icon of Joan of Arc has been interpreted, reimagined and retold. Former MSO Composer in Residence Mary Finsterer and librettist Tom Wright delved deeply into the 1431 heresy trial transcripts to memorialise the words of Joan and her interrogators in music. This world premiere of an MSO Commission, conducted by Principal Guest Conductor Benjamin Northey, and featuring the National Boys Choir of Australia and Trinity College Choir, is generously supported by Kim Williams AM.

Yitzhak Yedid's The Valley of the Dry Bones delivers a strikingly new and deeply familiar, large-scale oratorio that speaks to something ancient, echoing across traditions, cultures and rituals. The MSO, conducted by Eugene Ughetti, will be joined by MSO Chorus and The Consort of Melbourne, with librettist Stan Grant narrating. This exciting new work was commissioned and funded through the Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship Alumni Commissioning program.

Expanded Artistic Family

Mr Wigley also announced the expansion of MSO's conducting family, welcoming Europe-based Melbourne-born conductor Nicholas Carter as the MSO's Chief Guest Conductor.

General Music Director of the Staatsoper and Staatsorchester Stuttgart, Carter has emerged as an internationally sought-after opera and concert hall conductor, acclaimed for his arresting presence in the pit and wide array of symphonic repertoire. He will lead the MSO in two standout concerts: Strauss & Schumann, and Bruckner's Eighth Symphony.

“I'm thrilled to be joining the distinguished artistic family of the Melbourne Symphony, which I firmly believe is one of the world's great orchestras. The MSO gave me my first experience of orchestral music and first inspired me to become a conductor, so to return as Chief Guest Conductor is an enormous privilege.

I'm particularly looking forward to conducting Bruckner's monumental Eighth Symphony next year. In our fragmented, anxious and increasingly digital world, this music offers us a rare opportunity to reconnect with the magnificence of the human mind and spirit. At times meditative, at others terrifying and intensely dramatic, the symphony gives us the time and space simply to be with ourselves, and to focus on what is beautiful, profound and enriching in our lives.

Experiencing this masterpiece live is always an extraordinary event, and I can't wait to share it with Melbourne audiences,” Mr Carter said.

Live Music Where You Live

The MSO will continue to make orchestral music more accessible across Melbourne and Victoria through no-to low-cost performances, learning programs and community-led experiences that take symphonic music into everyday life.

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