ENGLISH And More Announced At Wallis Annenberg Center For The Performing Arts 2025/2026 Season

The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills has announced its 2025-2026 season led by performances of the Los Angeles premiere of the Atlantic Theater Company and Roundabout Theatre Company's Broadway production of English by Sanaz Toossi (April 4 - 24, 2026).

English received five Tony Award Nominations, including Best Play and Best Direction by Knud Adams, and is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.  A New York Times Critic's Pick, the comedy is set in an Iranian classroom where four adult students and their teacher leapfrog through a linguistic playground; a funny, stunning triumph about the universal foibles of language and miscommunication.

In a centennial tribute to artist Robert Rauschenberg Dancing with Bob (May 7 -  9, 2026), The Wallis is bringing together the Trisha Brown Dance Company and Merce Cunningham Trust to present Brown's Set and Reset from which has a visual design by Rauschenberg and set to a Laurie Anderson electronic score alongside Cunningham's Travelogue, a comedic masterpiece featuring music by John Cage that has remained largely unseen by the public since 1979.

The Wallis will produce in partnership with LA Opera and Beth Morrison Projects, the World Premiere of Hildegard based on the writings of the visionary, composer, and polymath Hildegard von Bingen, from composer and librettist Sarah Kirkland Snider, director Elkhanah Pulitzer, projection designer Deborah Johnson, and creative producer Beth Morrison (November 5 - 9, 2025). The work examines the tension between spiritual calling and human constraint. 

Hildegard is commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and the Aspen Music Festival
Opera @ The Wallis is made possible in part by Arnon Adar.

On January 24, 2026, The Wallis presents GRAMMY winner Arooj Aftab.  (The New York Times called her “hypnotizing, enchanting.”  She has also been nominated for Grammys in Alternative Jazz and New Artist; the audience is simply invited to lose themselves in the sensuous magic of her sound.

Robert van Leer, Executive Director and CEO of The Wallis, said, “This season The Wallis is breaking down barriers—across language, genre, and expectation. At The Wallis, performance becomes possibility. Emotion becomes movement. And the stage becomes a space to dream Without Limits.”

van Leer continued, “Fresh off of five Tony nominations and a Pulitzer Prize win, English comes to the Bram Goldsmith stage, inviting us to laugh and examine identity, language, and belonging. Dancing With Bob, featuring Trisha Brown Dance Company, celebrates the radical breaking of artistic boundaries. Rauschenberg, Brown, and Cunningham were pioneers who rejected the idea of staying in a single discipline—merging dance, visual art, music, and performance into something entirely new. It's a tribute to the very idea of tearing down walls between genres, forms, and expectations.”

“Working with LA Opera and Beth Morrison Projects, the world premiere of Hildegard expands what opera can be—melding historical narrative with modern themes, and traditional form with a daring emotional core. Finally, GRAMMY-winner Arooj Aftab weaves together Sufi poetry, jazz, ambient minimalism, and classical South Asian music to craft a sound that doesn't belong to any single tradition—but instead invents its own.”

Dance

van Leer said, “The Wallis is showcasing the vibrant talent of Los Angeles, national, and international dance communities. We are pleased to continue our creative partnerships with BODYTRAFFIC, L.A. Dance Project, and Los Angeles Ballet in the 2025/2026 Season and expand our dance landscape by welcoming Compagnie Hervé Koubi and Trisha Brown Dance Company to our stage.”

Compagnie Hervé Koubi  (February 19 - 21, 2026) brings  Sol Invictus, a call for unity. “Here,” says Koubi, “sun and dance will emerge victorious.”  Koubi is known for his fusion of classical dance, capoeira, hip-hop, and martial arts. He draws on these influences and his French-Algerian roots to gather a collective of dancers from across the Mediterranean.  “The dancers … could be mistaken for gods,” raves The New Yorker.

Creative Partners – LA Dance Project, BODYTRAFFIC, Los Angeles Ballet

LA Dance Project, as part of its two-year Wallis residency (October 23 - 25, 2025), will perform three works from artistic director Benjamin Millepied featuring collaborations with renowned artists from the worlds of music, design, and visual art.

The partnership with BODYTAFFIC will feature two programs. (December 11 - 13, 2025 and June 4 - 6, 2026).  One of our region's most popular dance companies offers their signature blend of daring physicality, dramatic dynamism, and unbreakable spirit. Under the artistic direction of Tina Finkelman Berkett,  BODYTRAFFIC speaks to the deepest parts of us—raw, instinctual, and alive. The company's world-class dancers channel emotion through every nerve, transforming the stage into a living canvas of expression.

In Celebrating Our Past, Present, and Future: 20 Years of Los Angeles Ballet (January 29 - 31, 2026), Artistic Director Melissa Barak unveils a world premiere in a program that exemplifies their history of two decades of dance making here: Balanchine's jazz-infused delight Rubies—an energetic reprise from LAB's first-ever season and Hans Van Manen's Frank Bridge Variations pairs Benjamin Britten's lush score with an abstract expression of sensuality and, at times, explosive emotion. It is a powerful blend of classicism, spirited wit, and modern intensity.

Music

Christian McBride & Brad Mehldau (October 15, 2025) Two of the greatest jazz musicians: nine-time GRAMMY-winning bassist Christian McBride and revered pianist Brad Mehldau—friends and collaborators for 35 years—bring their legendary artistry to this extraordinary duo performance. McBride, hailed as “one of modern jazz's most innovative musicians” (Glide Magazine), is a master of groove, depth, and sheer musical joy. Mehldau, “one of our greatest living pianists” (NPR), brings an unmatched lyricism and daring reinvention to the keys.

Lonnie Holley & Moor Mother (November 20, 2025) together are a sonic reckoning that traverses time and memory. Drawing from the well of Sun Ra's Afrofuturist vision, they summon a musical dialogue where the past is not past, and the future is up for the making. Multidisciplinary artist Lonnie Holley, an improviser of raw spirit and sound, meets poet Moor Mother, a seismic voice of haunted histories and imagined freedoms. Together, they speak of tenderness, grief, and resistance. They invite their audience into an intimate act of creation—crafted live, and shaped by the room, the people, and the moment.

DakhaBrakha (December 5, 2025) Redefining folk in a night of spellbinding rhythm and sound, DakhaBrakha brings their self-styled “ethno-chaos” to The Wallis. Hailing from Kyiv, Ukraine, this world music quartet merges ancient Ukrainian music traditions with influences from India, Africa, and the Middle East.  They embody the push and pull of tradition and innovation.  With their striking visual aesthetic, towering black hats, and pulsating energy, matching hypnotic rhythms with haunting melodies, their listeners are rocked into a world where folklore meets experimental fusion.

Rickie Lee Jones (February 6, 2026) makes her Wallis debut with a voice that has transcended genres for over four decades. A two-time GRAMMY award winner and one of the most original artists of her era, she has been hailed as “the premiere song-stylist and songwriter of her generation” (The New Yorker) and dubbed “The Duchess of Coolsville” (Time).

TONALITY. With open-hearted singing and fearless honesty, vocal ensemble TONALITY, led by Founder and Artistic Director Alexander Lloyd Blake, returns to The Wallis.  Established in 2016, known for “open-hearted singing” (Lauri's List), Tonality was recognized as a 2024 GRAMMY winner in New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album for Carla Patullo's So She Howls with the Scorchio Quartet. Executive and Founding Artistic Director, Dr. Alexander Lloyd Blake, imagined TONALITY as an ensemble that represents the diverse cultures and ethnicities within the Los Angeles area. Within a year of its forming, TONALITY's mission evolved to use its collective voices to inspire, innovate, and spark social change through the power of diversity.

Scott Dunn Orchestra presents concerts about the first three golden ages of Hollywood film music - a large-scale retrospective of this key art form in the eras that defined the role and place of music as a part of dramatic storytelling in Hollywood and international filmmaking.   The Hollywood Modernists from the fifties and sixties (November 22, 2025); Monsters, Murders, Spies, and Space - Those Fabulous Films of the Seventies (January 17, 2026); and From Hell to Hollywood – Film Music's First Golden Age and the Emigre Community, (May 30, 2026). The Scott Dunn Orchestra is the brainchild of Dunn, who has been the Associate Conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra since 2012, and global music executive and producer Gill Graham.  It is an orchestra with many of the finest studio musicians, dedicated solely to presenting film music.

Bang On A Can All-Stars: Ryuichi Sakamoto, 1996 (May 16, 2025) breathe new life into Sakamoto's iconic 1996 album. With arrangements by Ken Thomson, the ensemble reimagines selections from some of his most unforgettable works, including The Sheltering Sky, Wuthering Heights, and more. This is a celebration of legacy—a chance to experience Sakamoto's music as it was never heard before: raw, intimate, and alive. With each movement, the All-Stars honor a visionary who composed without boundaries and dreamed in sound.

Pacific Jazz Orchestra: Lokua Kanza & Charlotte Dipanda (May 28, 2026) are two of Africa's most soulful voices with a full jazz orchestra.  Renowned Congolese singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, Lokus Kanza is known for his fusion of African rhythms with elements of jazz, pop, and folk, creating a unique and emotive musical style that transcends cultural boundaries.  Celebrated Cameroonian singer/songwriter Charlotte Dipanda, singing primarily in French and Douala, is known for her blend of Afro-pop and traditional African music.  She skillfully weaves elements of Makossa, Bikutsi, and Afro-jazz into her sound.

Founded in 2022 by seven-time GRAMMY-nominated composer/arranger/conductor Chris Walden, Pacific Jazz Orchestra embraces and reflects the diverse and enthralling soundscape of Los Angeles, where the 40-piece ensemble was born, bred, and resides.  Hailed as a “distinguished conductor” (Audio Media International) Walden has scored more than 40 feature and TV films and written more than 1,500 orchestral and big band arrangements for such artists as John Legend, Michael Bublé, Aretha Franklin, Paul McCartney, SEAL, Stevie Wonder, Rihanna, Barbra Streisand, and Josh Groban.

From LA OPERA Master Mozartean Ben Bliss (December 7, 2025) has conquered stages from the Metropolitan Opera to Vienna and Paris—not to mention standout performances with LA Opera and the LA Phil. Now, hear his “honeyed lyric tenor” (The New York Times) in an intimate recital in Beverly Hills.

Colburn School (December 6, 2025) Under the baton of celebrated conductor Kevin John Edusei, the program starts with Schelomo, Ernest Bloch's dramatic Rhapsodie Hébraïque for cello and orchestra with soloist Sieun Park, followed by Smetana's Má vlast (“My Country”) a tribute to his Czech homeland, containing his most famous melody, “The Moldau.”  A performing arts institution located in the heart of Los Angeles, the Colburn School trains students from beginners to those about to embark on professional careers. The academic units of the School provide a complete spectrum of music and dance education.  Each year, more than 2,000 students from around the world come to Colburn to benefit from the renowned faculty, exceptional facilities, and focus on excellence that unites the community.  The Colburn Orchestra is generously underwritten by Eva and Marc Stern.

LOS ANGELES CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) ranks among the world's top musical ensembles. Beloved by audiences and praised by critics, the Orchestra is a preeminent interpreter of historical masterworks and, with eight ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming, a champion of contemporary composers. Headquartered in the heart of the country's cultural capital, LACO has been proclaimed “America's finest chamber orchestra” (Public Radio International), “LA's most unintimidating chamber music experience” (Los Angeles magazine), “resplendent” (Los Angeles Times), and “one of the world's great chamber orchestras"(KUSC Classical FM). LACO has toured Europe, South America, and Japan, and performed across North America. www.laco.org.

Music Director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra since 2019, and Chief Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra since 2022, Spanish conductor JAIME MARTÍN has also held the positions of Chief Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland (2019-2024), Principal Guest Conductor of the Spanish National Orchestra (2022-2024) and Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of Gävle Symphony Orchestra (2013-2022).  Jaime Martín is the Artistic Advisor of the Santander Festival, a founding member of the Orquestra de Cadaqués, and Fellow of the Royal College of Music, London.

September 14, 2025 – Jaime Martin, Music Director | Nicolas Altstaedt, Cello
Franz Joseph Haydn, Symphony No. 83 in G minor, “La poule”
Robert Schumann, Cello Concerto in D minor, Op. 129 | Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67
 
October 26, 2025  – Jaime Martin, Music Director | Marc-André Hamelin, Piano
Louise Farrenc, Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 35 | Johannes Brahms, Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15
 
November 23, 2025  - Margaret Batjer, Director of Chamber Music
Johannes Brahms, String Sextet No. 2 in G major; String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat major
  
December 14, 2025  - Margaret Batjer, Director of Chamber Music | Richard Goode, Piano
Robert Schumann, Violin Sonata No. 1 in A minor, Op. 107 | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
Quartet for Piano and String Trio in E-flat major, K. 478 | Ludwig van Beethoven, Septet in E-flat major, Op. 20
 
January 18, 2026 -  Pierre Hantaï, Leader
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Symphony in B minor | Johann Sebastian Bach, Brandenburg Concerto in No. 5 in D major, BWV 1050 | Jean-Marie Leclair, Concerto in D major for Violin, Strings, and Basso Continuo, No 2, Op 7
 
February 15, 2026 -  Jaime Martín, Music Director | Fazil Say, Piano
WORLD PREMIERE - Michael Abels, Concerto for Orchestra
Gabriel Fauré, Pelléas et Melisande, Op. 80 | Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37
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March 12, 2026 - Dinis Sousa, Guest Conductor | Isabelle Faust, Violin
LA PREMIERE / LACO CO-COMMISSION Huang Ruo, The Tipping Point,
Robert Schumann, Violin Concerto in D minor, Wo01
Felix Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 4 in A major, “Italian”
 
May 17, 2026 - Jaime Martín, Music Director | Anthony Marwood, Violin | Coleman Itzkoff, Cello
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Symphony No. 35 in D major, “Haffner,” K. 385
WORLD PREMIERE / LACO COMMISSION Christopher Cerrone, Double Concerto for Violin and Cello 
Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Orchestra Suite No. 4, “Mozartiana,” Op. 6

May 31, 2026 - Margaret Batjer, Director Of Chamber Music + Leader | Amanda Forsythe, Soprano
Johann Sebastian Bach, Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten “Wedding Cantata,” BWV 202
Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto No. 2 in G minor, “La Notte”; Concerto Grosso in G minor, No. 2, RB 578
George Frideric Handel, Selections from Giulio Cesare in Egitto
Heinrich Biber, Battalia à 10 | Georg Philipp Telemann, Don Quixote

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