[photo credit: Pasadena Symphony and POPS]
Each program is performed twice, at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., at the auditorium at 131 S. St. John Ave., the orchestra’s home for more than a decade. The five-program series is one fewer than the six the orchestra presented in each of the past two seasons, and subscriptions start at $129, up from $120 last season, according to the orchestra’s season announcements.
“I’m so pleased during my third season as Music Director of the Pasadena Symphony to continue this great musical journey we’ve been sharing,” Mitchell said in the announcement. “From timeless works by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, and Tchaikovsky to more contemporary masterpieces by Joan Tower, Carlos Simon, Jennifer Higdon, and Kevin Puts, our 2026/27 season has something for every lover of orchestral music, and the orchestra and I can’t wait to share it with you.”
The opening concert pairs Joan Tower’s “Made in America,” a fantasy on “America the Beautiful” that the orchestra is programming as part of its America 250 commemoration, with Barber’s Violin Concerto, performed by Avery Fisher Career Grant winner Benjamin Beilman, before the Brahms.
On Nov. 14, Principal Cellist Michael Kaufman is the soloist in Elgar’s Cello Concerto on a program with Carlos Simon’s “Fate Now Conquers” and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.
Pianist Clayton Stephenson, the 2025 Sphinx Medal of Excellence winner, performs Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 on Feb. 13, 2027, alongside Jennifer Higdon’s “blue cathedral” and the 1919 suite from Stravinsky’s “The Firebird.”
Violinist Simone Porter returns March 20, 2027, for Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,” with Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and Stravinsky’s “Dumbarton Oaks.”
The season closes May 1, 2027, with violinist Paul Huang making his Pasadena debut in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, Kevin Puts’ “Millennium Canons,” and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, which the orchestra said it has not performed in more than a decade.
A pre-concert conversation hosted by Brian Lauritzen of KUSC Classical California, with Mitchell and guest soloists and composers, begins one hour before each performance, the orchestra said. Single tickets start at $55; subscriptions and tickets are available at https://www.google.com/url?q=
Mitchell began a five-year tenure as music director on April 1, 2024, becoming the sixth music director in the orchestra’s history and the first since David Lockington’s departure in 2021. He led the Colorado Symphony from 2017 to 2021 after four years on the conducting staff of the Cleveland Orchestra and an earlier post as assistant conductor of the Houston Symphony, and he continues as artistic director and conductor of Oregon’s Sunriver Music Festival, a position he has held since 2022. In May 2025 he made his New York Philharmonic subscription debut on less than 24 hours’ notice, leading performances with soprano Renée Fleming, according to his biography.
The Pasadena Symphony Association, formed in 1928, also presents the Summer POPS series at the Los Angeles County Arboretum under Resident Pops Conductor Larry Blank and runs the Pasadena Youth Symphony Orchestras, which the association says serve more than 700 students in grades 4 through 12.
