The Los Angeles Philharmonic has dubbed its 2025–2026 season — announced today, March 6 — “Gracias Gustavo.” Of course, it’s a gesture of gratitude from the orchestra to its outgoing music and artistic director, but the programming, at least on paper, is so impressive that those saying “thank you” the loudest may be the LA Phil’s patrons.
Dudamel will conduct the orchestra in 14 separate programs during his 17th and final season in Los Angeles, leading music that ranges from world premieres to a Richard Wagner opera. Some of the largest and most imposing works in the classical repertoire will be presented, including Gustav Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony (Oct. 9–12) and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis (Feb. 20–22).
Kim Noltemy, the orchestra’s president and CEO, calls the season “an opportunity for us to convey our immense gratitude for everything Gustavo has done, and continues to do, to uplift our great city through music.”
“I am filled with gratitude for the journey we have shared and all that we have collectively achieved,” Dudamel writes in a press statement. Among the achievements he lists are the creation of YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles), the development of “an orchestral concertgoing audience whose size and diversity is unmatched,” and the LA Phil’s efforts “to broaden the vision of the art form” through innovative programming and commissions.
None of those initiatives will slow down during Dudamel’s final season at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Over 10 months, the LA Phil will present 20 world premieres, three U.S. premieres, and two projects that incorporate original choreography and film components.
The season will open Sept. 25–28 with Dudamel conducting the world premiere of a new work for orchestra and chorus by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Reid. The piece, co-commissioned by the LA Phil and the New York Philharmonic (where Dudamel will become music and artistic director in September 2026), aims to evoke “the contrasting experience of the five elements in Los Angeles and New York.”
The following week, Oct. 2–5, Dudamel will conduct Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, plus the U.S. premiere of John Adams’s Frenzy, which the LA Phil describes as the veteran composer’s reflection on “today’s incessant digital drip of news.” (Could the piece be subtitled “Doomscrolling in D Minor”?)
The world premiere of Humboldt’s Nature by Venezuelan-born composer Ricardo Lorenz is scheduled for Feb. 12–15, 2026. Later that month, Dudamel and the orchestra will revisit Gabriela Ortiz’s Grammy Award-winning Revolución diamantina, but with a twist. The powerful work will be interpreted in ballet by the Brazilian dance troupe Grupo Corpo.
Another world premiere, The Great Wall of Los Angeles, will follow on March 7, 2026. Inspired by artist Judy Baca’s mural of the same name, the hourlong piece will feature music by a group of Los Angeles-based composers and include a film component directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu (famous for movies such as Birdman).
In May 2026, the team of Dudamel, designer Frank Gehry, and director Alberto Arvelo, who created a staged version of Wagner’s Das Rheingold last year, will reunite to present the second opera of the composer’s Ring cycle, Die Walküre. The opera’s three acts will be performed on three separate nights; no singers have yet been named for the cast.
That same month, Dudamel will lead the orchestra in two world premieres, both by Puerto Rican composers: a cello concerto by Angélica Negrón, with Yo-Yo Ma soloing, and Estudios sinfónicos by Roberto Sierra.
For his final Disney Hall concerts as music and artistic director, June 5–7, 2026, Dudamel will conduct two works for chorus and orchestra: John Adams’s Harmonium and Cantata Criolla by Venezuelan composer Antonio Estévez. This will serve as something of a full-circle moment — Dudamel performed Estévez’s cantata with the Phil in 2010 as part of his first season as music director.
Adams, the orchestra’s long-serving creative chair, will conduct two programs of his own music, Jan. 22–25 and April 25–26, 2026. They’ll be anchored by his third and second piano concertos, respectively, with Víkingur Ólafsson soloing in both.
LA Phil Conductor Laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen will team up with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet for Alexander Scriabin’s Prometheus: The Poem of Fire in concerts Jan. 9–11, 2026, a program that also includes the world premiere of Gabriella Smith’s Violin Concerto, along with Claude Debussy’s cantata La Damoiselle élue. Then, Jan. 17–18, 2026, Salonen will lead performances of Ferruccio Busoni’s enormous Piano Concerto, with Igor Levit soloing.
Other guest conductors will include Elim Chan, Thomas Adès, Paavo Järvi, and Manfred Honeck. Simone Young will lead the orchestra in Olivier Messiaen’s massive Turangalîla-Symphonie, April 10–12, 2026 — those concerts will feature specially designed lighting to highlight the composer’s synesthesia.
And Zubin Mehta, the LA Phil’s conductor emeritus, will lead yet another huge work, Anton Bruckner’s mighty Eighth Symphony, Nov. 7–9.
Celebrity recitals will include pianists Yunchan Lim (Oct. 16) and András Schiff (Oct. 26), violinist Itzhak Perlman (Oct. 28), and the duo of pianist Jeremy Denk and violinist Joshua Bell (June 3, 2026).
New subscriptions go on sale today, March 6. “Create your own” subscriptions will be available starting April 22. Single tickets will go on sale Aug. 12. For more information, visit the LA Phil’s website or call 323-850-2000.
