By Damián Autorino
Editor at Moto Perpetuo
LA Phil announces Gustavo Dudamel’s final season at Walt Disney Concert Hall
The Los Angeles Philharmonic has announced its 2025/26 season at Walt Disney Concert Hall, marking Gustavo Dudamel’s final year as music & artistic director. The season will include 14 programs conducted by Dudamel, running from September 2025 to June 2026, as well as a variety of guest performances and premieres.
One of the major projects of the season is a staged production of Wagner’s Die Walküre, following Das Rheingold, which was also presented in collaboration with architect Frank Gehry and filmmaker Alberto Arvelo. The season will feature 25 commissioned works, including 20 world premieres and three U.S. premieres, with some projects incorporating choreography and film elements. The opening concert will include a new orchestral and choral work by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Reid, co-commissioned by the LA Phil and the New York Philharmonic.
Several guest conductors will appear throughout the season, including conductor emeritus Zubin Mehta, conductor laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen, and John Adams, the LA Phil’s John and Samantha Williams creative chair. Other conductors leading programs include Thomas Adès, Ryan Bancroft, Elim Chan, Gustavo Gimeno, Roberto González-Monjas, Anna Handler, Manfred Honeck, Paavo Järvi, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Matthias Pintscher, Lorenzo Viotti, Thomas Wilkins, and Simone Young.
The LA Phil will also embark on a two-week tour of Asia in October 2025, with performances in Seoul, Tokyo, and the Taiwanese cities of Taipei and Tainan.
As part of the season announcement, the LA Phil named the four conductors selected for the final edition of the Dudamel Fellowship Program: Kinga Głowacka, Ana María Patiño-Osorio, José Ángel Salazar, and Miguel Sepúlveda.
Moto picks: five must-see concerts
Moto Perpetuo has selected five programs that, in our opinion, stand out in the 2025/26 season.
Yo-Yo Ma and Dudamel premiere a new cello concerto
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma joins Dudamel and the LA Phil for the world premiere of a new cello concerto by Puerto Rican composer Angélica Negrón. The program also includes Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), a large-scale tone poem that Dudamel conducts in Los Angeles for the first time. (May 28 & 30)
“Gracias Gustavo”: a program of choral-orchestral works
Dudamel’s final program as music & artistic director at Walt Disney Concert Hall features two works for chorus and orchestra: John Adams’ Harmonium, based on poetry by Emily Dickinson and John Donne, and Antonio Estévez’s Cantata Criolla, a work rooted in Venezuelan musical traditions. (June 2026, exact dates TBD)
John Adams and Víkingur Ólafsson: two recent piano concertos
John Adams conducts two programs featuring pianist Víkingur Ólafsson as soloist in his most recent piano concertos. Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? (April 25 & 26) and After the Fall (January 23–25) are both LA Phil commissions. The programs also include works by Ives, Harris, Copland, Piazzolla, Stravinsky, and Prokofiev.
Thomas Adès and Yuja Wang: U.S. premiere and Prokofiev
Thomas Adès leads a program featuring the U.S. premiere of William Marsey’s Man with Limp Wrist, an LA Phil commission. Also included are Tchaikovsky’s Francesca da Rimini and Adès’ own Aquifer. Pianist Yuja Wang performs Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto. (February 6–8)
Messiaen’s Turangalîla-symphonie with Simone Young
Simone Young conducts Messiaen’s Turangalîla-symphonie, with Jean-Yves Thibaudet on piano and Cynthia Millar on ondes Martenot. Directed by Zack Winokur, this performance will include special lighting effects designed to reflect the composer’s use of color in the score. (April 10–12)
The 2025/26 season presents a range of orchestral and contemporary works, guest conductors, and premieres, alongside Dudamel’s final performances with the LA Phil at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
For more information about the full season, visit the LA Phil website.
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