The 2024-25 season of live concerts presented in the Kimmel Center’s Marian Anderson Hall by Yannick Nezet-Seguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra is a cornucopia of great music performed and interpreted by great musicians. The ensemble’s music and artistic director has assembled a roster of pieces to whet the appetite of longtime classical music devotees and newcomers to a genre that has entranced and inspired centuries of music lovers worldwide.

Our young maestro remains one of the busiest classical musicians on earth. Alongside directing the “Fabulous Philadelphians,” Nezet-Seguin is the music director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, the largest musical organization in the country. He is also the music director of the Metropolitan Orchestra of Montreal, his hometown.

Nezet-Seguin will open the season with a gala concert Thursday, Sept. 26, at 7 p.m. in Anderson Hall. His guest soloist will be violinist Maria Duenas. She will be featured in Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1. 

As though that weren’t sufficiently glamorous enough for even the most world-weary concert-goer, the program will open with the concert Suite from Terence Blanchard’s opera, “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.” The score is a co-commission by the Philadelphia Orchestra and will be receiving its world premiere at this concert. The “Fantasie-Overture: Romeo and Juliet” by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky will be the powerful finale.

Our youthful music director will preside over many of the season’s programs, including the opening of the subscription series of concerts Sept. 27-29. Featuring pianist Seong-Jun Cho in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2, and paired with Anton Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony, the trio of performances also marks the increasing popularity of the afternoon matinee. Two of the three performances – Friday and Sunday – begin at 2 p.m., with only the concert on Saturday starting at 8 p.m.

Nezet-Seguin will also conduct the following set of concerts, Oct. 3-5. The featured soloist will be the celebrated mezzo-soprano, Joyce DiDonato. She will join the maestro for what promises to be a sterling interpretation of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 3. 

DiDonato will be one of a galaxy of star soloists gracing the stage of Anderson Hall. Two of the most dazzling concert pianists in the world are among them: Yuja Wang and Lang Lang. In a nod to its supremacy in the world of classical music conservatories, both are graduates of Philadelphia’s own Curtis Institute of Music, where they studied with Gary Graffman. Serving as director and president of Curtis from 1986 through 2006, Graffman’s association with Curtis began when he was six years old and was a student of the legendary pedagogue, Isabelle Vengerova.

Lang Lang will take part in the Orchestra’s new “Spotlight Series” of solo recitals. His is set for Sunday, March 23, at 7 p.m. Also highlighted will be pianist Daniil Trifonov, Wednesday, Feb. 26, at 8 p.m.; and Curtis Institute of Music alumna, violinist Hilary Hahn, Saturday, May 17, at 8 p.m., in an all-Bach program. 

Yuja Wang, one of the most sought-after concert pianists playing today, will be heard in three performances: Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025, at 7:30 p.m., and Friday and Saturday, Jan. 17 and 18, at 8 p.m. Nezet-Seguin will be on the podium to lead her in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. The program also features Margaret Bonds’ “The Montgomery Variations” and William Grant Still’s “Symphony No. 2 (“Song of a New Race”).

Earlier in the month, Nezet-Seguin will conduct Mahler’s powerful Symphony No. 9 and Jake Heggie’s “Songs of Murdered Sisters” Thursday, Jan. 9, at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday, Jan. 11, at 8 p.m. Heggie is the composer of the opera “Dead Man Walking,” which premiered in San Francisco in 2000 and which is one of the few contemporary operas to hold its place in the repertoire.

As it has for decades, the Orchestra will celebrate the Christmas/New Year’s Eve holidays with music. Nezet-Seguin will conduct George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah” Saturday, Dec. 21, at 7 p.m., and Sunday, Dec. 22, at 2 p.m. Marin Alsop will usher in 2025 Dec. 31 at 7 p.m. with a concert of musical bubbles.

In a welcomed “tip of the hat” to old timers like me, who heard his first Orchestra concert in 1956 in this very venue, the “Fabulous Philadelphians” will return to the stage of the Academy of Music, their home from 1900 until 2000 and where they earned that marvelous nickname. Maestro Nezet-Seguin will lead the Orchestra Thursday, May 22, at 7:30 p.m. and Friday and Saturday, May 23 and 24, at 2 p.m. His program will include Florence Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement and Beethoven’s “Choral” Symphony No. 9 in D minor. Soloists in the Beethoven include soprano Leah Hawkins, mezzo Rihab Chaieb, tenor Issachah Savage and bass-baritone Ryan McKinny, plus the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir. Soloist in the Price will be Lara Downes.

For more information on the entire 2024-25 season of the Philadelphia Orchestra, visit philorch.org/2425season.

You can contact NOTEWORTHY at Michael-caruso@comcast.net.