The Palm Beach Symphony starts its 2026-2027 Masterworks season on Tuesday, Nov. 17, at 7:30 p.m. in West Palm Beach, with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet on the stage of the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts and a piece no audience has heard before on the program. It is the first of seven Masterworks concerts the orchestra will play at the Kravis between now and the end of May, all of them led by Music Director Gerard Schwarz.

Opening night: a new piece, then Saint-Saens and Brahms

The Nov. 17 program begins with the world premiere of Consolation by Daron Aric Hagen. Thibaudet then plays Saint-Saens' Piano Concerto No. 5 in F Major, known as the Egyptian, and the orchestra closes the night with Brahms' Symphony No. 4 in E Minor. The symphony lists Suzanne Mott Dansby as the sponsor of the evening's guest artist.

Two world premieres in one season

The season carries a second premiere in the spring. On Wednesday, April 28, 2027, Schwarz conducts the first performance of his own Symphony, which the orchestra says was commissioned for it by Don and Mary Thompson. Violinist Pinchas Zukerman is the soloist that night in Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 and Paul Ben-Haim's Lullaby, and the program ends with Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.

The full Masterworks calendar

  • Tuesday, Nov. 17, 7:30 p.m.: Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano. Hagen's Consolation (world premiere), Saint-Saens' Piano Concerto No. 5, Brahms' Symphony No. 4.
  • Wednesday, Dec. 16, 7:30 p.m.: Yefim Bronfman, piano. Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3, selections from Handel's Messiah and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 6.
  • Sunday, Jan. 17, 2027, 3 p.m.: Augustin Hadelich, violin. Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 4, Cindy McTee's Timepiece and Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique.
  • Wednesday, Feb. 10, 7:30 p.m.: Daniil Trifonov, piano. Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, Anna Clyne's Masquerade and Dvorak's Symphony No. 6.
  • Monday, March 15, 7:30 p.m.: Julian Schwarz, cello, in Strauss' Don Quixote, with Mozart's Overture to The Magic Flute and Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4, the Italian.
  • Wednesday, April 28, 7:30 p.m.: Pinchas Zukerman, violin. Gerard Schwarz's Symphony (world premiere), Bruch, Ben-Haim and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.
  • Sunday, May 23, 3 p.m.: Ray Chen, violin, in Sibelius' Violin Concerto, with Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

Community players join the finale

The season finale on May 23 includes a side-by-side performance: community musicians join the orchestra for Wagner's Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, on a program with Ray Chen's Sibelius concerto and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

Tickets and where to go

Every Masterworks concert is in the Dreyfoos Concert Hall at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, 701 Okeechobee Blvd. in downtown West Palm Beach. Subscriptions to the series and individual tickets are sold through the symphony's website, where each concert has its own ticket link and a seating chart. The box office is at 561-281-0145 and [email protected], and the symphony's offices are at 700 S. Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach.

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