Maestro Gustavo Dudamel will lead the New York Philharmonic in six weeks of concerts this season. This precedes Dudamel's tenure as the orchestra's new music and artistic director, which officially begins in September 2026.

The artistic director designate will open the season September 11 with a concert themed around the American identity. The program will include the world premiere of Leilehua Lanzilotti's of light and stone, a New York Philharmonic commission. The program also includes Bela Bartók's Piano Concerto No. 3, written in 1945 while the Hungarian composer was living as a refugee in New York City; and concludes with the second symphony by Charles Ives.

Dudamel will lead a second season-opening concert September 18-21, featuring Beethoven's iconic  Symphony No. 5; and John Corigliano's Symphony No. 1, which premiered in 1990 and is dedicated to the lives lost in the AIDS epidemic.

In the spring, Dudamel will lead four more programs. Works performed will include a new orchestral arrangement of Federic Rzewski's The People United Will Never Be Defeated!. The piano variations have been orchestrated by 18 different composers, and will be performed March 12-17 alongside Beethoven's Symphony No. 3. The following week, Dudamel will conduct the world premiere of David Lang's the wealth of nations, another NY Philharmonic commission. Inspired by Adam Smith's 1776 economic treatise and Handel's Messiah, the work will feature mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron and bass-baritone Davóne Tines.

In April, Dudamel will conduct the New York premiere of Ellen Reid's Earth Between Oceans, which will be performed alongside a suite from Stravinsky's The Firebird, and Ernest Bloch's Schelomo. Bloch's "Hebrew Rhapsody for Violoncello and Orchestra" will feature Artist-in-Residence Sheku Kanneh-Mason as soloist. Rounding out Dudamel's concerts will be a collaboration with the Spanish Harlem Orchestra in May.

For more information, including tickets, visit NYPhil.org.