For two decades, I’ve put together a little pocket guide to the Seattle Symphony subscription season for my symphony friends to help them decide which ticket package they want. We stopped going to the symphony as a group years ago, but I still create this pocket guide out of tradition.

Here’s the at-a-glance season guide for the 2026/2027 season still with no comments from me because it’s not worth trying to rate every piece to help my friends pick one concert. If you’re my friend and want recommendations, just call. Besides, you can probably preview nearly all of the pieces nowadays (minus the premieres) by searching on YouTube.

Official brochure Press release Subscribe

Xian Zhang enters her second season as music director of the Seattle Symphony. She will lead the orchestra on Opening Night as well as for twelve subscription concerts, expanding from the nine subscription concerts she conducted in her debut season. Associate Conductor Sunny Xia is not listed on any of the concerts, nor is she mentioned in the press release, so her contract may have expired. Not sure.

WeekProgram19136A 6B7C 7D6E 6F10G**09/19 2026Prokofiev: Suite from Lieutenant Kijé Prokofiev: Piano Concerto #309/24 2026Bruch: Violin Concerto #1 Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique10/22 2026Bridge: Enter Spring Samuel Adams: No Such Spring Schumann: Symphony #1 “Spring”11/05 2026Unsuk Chin: Rocaná (Room of Light) Szymanowski: Violin Concerto #2 Stravinsky: Petroushka (1947)11/12 2025Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto #1 R. Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra11/19 2025Joe Pereira: Timpani Concerto¹ Mozart: Requiem01/24Itzhak Perlman in recital01/28 2027Haydn: Symphony #82 “The Bear” Mozart: Piano Concerto #25, K.503 Mozart: Eine kleine Nachtmusik Haydn: Symphony #8702/04 2027Ibert: Concertino da camera Steven Banks: Come As You Are Tchaikovsky: Manfred Symphony02/11 2027Lalo: Symphonie espagnole Ginastera: Four Dances from Estancia Rimsky-Korsakov: Cappricio espagnol02/25Chaplin: Modern Times (with film)03/11 2027Smetana: The Moldau Steven Mackey: Concerto for Orchestra¹ Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherezade03/18Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette, Op.1703/19Hayato Sumino (“Cateen”) recital03/19 2027Anna Lapwood with Seattle Symphony Max Richter: Cosmology Jongen: Sinfonia Concertante04/08 2027Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending Grieg: Peer Gynt Suite (selections) Webern: Im Sommerwind (In the Summer Wind) Scriabin: Poem of Ecstasy04/15 2017Dvořák: Violin Concerto Beethoven: Symphony #6 “Pastoral”04/22 2027Gabriela Montero: Piano Concerto #1 “Latin” Respighi: Fountains of Rome Respighi: Pines of Rome04/29 2027Saariaho: Lumière et Pésanteur (Light and Gravity) Lutosławski: Piano Concerto Shostakovich: Symphony #1005/13 2027Ian Cusson: IQ84: Sinfonietta Metamoderna Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto #2 Sibelius: Symphony #206/03 2027R. Strauss: Träumerei am Kamin  (Dreaming by the Fireside) from Intermezzo Debussy: Ariettes Oubliées (Forgotten Songs)  (arr. Brett Dean) Mahler: Symphony #406/17 2027Brahms: Symphony in #3 Brahms: Violin Concerto06/24 2027Liszt: Piano Concerto #2 Wagner: The Ring Without Words (arr. Maazel)WeekProgram19136A 6B7C 7D6E 6F10G**

¹ Seattle Symphony Co-commission and World Premiere

Insider tip: Click a column header to focus on a specific series. (This feature has been around for several years, actually.)

Legend:

19Symphonic Series 19-concert series (Choice of Thursdays or Saturdays)13Symphonic Series 13-concert series (Choice of Thursdays or Saturdays)6ASymphonic Series 6-concert series A (Thursdays)6BSymphonic Series 6-concert series B (Saturdays)7CSymphonic Series 7-concert series C (Thursdays)7DSymphonic Series 6-concert series D (Saturdays)6ESymphonic Series 6-concert series E (Thursdays)6FSymphonic Series 7-concert series F (Saturdays)10GSymphonic Series 10-concert series G (Sunday afternoons)**Various special concerts (individually priced)

For those not familiar with the Seattle Symphony ticket package line-ups: Most of the ticket packages are named Symphonic Series nX (formerly named Masterworks nX) where n is the number of concerts in the package, and the letter indicates the variation. Ticket packages have been combined if they are identical save for the day of the week. For example, 7C and 7D are the same concerts; the only difference is that 7C is for Thursday nights, while 7D is for Saturday nights. The exception is the column I marked **, which is just a grab bag of special concerts.

Notes and changes:

The main symphony season has been reduced from 21 programs to 19. The A, B, E, and F series have consequently been reduced from 7 concerts to 6. The Sunday series has been expanded from 8 to 10 concerts, which the Seattle Symphony claims is due to popular demand. The four-concert Friday series has been dropped.The 6A/6B, 7C/7D, and 6E/6F concert series do not overlap, so you can create your own pseudo-series by taking any two of them, or recreate the 19-concert series by taking all three.The 13-concert series is the same as the 7C/7D and 6E/6F series combined.The Saturday concert for the weekend of May 13 has been moved to Friday.The 2026/2027 season will be the first to take advantage of the Amplify project’s renovation of the public spaces.The Youth Tickets program provides $25 tickets to up to children per concert for all Symphonic Series concerts, plus most other concerts. If you purchase an adult subscription, you can add a matching Youth Subscription at the same rate of $25 per concert.The Seattle Symphony is part of the TeenTix program which offers teenagers (ages 13 through 19) $5 day-of-show tickets for selected concerts. TeenTix members can also buy up to two $10 tickets for Sunday concerts for non-teenage friends and family.Notable guests: Special concerts by Itzhak Perlman and Hayato Sumino (who is apparently a popular YouTuber), and organist Anna Lapwood. Superstar pianist Yuja Wang performs on Opening Night (Prokofiev Piano Concerto #3). Other prominent soloists performing at regular season concerts are Emanuel Ax (Mozart Piano Concerto #25), Gil Shaham (Dvořák Violin Concerto), and Benjamin Grosvenor (Rachmaninov Piano Concerto #2).Conductor Emeritus Ludovic Morlot returns to conduct a Spring-themed concert on the weekend of October 22. There is also a Spain-and-South-America themed concert (led by Xian Zhang) on the weekend of February 11.Soundtrack-with-film concerts continue to remain popular, and for the first time I can recall, one of these concerts makes it to the regular subscription series: A performance of the score to Modern Times to accompany the film.The April 8, April 15, and April 22 concerts form an in-season Nature in Music Festival.Additional series not listed above include the In Recital, Seattle Pops, Octave 9, Chamber, Tiny Tots, and Family Concerts, as well as a collection of holiday concerts in December. (This year, we have Messiah but no Beethoven’s 9th.)Over the years, the format of the Seattle Symphony official brochure has gradually gotten closer and closer to the format of this pocket guide. This makes my job both easier and arguably superfluous.

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