Colburn Orchestra Season 2025–26
“LA’s other Top Orchestra” San Francisco Classical Voice
The Colburn Orchestra, the Colburn Conservatory of Music’s renowned flagship ensemble led by Music Director Yehuda Gilad, presents exhilarating performances by some of the world’s best young classical musicians, under the batons of internationally celebrated conductors.
The 2025–26 season will see the Orchestra perform for audiences across Los Angeles County with visiting conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Kevin John Edusei, Nicholas McGegan, and Earl Lee.
Highlights include Nicholas McGegan leading a program of quintessential works by Bach, Mozart, and Haydn, while Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts Bruckner’s sweeping “Romantic” Symphony. Carlos Miguel Prieto brings the spirit of Europe to life with Ravel and Dvořák, and Kevin John Edusei conducts Smetana’s Má vlast. Earl Lee presents Bruch’s lush Violin Concerto, and Yehuda Gilad conducts masterworks by Beethoven and Rachmaninoff. Salonen Fellows Mert Yalniz and Aleksandra Melaniuk spotlight rising soloists in a vibrant concerto program with the Colburn Orchestra.
The Colburn Orchestra is generously underwritten by Eva and Marc Stern.
Orchestral Constellations: Strauss, Bruch, and Moussa
Sunday, March 29 at 7:30 pm
Walt Disney Concert Hall
Earl Lee, Conductor
Eunice Lee, Violin
Following last season’s powerful performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, the Colburn Orchestra and conductor Earl Lee return to Walt Disney Concert Hall with another larger-than-life program. Two atmospheric works—Samy Moussa’s 2021 work Elysium and Richard Strauss’s famous symphonic poem Also sprach Zarathustra, best known for its use in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey—bookend the concert with soaring melodies and theatrical tone shifts. In between, the lush orchestration and sparkling virtuosity of Max Bruch’s violin concerto provide a break from the musical theatrics.
Program Information
SAMY MOUSSA Elysium
BRUCH Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor
STRAUSS Also sprach Zarathustra
Lyrical Legends: Beethoven and Rachmaninoff
Sunday, April 19 at 3 pm
Kavli Theatre, Thousand Oaks
Yehuda Gilad, Conductor
Aleksandra Melaniuk, Conductor, Salonen Conducting Fellow
HyeJin Park, Piano
After a fiery overture by Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz, this concert centers on two of classical music’s greatest voices. While at its core an elegant and charming Classical-era composition, Beethoven’s second piano concerto includes delightful and innovative surprises that harken to his later Romantic roots. Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2, on the other hand, is Romantic through and through. This orchestral masterwork is teeming with achingly beautiful melodies, luscious orchestral colors, and vivid emotions.
Program Information
BACEWICZ Overture
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major
RACHMANINOFF Symphony No. 2 in E Minor
80th Ojai Music Festival
June 11–14
Esa-Pekka Salonen, Conductor
The Colburn Orchestra makes its Ojai Music Festival debut in multiple concerts led by Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Festival’s 2026 Music Director, in a program that celebrates his longstanding ties to Los Angeles.
Concert details to be announced.