A S O
Strauss & Shostakovich SEPTEMBER 17 & 20, 2026
Brahms’s Second Symphony SEPTEMBER 24 & 26, 2026
E XPECT THE E XTRAORDINARY
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T WE N T Y-FIV E YEAR S
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2026 –2027 SEASON J A C K , J O S E P H A N D M O RTO N M A N D E L C O N C E RT H A L L AT S E V E R A N C E M U S I C C E N T E R
PAG E 5
A M ES SAG E FROM T HE PRES IDE N T & CEO PAGE 7
I N TROD UC T ION PAG E 11
S TR AUS S & SH O STAKOV I C H Franz Welser-Möst, conductor | Golda Schultz, soprano Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss • PAGE 12 Symphony No. 8 by Dmitri Shostakovich • PAGE 15 The Sung Texts • PAGE 18 PAG E 23
B R AHM S ’ S SE CO N D SY M PH O NY Franz Welser-Möst, conductor Orpheus by Franz Liszt • PAGE 24 Symphony No. 2 by Bohuslav Martinů • PAGE 27 Symphony No. 2 by Johannes Brahms • PAGE 30 PAG E 3 7
CON DU C TOR & ART IST BIOG R APHIE S PAG E 47
COVER: PHOTO OF FRANZ WELSER-MÖST BY ROGER MASTROIANNI
TCO SP OTLIG H T Meet the New Class of Musicians PAG E 5 3
I N T HE N EW S Noteworthy happenings at The Cleveland Orchestra PAG E 6 0
TH A N K YOU The community of supporters who bring the music to life
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ARTIST RECITAL SERIES 2026-27
Your Next Great Concert Experience Awaits You In Oberlin. Since the Artist Recital Series was founded in 1878, Finney Chapel has welcomed many of the world’s leading musicians to Oberlin. This season continues that tradition with six performances spanning classical, jazz, electronic, and contemporary music— each offering a different way to experience celebrated artists at work and music made in close connection with audiences.
Choose single tickets or the Pick Three Subscription and save! Tickets: $10–$35 All performances 7:30 p.m.
Juilliard String Quartet September 26 Jean-Guihen Queyras, cello, and Alexandre Tharaud, piano November 3 Blacktronika: Afrofuturism in Electronic Music featuring King Britt February 27 Lawrence Brownlee, tenor March 18 Yefim Bronfman, piano March 30
Paquito D’Rivera, saxophone, clarinet April 14 Bonus event: Claire Chase Residency | April 6-10 Workshops, presentations, and coachings with students. Culminating concert April 10
More information at oberlin.edu/artsguide
Thank you, music lovers! Welcome to the new season, brought to life by donations from people like you. To every friend, neighbor, and hero for music: Thank you for supporting the arts in our community. You make Cleveland a better place.
SCAN QR CODE TO VISIT
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FRO M THE PRESID E N T & C EO WELCOME TO THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA’S 2026–27 SEASON!
PHOTO BY ROGER MASTROIANNI
On behalf of the musicians, board, staff, and volunteers, we are so glad you joined us at Severance Music Center for the start of this exciting season. This year marks a pivotal moment for The Cleveland Orchestra as we celebrate Franz Welser-Möst’s 25th and final season as Music Director. Franz’s concerts this year include a stunning variety of music featuring some of his favorite works. One of these is Richard Strauss’s monumental opera Die Frau ohne Schatten, which will be fully staged as the centerpiece of our fifth annual Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Opera & Humanities Festival. There’s lots to look forward to as we toast Franz and his partnership with your Cleveland Orchestra. (I also invite you to read about Franz’s season-opening programs in his own words on page 7.) The rest of the season is full of treasured masterpieces alongside fresh new works, including the world premiere of Adolphus Hailstork’s Distant Lands, composed for Principal Oboe Frank Rosenwein. We also welcome a dazzling roster of guest artists this season, from familiar faces like soprano Golda Schultz, violinist Augustin Hadelich, and composer-conductor John Adams, to Cleveland Orchestra–debuts for soprano Julia Bullock and pianist Alexandre Kantorow. In addition to honoring Franz as our longest-serving Music Director, I hope you will join us in celebrating other important anniversaries this season. After the Orchestra tours Europe next month (see page 54), we will celebrate the 75th anniversary of The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus with Eric Whitacre leading the US premiere of his evening-length work, Eternity in an Hour. In January, we mark 20 years of our South Florida Residency with expanded programming at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami. Meanwhile, The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra rings in 40 years of nurturing the next generation of young musicians. Even as their historic partnership begins its final chapter, Franz and the Orchestra continue to refine their unmistakable sound, share Cleveland’s artistry with the world, and build a community of inspired fans and music lovers. Whether you are a lifetime subscriber or attending your first concert, whether you join us in person or on Adella, thank you for being a vital member of our Cleveland Orchestra family. I hope you will return often in the coming months to celebrate this historic season together. André Gremillet President & CEO | The Richard K. Smucker Chair The Cleveland Orchestra
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MEDIA WITH FR ANZ W ELSER-MÖST & THE CLE VEL AN D O RCH ESTR A
From dazzling new works to time-tested favorites, discover the “Cleveland sound” through recordings from The Cleveland Orchestra’s own label.
C LE VEL AN D ORCHESTR A . CO M/RECO RD I NG S
S C AN FO R MO RE I N FO RMATI ON & ACC ES S TO THE RECO RD I N G S
I N TRO DU C TI ON By Music Director Franz Welser-Möst
PHOTO BY YEVHEN GULENKO
AHEAD OF MY LAST BIG EUROPEAN TOUR with The Cleveland Orchestra this fall,
I have chosen to begin the 2026–27 Season with repertoire that shows what the Orchestra stands for and highlights its extraordinary qualities. Shostakovich wrote his Eighth Symphony just as the tides began to turn for the Soviet Union during World War II. He calls for a massive orchestra and a wide variety of solo instruments, right down to the Principal Bass, to capture the tremendous angst of this moment in history. Soviet censors felt it was not optimistic enough, but Shostakovich himself wrote that the piece “can be summed up in three words: life is beautiful. All that is dark and evil will rot away, and beauty will triumph.” Our first concert also features Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, which he wrote in the aftermath of the War, just before his own death. Soprano Golda Schultz will join us for this poignant work. I have collaborated with Golda a few times, and she’s highly musical and a hard worker. Besides being a great artist, she is also witty and fun. I am glad she will join us not only on tour this fall, but also in January for Beethoven’s Missa solemnis at Severance and Carnegie Hall. For our second concert of the season, I have juxtaposed Brahms’s and Martinů’s second symphonies. One of the things I am most proud of in my time as Music Director is commissioning 47 works for the Orchestra — but Cleveland’s rich history of commissioning new music goes back much further. Martinů’s Second Symphony was commissioned and premiered in Cleveland in the 1940s, and this concert will mark the first time it has been played at Severance since that premiere performance. Brahms’s Second Symphony, on the other hand, is much more familiar and will show the tremendous warmth The Cleveland Orchestra has developed in our time together. In a few weeks, we will perform these pieces across Europe, celebrating all we have built together on the global stage — but we play them first here, in our Cleveland home, for you, our most treasured audience. clevelandorchestra.com
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T WE N T Y-FIV E YEARS
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A S O
Upcoming 2026–27 fall highlights include:
THE CHORUS AT 75 with
ERIC WHITACRE
MAHLER’S FIF TH SYMPHONY
The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus
Petr Popelka
OCT 24
OCT 30, 31 & NOV 1
BRAHMS’S REQUIEM
ROYAL ILLUMINATIONS
The Cleveland Orchestra & Chorus
Julia Bullock
NOV 5, 7 & 8
NOV 12, 14 & 15
ROUVALI CONDUCTS STRAUSS
Santtu-Matias Rouvali
NOV 19, 20, 21 & 22
See page 56 for the 2026–27 Season Calendar! clevelandorchestra.com
TH E MUSIC
Thank you for silencing your electronic devices.
Strauss & Shostakovich Thursday, September 17, 2026, at 7:30 PM Sunday, September 20, 2026, at 3 PM
Season Preview with Orchestra President & CEO André Gremillet and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst Reinberger Chamber Hall one hour prior to performance
Franz Welser-Möst, conductor Richard Strauss (1864–1949)
Four Last Songs
25 minutes
I. Frühling II. September III. Beim Schlafengehen IV. Im Abendrot Golda Schultz, soprano
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975)
I N TERM IS SI ON
20 minutes
Symphony No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65
60 minutes
I. Adagio — Allegro non troppo II. Allegretto III. Allegro non troppo — IV. Largo — V. Allegretto
PHOTO OF GOLDA SCHULTZ BY ROGER MASTROIANNI
This program will last approximately 1 hour 45 minutes
Golda Schultz’s performance is generously sponsored by Astri Seidenfeld. clevelandorchestra.com
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STR AUS S & SH OSTAKOV I C H
Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss BORN : June 11, 1864, in Munich DIED: September 8, 1949, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria
▶ COMPOSED: 1948 ▶ WORLD PREMIERE : May 22, 1950, in London, by soprano Kirsten Flagstad with Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra ▶ CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA PREMIERE : Kirsten Flagstad performed three of the four songs on March 13, 1952, led by Music Director George Szell. The full set was first performed on November 13, 1958, with Szell directing and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf as soloist. ▶ ORCHESTRATION : 3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon), 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, harp, celesta, and strings, plus solo soprano ▶ DURATION : about 25 minutes See page 18 for the sung texts.
RICHARD STRAUSS WAS IN HIS 80S , living in quiet isolation in his villa in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, close to the Austrian border in the Bavarian Alps. In the early days of the Nazi regime, he had briefly been president of the Reichsmusikkammer, a state music bureau. This was enough to make his position in Germany tenuous at the end of World War II, even though he had consistently tried to distance himself from the world and events around him. He and his wife, Pauline, chose to go into exile in Switzerland, where they lived until 1949, the last year of his life. In that year, his name was cleared by a denazification tribunal, so he was able
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to spend his 85th birthday and the last few months of life back at GarmischPartenkirchen, in the beautiful surroundings he loved. He composed very little music in those years of exile. One work was his Oboe Concerto. Another was the Duett-Concertino for clarinet, bassoon, harp, and strings, an unusual work rarely performed today. He also composed some incomplete scenes for a comic opera titled The Donkey’s Shadow. The only other music he wrote in exile is the masterpiece that came to be known as his Four Last Songs, full of nostalgia and that autumnal tone of which Strauss was a master.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ALMAY/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP NORTH AMERICA LLC
The first to be composed was “Im Abendrot” (At Sunset), based on a poem by Joseph von Eichendorff. This became the last in the set of four, and the one that touches most closely on the theme of death. It was sketched in 1946 but not finished until May 1948. Perhaps Strauss did not expect to compose anything more. But a friend sent him an anthology of Hermann Hesse’s poems, three of which Strauss set in quick succession: “Frühling” (Spring), “Beim Schlafengehen” clevelandorchestra.com
A 71-year-old Richard Strauss works on his comic opera Die schweigsame Frau (The Silent Woman), composed 13 years before the Four Last Songs.
(At Bedtime), and “September” — the last appropriately finished on September 20, 1948, and essentially the last music he ever wrote. He died a year later without hearing the songs performed. Throughout these songs, Strauss is completely comfortable in a style he had perfected over many years. The scoring is intricate, full of active filigree in the | 13
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upper voices, while the bass line moves slowly, underpinning harmonies that can change color with kaleidoscopic swiftness, yet never fail to resolve to cadences that seemed inevitable all along. Divided strings, gorgeous horn writing, and great restraint in the heavy brass, all at a gentle tempo (three of the songs are marked Andante) — these are the traits of a master in his twilight years.
Another wonderful melody is offered by a solo violin, to which the singer responds with a magisterial rising phrase while the cellos climb through two octaves. Never has the key of D-flat major been more expressively applied to the sense of peace and repose. “Im Abendrot” is darker than the other songs, full of weariness and apprehension. As soon as death is mentioned, we hear
Divided strings, gorgeous horn writing, and great restraint in the heavy brass, all at a gentle tempo ... these are the traits of a master in his twilight years. Strauss never indicated the order in which the songs should be sung, apart from placing “Im Abendrot” at the end. The standard sequence places “Frühling” first, a song that invokes spring without a hint of gloom and takes the voice soaring higher than in the other songs, suggesting birdsong (“Vogelsang”) and the miracle (“Wunder”) of the season. There is a rapturous quality in the rich scoring that keeps the winds fully occupied, the strings divided into many parts, and trumpets and trombones silent. “September” bids farewell to summer with much regret, expressed in shimmering textures and a wonderful melody that comes to full bloom at the words “Sommer lächelt” (summer smiles). The horn has the unforgettable last word. “Beim Schlafengehen” touches on the oblivion of sleep that the soul longs for. 14 | 2026/2027 SEASON
the broad, climbing theme from the tone poem Death and Transfiguration, which Strauss had composed 60 years before, capturing hope for a transfigured future. As the music comes to a radiant close, life is not extinguished. High in the woodwinds, two piccolos evoke a pair of larks, and their faint twitterings linger in the air when all else has gone. — Hugh Macdonald Hugh Macdonald is Avis H. Blewett Professor Emeritus of Music at Washington University in St. Louis. He has written books on Beethoven, Berlioz, Bizet, and Scriabin, as well as Music in 1853: The Biography of a Year.
Continue your journey with Richard Strauss and The Cleveland Orchestra on Adella.live with Limitless Fantasy, a new production featuring Music Director Franz Welser-Möst leading music from Salome and Die Frau ohne Schatten. Try it free by visiting adella.live and using the promo code ADELLA30 at checkout.
Symphony No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65 by Dmitri Shostakovich BORN : September 25, 1906, in St. Petersburg DIED : August 9, 1975, in Moscow
▶ COMPOSED: 1943 ▶ WORLD PREMIERE : November 3, 1943, with Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting the USSR Symphony Orchestra ▶ CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA PREMIERE : March 18, 1976, led by Kirill Kondrashin ▶ ORCHESTRATION : 4 flutes (3rd and 4th doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon), 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, snare drum, tambourine, tam-tam, triangle, xylophone), and strings ▶ DURATION : about 60 minutes
THE GERMAN ARMY’S SIEGE of Leningrad
began in August 1941. In October, before the worst privations overtook the city, Dmitri Shostakovich and his family, along with other artists and musicians, were evacuated to Kyubyshev, deep in the heart of central Russia, where life was uncomfortable but free from danger. Here, Shostakovich was able to complete his Seventh Symphony (nicknamed “Leningrad”) and witness from afar its worldwide success. It quickly became a symbol of Russia’s heroic defiance at a time when the outcome of the struggle against Nazi Germany was anything but clear. In summer 1943, Shostakovich spent a few months at a special musicians’ retreat in Ivanovo, near Moscow. These “Houses of Rest and Creativity,” set up by the Soviet government, offered clevelandorchestra.com
composers a comfortable environment and ample time to work. Here, in the space of a little more than two months, he composed his next symphony, the immense Eighth, and had it ready for performance in Moscow by November. Interpreting Shostakovich’s music is like walking on thin ice, yet critics and admirers, both past and present, have confidently proclaimed various interpretations of the Eighth Symphony. In 1943, the authorities were clear that the symphony was a pessimistic work, full of “unhealthy individualism,” at a time when — after the Battle of Stalingrad — the Germans were in retreat and the prospect of victory was finally at hand. Shostakovich’s symphony was therefore relegated to the list of works “not recommended” for performance — in effect, banned. | 15
Like many of his previous compositions, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony faced scrutiny from Soviet censors for its modern musical language and ambiguous message.
For some later critics, free of Soviet ideology, the Eighth is a tragic work, lamenting the millions of lives destroyed by the war. For others, its meaning is hidden beneath a veneer of irony, since Shostakovich’s ambiguous position as a Soviet artist (fettered by the unpredictable responses of his masters) 16 | 2026/2027 SEASON
bred in him a highly developed skill at dissimulation: he became good at saying one thing and meaning another, of making declarations in public that he might contradict in private. If that same irony informs his music, how do we know whether his merriment is real or his misery feigned? The short answer is: we can never know. Shostakovich was a very private, if not inscrutable, individual, leaving us free to adopt almost any view of his work
PHOTO COURTESY OF ALMAY/EVERETT COLLECTION HISTORICAL
STR AUS S & SH OSTAKOV I C H
without any certainty. He himself never provided any programmatic description of the Eighth Symphony, nor did he connect it with the traumatic times in which it was composed. We are simply left with a symphony in five movements, which encompasses long, thoughtful passages, explosions of untamed force, meditations on easy-going material, bursts of comic humor, pages of intense musical argument, and much else.
fun to watch, too. When the trombones take on the violas’ figuration, they present a splendid sight with their slides darting back and forth. And the timpani, too, takes a turn, a pair of sticks flying over the three drums. The fourth movement is intensely serious. Shostakovich builds a passacaglia on a 10-measure theme that gradually disintegrates from a full-orchestra unison until the violins alone remain.
Shostakovich was a very private, if not inscrutable, individual, leaving us free to adopt almost any view of his work without any certainty. Like Shostakovich’s popular Fifth Symphony, the Eighth has an opening movement that grows gradually from a slow, pithy start to a climax of cataclysmic force. It passes through a section of blatant crudity to a second climax, before returning to the isolated emptiness of the beginning. This huge, 25-minute movement displays Shostakovich in all his various humors — in long wandering solos, frantic bursts of energy, whooping horns, furious percussion, and eerily calm low strings. The same variety of mood characterizes the following four movements. The second has a certain burlesque flavor and a memorable solo for the piccolo. The third is even more lively, a scherzo in 2/4 time set off by the violas. This movement drips with humor. How could critics have ever thought it was pessimistic? It’s clevelandorchestra.com
This theme is repeated a dozen times with different counterthemes — notably in the horn, then the piccolo, then four fluttering flutes, then the clarinet — and then passes almost imperceptibly into the fifth-movement finale. The final movement is heralded by the bassoons, going their merry way. The music remains carefree even when the tempo increases. But there is tension in the air, and catastrophe soon strikes with the forceful, climactic music from the first movement. A long solo for the bass clarinet finally restores calm, and the end has a seraphic quality, offering deep repose. The symphony traces the complete gamut of human feeling, but does it have a precise meaning? Let those of us listening decide for ourselves. — Hugh Macdonald | 17
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THE S U NG TE XTS
Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss
FRÜH LI NG (SPRI NG)
Text by Hermann Hesse
In dämmrigen Grüften träumte ich lang von deinen Bäumen und blauen Lüften, von deinem Duft und Vogelsang.
In dusky hollows I have long dreamt of your trees and blue skies, of your fragrance and birdsong.
Nun liegst du erschlossen in Gleiss und Zier, von Licht übergossen wie ein Wunder vor mir.
Now you stand, revealed in glitter and glory, bathed in light, like a miracle before me.
Du kennst mich wieder, du lockst mich zart, es zittert durch all meine Glieder deine selige Gegenwart!
You recognize me, you gently beckon, all my limbs tremble in your blessed presence!
SEPTEMBER
Text by Hermann Hesse
Der Garten trauert, Kühl sinkt in die Blumen der Regen. Der Sommer schauert still seinem Ende entgegen.
The garden mourns, cool rain sinks into the flowers. The summer shudders silently, as it comes to an end.
Golden tropft Blatt um Blatt nieder vom hohen Akazienbaum. Sommer lächelt erstaunt und matt in den sterbenden Gartentraum.
Leaf after golden leaf drops down from the tall acacia tree. Summer smiles, astonished and weak, at the dying garden dream.
Lange noch bei den Rosen bleibt er stehn, sehnt sich nach Ruh. Langsam tut er die müdgewordnen Augen zu.
For a long while, within the roses it lingers, yearning for rest. Slowly it closes its wearied eyes.
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BEIM S CHL AFE N G EHE N (AT BEDTIM E)
Text by Hermann Hesse
Nun der Tag mich müd gemacht, soll mein sehnliches Verlangen freundlich die gestirnte Nacht wie ein müdes Kind empfangen.
Now that the day has made me tired, my ardent desire shall happily receive the starry night, like a tired child.
Hände, lasst von allem Tun, Stirn vergiss du alles Denken, alle meine Sinne nun wollen sich in Schlummer senken.
Hands, cease all doing, brow, forget all thinking, all my senses now want to sink in slumber.
Und die Seele, unbewacht, will in freien Flügen schweben, um im Zauberkreis der Nacht tief und tausendfach zu leben.
And the soul, unguarded, wants to soar in free flight in the magic realm of night, to live there deeply and a thousand times.
I M ABE N D ROT (AT SU NSE T)
Text by Joseph von Eichendorff
Wir sind durch Not und Freude gegangen Hand in Hand; vom Wandern ruhen wir nun überm stillen Land.
Through sorrow and joy we have walked hand in hand; from our wanderings, let us rest well over the quiet land.
Rings sich die Täler neigen, es dunkelt schon die Luft, zwei Lerchen nur noch steigen nachträumend in den Duft.
Around us the valleys are waning, the sky is already darkening, only two larks soar upwards in the air, under the spell of a dream.
Tritt her und lass sie schwirren, bald ist es Schlafenszeit, dass wir uns nicht verirren in dieser Einsamkeit.
Step closer and let them flutter. Soon it is time to sleep; let us not lose our way in this solitude.
O weiter, stiller Friede! So tief im Abendrot, wie sind wir wandermüde — ist dies etwa der Tod?
O spacious, silent peace! So deep in evening’s glow, how tired of wandering we are — can this, perhaps, be death?
clevelandorchestra.com
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CED N U O N N A W O NEW SH
WORLD-CLASS PERFORMING ARTS EVENTS IN AKRON
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Berea, Ohio 44017 bw.edu/conservatory
ON V IEW AT
SEVERANCE MUSIC CENTER Celebrating a Unique Partnership: 25 Years with Music Director Franz Welser-Möst
TOP: PHOTO BY YEVHEN GULENKO, MIDDLE : PHOTOS BY YEVHEN GULENKO & ROGER MASTROIANNI, BOTTOM: IMAGE COURTESY OF THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA ARCHIVES
LERNER GALLERY An homage to The Cleveland Orchestra’s longest-serving Music Director, this exhibit celebrates Franz Welser-Möst’s commitment to community programming, recording projects, global touring, and staged opera. See photos, albums, and even one of Franz’s batons!
Celebrating 75 Years of COC & 40 Years of COYO PAMELA HUMPHREY GREEN ROOM Dive into the history of The Cleveland Orchestra’s longest-standing supporting ensembles. From past directors to tour photos, get a glimpse behind the scenes at The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra.
The Cleveland Orchestra on Tour THE MAGICBOX outside the Grand Foyer Travel across the globe through The Cleveland Orchestra’s extensive touring history. This interactive display showcases videos and fascinating artifacts from the Orchestra’s visits across five continents, such as a travel bag from Qantas made especially for the Orchestra’s Australian tour.
clevelandorchestra.com
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TH E MUS IC
Thank you for silencing your electronic devices.
Brahms’s Second Symphony Thursday, September 24, 2026, at 7:30 PM Saturday, September 26, 2026, at 7:30 PM Concert Preview with James O’Leary Reinberger Chamber Hall one hour prior to performance
Franz Welser-Möst, conductor Franz Liszt (1811–1886)
Orpheus (Symphonic Poem No. 4)
10 minutes
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Symphony No. 2
25 minutes
Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)
I. Allegro moderato II. Andante moderato III. Poco allegro IV. Allegro I N TERM IS SI ON
20 minutes
Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73
45 minutes
I. Allegro non troppo II. Adagio non troppo III. Allegretto grazioso (Quasi andantino) IV. Allegro con spirito
PHOTO BY YEVHEN GULENKO
This program will last approximately 1 hour 40 minutes
clevelandorchestra.com
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BR AHMS ’ S SECON D S Y M PHO N Y
Orpheus (Symphonic Poem No. 4) by Franz Liszt BORN : October 22, 1811, in Doborján, Hungary (now Raiding, Austria) DIED : July 31, 1886, in Bayreuth, Germany
▶ COMPOSED: 1853–54 ▶ WORLD PREMIERE : February 16, 1854, with the composer conducting the Weimar Court Orchestra ▶ CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA PREMIERE : December 27, 1928, led by Music Director Nikolai Sokoloff ▶ ORCHESTRATION : 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, 2 harps, and strings ▶ DURATION : about 10 minutes
FRANZ LISZT WAS A MAN of exceptional energy. He was active throughout his life as pianist, composer, conductor, and teacher, with constant commitments in France, Germany, Italy, and Hungary. He was also a lifelong reviser of his own music. As such, it is not clear to us over a century past his death which piece he was working on at any given moment. Liszt sketched, drafted, completed, revised, and revised again before many of his works were ever published or performed — and even then, they were often subject to further tinkering. His output of original compositions and transcriptions (of his own and others’ works) was so vast, it is likely that his mind, if not his desk, was always a traffic-jam of pieces in various stages of completion.
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The symphonic poem Orpheus is exceptional, then, because it enjoyed a relatively simple birth and was never revised. While Liszt was known for his virtuosity on the piano and for the great brilliance of his compositions, this work presents a total contrast in tone and sensibility. In this work is the contemplative Liszt, absorbed not by his lifelong religious devotions, but by the legacy of Greek culture. In the printed score, this beautiful work is prefaced by a short essay in which Liszt explains how, as conductor of Weimar’s opera house in the 1850s, he was preparing a performance of Gluck’s opera Orfeo ed Euridice. The “sublime By the time this photo was taken around 1870, Franz Liszt had retired from his performing career and turned his attention more fully to composition.
PHOTO BY NUMA BLANC & CIE/COURTESY OF WIEN MUSEUM ONLINE SAMMLUNG
clevelandorchestra.com
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BR AHMS ’ S SECON D S Y M PHO N Y
simplicity” of Gluck’s music led him to think of Orpheus as a symbol for the essence of art. Calling to mind an Etruscan vase he had seen at the Louvre in Paris, Liszt pictured “the first poet-musician, draped in a star-studded robe, his brow crowned with a mystically royal bandeau, his lips open to utter divine words and music, and his long, slender fingers energetically plucking the strings of his lyre.” Around the figure of Orpheus on the vase lie the wild beasts he has tamed with the beauty of his
While Liszt was known for his virtuosity on the piano and for the great brilliance of his compositions, this work presents a total contrast in tone and sensibility. singing; all nature is subdued by the power of art. The essay insists that the modern world has much to learn from this artistic vision. In his symphonic poem, Liszt made his point by composing music not in an imagined style from ancient Greece, but in a modern, 19th-century orchestral language. Liszt’s orchestral music has sometimes been dismissed as being derived from Berlioz or ghosted by his disciple Joachim Raff, but in works such as Orpheus, his mastery of orchestration is both personal and obvious; it is a short 26 | 2026/2027 SEASON
step from here to the new soundworld of Wagner’s music dramas. For this work, the two harps play a crucial role in representing Orpheus’s lyre. The opening sections are scored with the character of chamber music, giving expressive solo entries to the woodwinds. Solo violin and cello also contribute, and the mood remains serene and abstracted until a certain quickening of the pace generates a modest climax for the full orchestra. Calm returns, and the final page has a visionary quality with string and wind chords alternating in celestial harmony. The work was first performed in February 1854 as the overture to a performance of Gluck’s opera. While Orfeo has its own overture, it is, by common consent, a somewhat bland piece that has little in common with the marvelous music of the opera itself. Liszt would have had no hesitation in substituting his own much more appropriate piece; such shifting and substitution was quite normal in the 19th century. Later that same year, Liszt’s Orpheus was performed in Weimar as a concert work, and in due course it took its place as “No. 4” in the series of 12 published symphonic poems — composed by Liszt throughout the 1850s as part of his enduring legacy after he had given up concertizing as one of the century’s greatest virtuoso pianists. — Hugh Macdonald Hugh Macdonald is Avis H. Blewett Professor Emeritus of Music at Washington University in St. Louis. He has written books on Beethoven, Berlioz, Bizet, and Scriabin, as well as Music in 1853: The Biography of a Year.
Symphony No. 2 by Bohuslav Martinů BORN : December 8, 1890, in Polička, Austria-Hungary (present-day Czech Republic) DIED : August 28, 1959, in Liestal, Switzerland
▶ COMPOSED: 1943 ▶ WORLD PREMIERE : October 28, 1943, with The Cleveland Orchestra led by Music Director Erich Leinsdorf ▶ ORCHESTRATION : 2 flutes, piccolo, 3 oboes, 3 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, side drum, tam-tam, triangle), harp, piano, and strings ▶ DURATION : about 25 minutes
BOHUSLAV MARTINŮ BEGAN COMPOSING
when he was still a child, but he was a late bloomer when it came to the symphony: he embarked on his First Symphony in 1942, at age 51. Once he embraced the form, however, he did so with remarkable intensity, completing all six of his symphonies over the next dozen years. Born in 1890 in the quiet Bohemian border town of Polička — the name means “Little Fields”— Martinů was trained as a violinist but remained mostly self-taught as a composer. After early years playing in the Czech Philharmonic, he relocated in 1923 to Paris, where he absorbed an immense range of influences — Stravinsky, jazz, Neoclassicism, Renaissance polyphony — without becoming anyone’s disciple. Childhood memories of Czech folk music also entered the mix. By the time Martinů reached America, he was fusing these clevelandorchestra.com
elements into a language unmistakably his own: rhythmically vital, pungent, closely layered in harmony, clear in design, and animated by an acute ear for orchestral color. Martinů’s late symphonic flowering was inseparable from exile and nurtured by American institutions and émigré communities. Having fled Nazi-occupied France in 1940, he reached the United States the following year with little more than a handful of scores. The Boston Symphony Orchestra under Serge Koussevitzky commissioned the First Symphony in 1942 (and would later premiere the Third and Sixth symphonies). A year later, the American Friends of Czechoslovakia in Cleveland, working with The Cleveland Orchestra, assembled the funds to commission what became Martinů’s Second Symphony. By 1910, Cleveland had the world’s fourth-largest Czech population, and Czech musical | 27
BR AHMS ’ S SECON D S Y M PHO N Y
organizations had long been integral to the city’s cultural life. The new symphony was intended to mark the 25th anniversary of Czechoslovak independence; the score is dedicated “To My Fellow Countrymen in Cleveland.” Written in Darien, Connecticut between May and July 1943, The Cleveland Orchestra premiered the symphony with Music Director Erich Leinsdorf on October 28, 1943 — the anniversary itself — on a program that included a Czech classic, Smetana’s Moldau from Má vlast. The Second Symphony carried several burdens at once. It was a new work in a genre only recently taken up by the exiled Czech composer, written to pay homage to a republic established in the aftermath of the First World War but
through “mechanical means and dynamic design,” which could end “simply in noise.” Such effects, he argued, act “upon the nerves alone,” rather than serving “the purpose of music and beauty.” His own description of the Second Symphony’s essential character as “calm and lyric” is disarmingly simple and deliberately uninflated. That Martinů had, in fact, applied the very same epithet to the First Symphony — a work markedly different in character and ambition — suggests that he had in mind an aesthetic principle rather than a particular mood. The Second is the most compact of Martinů’s symphonies, closer at times to chamber music. It begins in a kaleidoscopically swirling cloud of D minor, with shapes gradually gathering definition
[Martinů’s] symphony was intended to mark the 25th anniversary of Czechoslovak independence; the score is dedicated “To My Fellow Countrymen in Cleveland.” since dismembered by Nazi Germany. Everything about the occasion might have encouraged grandeur, pathos, or at least an element of bombastic patriotism. In a statement he wrote for the Cleveland premiere, Martinů remarked on the inflation of expectations around the symphony from Beethoven onward: even in contemporary hands, it was still treated as the expression of something “grandiose, tragic, or pathetic,” often dependent on a “program.” But he distrusted attempts to express tragedy 28 | 2026/2027 SEASON
from the surrounding motion. In lieu of the drama of Brahmsian motivic development, Martinů foregrounds his French inheritance by spinning out threads of changing texture and instrumental exchange across the large ensemble. The first movement builds to a striking, tam-tam-reinforced climax before the music subsides gently, leaving a sense of ideas still awaiting transformation. The second movement narrows the palette, leaving aside the heavier brass and percussion and expressively
PHOTO BY JOSEF MACHÁČEK/COURTESY OF THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA ARCHIVES
These performances of Bohuslav Martinů’s Second Symphony mark only the second time the work has been played at Severance, after The Cleveland Orchestra commissioned and premiered it in 1943.
blending winds, horns, strings, and piano (with a momentary triangle glint). The piano’s role in the symphony is not soloistic but coloristic, adding a percussive edge and a brightening attack within the orchestral fabric. Two contrasting ideas shape the movement: a stepwise, folk-inflected wind melody and a broader string theme. Their interaction gives the movement its enigmatic drama. The full ensemble is enlisted to underscore the bracing energies of the third movement, cast as a march rather than a scherzo. Its syncopated dance impulses bring Martinů’s Bohemian roots to the surface. Near the end, a trumpet alludes obliquely to “La Marseillaise,” though clevelandorchestra.com
the flashing reference is hardly enough to turn the Second into a programmatic “war symphony.” The finale sets contrasting ideas in a kind of perpetual motion, its prismatic timbres propelled by infectious rhythms. The orchestra eventually rallies all its forces in a rousing D-major coda — not superficially affirmative, but bright and triumphant. More than 80 years after The Cleveland Orchestra introduced the Second Symphony to the world, Martinů’s belief still resonates: “simple events and simple things” can become in music “quite as spectacular and just as inspiring” as any grandiose program. — Thomas May Thomas May is a writer, critic, educator, and translator. A regular contributor to The New York Times, The Seattle Times, Gramophone, and Strings magazine, he is the English-language editor for the Lucerne Festival.
Scan the QR code to read a feature about Martinů’s relationship with TCO on the Orchestra’s From the Archives blog.
| 29
BR AHMS ’ S SECON D S Y M PHO N Y
Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73 by Johannes Brahms BORN : May 7, 1833, in Hamburg DIED : April 3, 1897, in Vienna
▶ COMPOSED: 1877 ▶ WORLD PREMIERE : December 30, 1877, with Hans Richter conducting the Vienna Philharmonic ▶ CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA PREMIERE : December 3, 1919, led by Music Director Nikolai Sokoloff ▶ ORCHESTRATION : 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings ▶ DURATION : about 45 minutes
IT IS USUALLY SAID of Johannes Brahms
that he delayed composing a symphony until after he was 40 out of respect for Beethoven’s great set of nine — and from a fear of being found wanting in comparison with his mighty predecessor. There is much truth in this. Indeed, Brahms acknowledged it himself. Brahms’s rapid rise, at age 20, into an elite circle of leading composers was set in motion by Robert Schumann, who declared publicly that Brahms was destined for a great future in the pedigree of German music. In the company of Schumann and his wife, Clara, Brahms had almost exclusively played chamber music — which for them represented Beethoven’s legacy. Meanwhile, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (and its “Ode to Joy”) was being elevated by Liszt, Wagner, and their followers as a pointer to the future of symphonic music. 30 | 2026/2027 SEASON
Brahms always regarded symphonic writing as a tough proposition. Self-critical to the point of destroying an unknown number of works that did not satisfy his exacting standards, we should be thankful that Brahms gave us as many as four symphonies. Brahms’s long-awaited First Symphony premiered in the city of Karlsruhe in November 1876. The composer was anxious to test it in one of the less prominent German cities before allowing performances in Vienna, Leipzig, or Berlin. Such was its success, however, that performances quickly followed in all major cities, at home and abroad. Once he had given one symphony to the world, the rest followed more rapidly — within nine years. In fact, the success of the First and the choice of a perfect spot for his summer vacation worked miracles and produced the Second Symphony the very next year.
PHOTO BY RAINER MIRAU/COURTESY OF ALMAY, MAURITIUS IMAGES GMBH
Since 1864, there had been a railroad connection from Vienna to Lake Wörth in the southernmost part of Austria, enticing the capital’s well-to-do to spend their summers there. Brahms liked to compose during his holidays, and in the village of Pörtschach on the lake’s northern shore he found a haven: “It is delightful here,” he wrote, “I will never again spend the summer far from the Prater [Vienna’s main street].” Many a great work was to emerge from those summer retreats amid Alpine lakes and mountains, including the Violin Concerto the following year. (Mahler, who built a villa at Maiernigg just across the lake clevelandorchestra.com
The idyllic shores of Austria’s Lake Wörth provided ample inspiration for Johannes Brahms as he composed his Second Symphony in the summer of 1877.
from Pörtschach, would also find inspiration in those surroundings.) Upon completing the Second Symphony in the summer of 1877, Brahms had no hesitation in offering it first to a Viennese audience. They heard it on December 30 that year and, like its predecessor, it was soon taken up by the great orchestras of the world. There are dark passages and no lack of tension, but on the whole, this is a sunny work, full of light and vivacity, that leaves listeners in a state of elation. | 31
BR AHMS ’ S SECON D S Y M PHO N Y
This impression is most strongly conveyed by the charming third movement, which can make the intricacies and tensions of the first two movements fade into memory, and even compel audiences to overlook the technical skill of the brilliant finale, which sweeps away everything before it. The third movement is a kind of intermezzo, in which a gentle folksy melody is treated as a recurring rondo theme, alternating with two equally charming episodes. The first is a fairylike transformation of the initial theme, sped up; the second
first two movements, they step proudly forward in the last movement to close the symphony with the most thrilling D-major triad in all symphonic music. The cellos similarly have a leading role, with an especially ravishing melody (supported by the violas) as the second subject of the first movement, and an important expressive line in the slow movement. Meanwhile, the first horn takes the spotlight with its superbly shaped solo in the coda of the first movement, which is followed by the first violins indulging their taste for broad melody
There are dark passages and no lack of tension, but on the whole, this is a sunny work, full of light and vivacity, that leaves listeners in a state of elation. is a scherzo-like dance full of crossaccents and chattering exchanges between winds and strings. Brahms’s debt is here more to Mendelssohn and Schumann than to Beethoven. Is there a darker spirit elsewhere at work? Within a few bars of the opening of the first movement, the trombones are heard lurking in the shadows and, in the development, those hints turn into real threats when the trombones show their teeth in overlapping, grinding entries. As if in remorse, the trombones play a soothing role in the slow movement, where Brahms explores intricate counterpoint, with at least two themes intertwining at any given moment. If the trombones are a sinister force in the 32 | 2026/2027 SEASON
on their lower strings — as if this is the point towards which the entire edifice of the first movement had been leading. In Brahms, there are always great moments like this. If we get too excited by one, however, we risk overlooking the next. Eagerness mixed with quiet patience rewards the alert and focused listener. — Hugh Macdonald
Continue your journey with Brahms and The Cleveland Orchestra on Adella.live with Towards Silence, a digital production featuring Igor Levit playing the Second Piano Concerto. Try it free by visiting adella.live and using the promo code ADELLA30 at checkout.
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THE CON DUC TOR
Franz Welser-Möst KELVIN SMITH FAMILY CHAIR
PHOTO BY SEBASTIAN FRÖHLICH
FRANZ WELSER-MÖST HAS FORGED
one of the most transformative artistic legacies in the history of The Cleveland Orchestra, as its seventh and longestserving Music Director. Now in his 25th and final season, he has shaped its sound with extraordinary care and imagination, cultivating greater warmth and flexibility, while preserving precision and transparency. Since the start of his tenure in 2002–03, he has led more than 1,200 performances across 15 US states and 26 countries, and has appointed 56 of the Orchestra’s 100 current musicians. Widely admired for his interpretations of Central European and Russian repertoire, Welser-Möst has also been a champion for living composers, specifically through the Orchestra’s Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellowship. His artistic collaborations have resulted in dozens of commissions and co-commissions, and at the close of the 2026–27 season, he will have led The Cleveland Orchestra in 27 world premieres and 21 US premieres. Welser-Möst’s tenure also brought about major innovative milestones for the Orchestra, including the creation of its recording label, the launch of its streaming platform, Adella.live, and the inauguration of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Opera & Humanities Festival. Opera has become a defining element of Welser-Möst’s Cleveland career through acclaimed productions of Dvořák’s Rusalka, Richard Strauss’s clevelandorchestra.com
Ariadne auf Naxos, Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, Puccini’s La fanciulla del West, and Mozart’s The Magic Flute. In May 2027, he leads a fully staged production of Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten. With the appointment of Lisa Wong as Director of Choruses, WelserMöst also elevated the all-volunteer Cleveland Orchestra Chorus as an essential artistic partner in these productions and other large works. Beyond Cleveland, Welser-Möst maintains a distinguished international career, marked by a longstanding artistic partnership with the Vienna Philharmonic. He regularly leads the ensemble at the Musikverein and on major international tours, and has already conducted the celebrated annual New Year’s concert three times. In 2024, he was named an Honorary Member of the Vienna Philharmonic, one of its highest honors. He is also celebrated for his interpretations of opera, conducting productions which have been widely acclaimed at the Salzburg Festival and the Vienna State Opera. | 37
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THE ARTIST
PHOTO BY VITTORIO GRECO
Golda Schultz soprano GOLDA SCHULTZ IS RECOGNIZED as one of today’s most talented and versatile sopranos, celebrated in equal measure for her vivid and intelligent portrayals of the leading ladies of the operatic canon, as a featured soloist with the world’s foremost orchestras, and as a captivating solo recitalist. Schultz’s 2026–27 season brings three significant role debuts: the title character in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Wiener Staatsoper, Antonia in The Tales of Hoffmann at Staatsoper Unter den Linden, and Elettra in Idomeneo at Glyndebourne. On the concert stage is a European tour of Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs with The Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst, Mahler’s Second Symphony with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and performances of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis in Cleveland, New York, Berlin, and Vienna. Unanimously praised for her “warmth of tone and sensitivity of phrasing,” South African–born Schultz trained at The Juilliard School and Bayerische Staatsoper’s Opernstudio. She found early success on both sides of the Atlantic through appearances as Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier) at the Salzburger Festspiele, Contessa Almaviva (The Marriage of Figaro) at Glyndebourne, and Pamina (The Magic Flute) at the Metropolitan Opera and Wiener Staatsoper. A popular guest with the world’s leading orchestras, Schultz’s recent concert
clevelandorchestra.com
highlights include Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Gewandhausorchester, and the Last Night of the Proms with Dalia Stasevska and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Schultz has released two solo albums on the Alpha Classics label: This Be Her Verse, a collection of works by female composers from the Romantic era to the present day, and Mozart, You Drive Me Crazy!, which received the coveted 2025 Opus Klassik Award for Solo Vocal Recording of the Year. Other recordings include Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Gewandhausorchester on Deutsche Grammophon and the Grammy Award–winning Porgy and Bess from the Metropolitan Opera. In an acclaimed recital partnership, Schultz and pianist Jonathan Ware have performed together at the Pierre Boulez Saal, Wigmore Hall, and Concertgebouw, as well as at the Edinburgh, Aix-enProvence, and Lucerne festivals. In the current season, they appear together at the Musikverein and Beethoven-Haus Bonn. | 39
THE CLEV EL AN D ORC HESTR A
Franz Welser-Möst, Music Director KELVIN SMITH FAMILY CHAIR FIRST VIOLINS
SECOND VIOLINS
CELLOS
PICCOLO
Joel Link
Stephen Rose* Alfred M. and Clara T. Rankin Chair
Mark Kosower* Louis D. Beaumont Chair
Mary Kay Fink Anne M. and M. Roger Clapp Chair
CONCERTMASTER
Blossom-Lee Chair Elizabeth Fayette FIRST ASSOCIATE CONCERTMASTER
Virginia M. Lindseth, PhD, Chair Philip Marten ASSOCIATE CONCERTMASTER
Gretchen D. and Ward Smith Chair Zhan Shu ASSISTANT CONCERTMASTER
Clara G. and George P. Bickford Chair
Stephen Tavani ASSISTANT CONCERTMASTER
Dr. Ronald H. Krasney Chair
Wei-Fang Gu Drs. Paul M. and Renate H. Duchesneau Chair Kim Gomez Elizabeth and Leslie Kondorossy Chair
Eli Matthews1 Patricia M. Kozerefski and Richard J. Bogomolny Chair Jason Yu2 James and Donna Reid Chair Sonja Braaten Molloy Carolyn Gadiel Warner Elayna Duitman Ioana Missits
Richard Weiss1 The GAR Foundation Chair Charles Bernard2 Helen Weil Ross Chair Bryan Dumm Muriel and Noah Butkin Chair Tanya Ell Thomas J. and Judith Fay Gruber Chair
OBOES Frank Rosenwein* Edith S. Taplin Chair Corbin Stair Sharon and Yoash Wiener Chair Jeffrey Rathbun2 Everett D. and Eugenia S. McCurdy Chair
Jeffrey Zehngut^
Brian Thornton William P. Blair III Chair
Kathleen Collins
David Alan Harrell
Beth Woodside
Martha Baldwin
Emma Shook Dr. Jeanette Grasselli Brown and Dr. Glenn R. Brown Chair
Dane Johansen Marguerite and James Rigby Chair
Yun-Ting Lee Deborah L. Neale Chair
Paul Kushious
CLARINETS
Jiah Chung Chapdelaine
BASSES
Afendi Yusuf* Robert Marcellus Chair
Liyuan Xie
Maximilian Dimoff* Clarence T. Reinberger Chair
Gawon Kim Dustin Wilkes-Kim
Charles Paul1 Mary E. and F. Joseph Callahan Chair
Robert Walters
ENGLISH HORN Robert Walters Samuel C. and Bernette K. Jaffe Chair
Robert Woolfrey Victoire G. and Alfred M. Rankin, Jr. Chair
Derek Zadinsky2
Miho Hashizume Theodore Rautenberg Chair
Wesley Collins* Chaillé H. and Richard B. Tullis Chair
Daniel McKelway2 Robert R. and Vilma L. Kohn Chair
Mark Atherton
Amy Zoloto
Jeanne Preucil Rose Larry J.B. and Barbara S. Robinson Chair
Gareth Zehngut1^ Charles M. and Janet G. Kimball Chair
Henry Peyrebrune Charles Barr Memorial Chair
Alicia Koelz Oswald and Phyllis Lerner Gilroy Chair
Stanley Konopka2
Chul-In Park Harriet T. and David L. Simon Chair
Yu Yuan Patty and John Collinson Chair Isabel Trautwein Trevor and Jennie Jones Chair Katherine Bormann Paul and Lucille Jones Chair
VIOLAS
Lisa Boyko Richard and Nancy Sneed Chair Lembi Veskimets The Morgan Sisters Chair Eliesha Nelson^ Anthony and Diane Wynshaw-Boris Chair
Thomas Sperl
Charles Carleton Scott Dixon Brandon Mason
HARP Trina Struble* Alice Chalifoux Chair
FLUTES
Analise Handke Gladys B. Goetz Chair
William Bender Thomas Lauria and Christopher Lauria Chair
Joshua Smith* Elizabeth M. and William C. Treuhaft Chair
Genevieve Smelser
Sean Juhl
Saeran St. Christopher
Gabriel Napoli^
Jessica Sindell2^ Austin B. and Ellen W. Chinn Chair
With sincere gratitude to the musicians of The Cleveland Orchestra for their in-kind contributions supporting community programs and securing funding opportunities.
40 | 2026/2027 SEASON
Mary Kay Fink
E-FLAT CLARINET Daniel McKelway Stanley L. and Eloise M. Morgan Chair
BASS CLARINET Amy Zoloto Myrna and James Spira Chair
BASSOONS John Clouser* Louise Harkness Ingalls Chair Gareth Thomas Catherine Van Handel2 Sandra L. Haslinger Chair
CONTRABASSOON vacant
HORNS
TROMBONES
PERCUSSION
CONDUCTORS
Nathaniel Silberschlag* George Szell Memorial Chair
Brian Wendel* Gilbert W. and Louise I. Humphrey Chair
Marc Damoulakis* Margaret Allen Ireland Chair
Christoph von Dohnányi †
Thomas Sherwood
Taichi Fukumura
Tanner Tanyeri
ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR
Jesse McCormick-Stepp Robert B. Benyo Chair
Richard Stout Alexander and Marianna C. McAfee Chair
Hans Clebsch
Shachar Israel2
Richard King
BASS TROMBONE
KEYBOARD INSTRUMENTS
Michael Mayhew§ Knight Foundation Chair
Meghan Guegold Hege^ Gay Cull Addicott and Robert R. Cull Chair
TRUMPETS Michael Sachs* Robert and Eunice Podis Weiskopf Chair Jack Sutte Lyle Steelman2^ James P. and Dolores D. Storer Chair Michael Miller
PHOTO BY YEVHEN GULENKO
CORNETS Michael Sachs* Mary Elizabeth and G. Robert Klein Chair Michael Miller
clevelandorchestra.com
Luke Sieve
EUPHONIUM & BASS TRUMPET Richard Stout
TUBA Yasuhito Sugiyama* Nathalie C. Spence and Nathalie S. Boswell Chair
Peter Nichols
Carolyn Gadiel Warner Marjory and Marc L. Swartzbaugh Chair
MUSIC DIRECTOR LAUREATE
Elizabeth Ring and William Gwinn Mather Chair
James Feddeck PRINCIPAL CONDUCTOR & MUSICAL ADVISOR OF THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA YOUTH ORCHESTRA
Sidney and Doris Dworkin Chair
LIBRARIAN
Lisa Wong
Michael Ferraguto* Joe and Marlene Toot Chair
DIRECTOR OF CHORUSES
ENDOWED CHAIRS CURRENTLY UNOCCUPIED Jean Wall Bennett Chair
TIMPANI
Sunshine Chair
Peter Nichols2 Mr. and Mrs. Richard K. Smucker Chair
Otto G. and Corinne T. Voss Chair
Frances P. and Chester C. Bolton Chair * Principal § Associate Principal 1
First Assistant Principal
2 Assistant Principal
^ Alum of The Cleveland
Orchestra Youth Orchestra
† In Memoriam
Rudolf Serkin Chair
This roster lists full-time members of The Cleveland Orchestra. The number and seating of musicians on stage varies depending on the piece being performed. Seating within the string sections rotates on a periodic basis.
| 41
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THE CLEV EL AN D ORC HESTR A
PHOTO BY YEVHEN GULENKO
THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA , under the
leadership of Franz Welser-Möst since 2002, is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading ensembles. Praised by The New York Times as “America’s Finest,” the Orchestra is renowned for its virtuosity, elegance of sound, and chamber-like musical flexibility. In his 25th and final season as Music Director, Welser-Möst concludes a transformative partnership that has been marked by exceptional artistic ambition, growing international recognition, and deep community connection. During his tenure, the Orchestra has achieved major institutional milestones, including groundbreaking residencies at the Musikverein in Vienna — the first by an American orchestra — and at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami. In 2023, The Cleveland Orchestra launched the annual Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Opera & Humanities Festival, presenting acclaimed opera productions alongside art exhibits, community events, and civic conversations. Through concerts, broadcasts, recordings, tours, and digital initiatives, The Cleveland Orchestra reaches an ever-growing audience around the world. Its in-house recording label and streaming platform, Adella.live, capture and share performances from the Welser-Möst era while introducing new generations of fans to the Orchestra’s artistry. Founded by Adella Prentiss Hughes, The Cleveland Orchestra gave its @ClevelandOrchestra
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@cleveorch
inaugural concert in December 1918. Over more than a century, it has grown into a treasured community institution, enriching lives through music, education, and a deep commitment to Northeast Ohio. Today, more than 400,000 people attend Cleveland Orchestra concerts each year. From its year-round home at Severance Music Center to its summer season at Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, the Orchestra continues to serve audiences across the region. Seven Music Directors — Nikolai Sokoloff, Artur Rodziński, Erich Leinsdorf, George Szell, Lorin Maazel, Christoph von Dohnányi, and Franz Welser-Möst — have shaped the ensemble’s distinctive musical identity and celebrated “Cleveland sound.” Welser-Möst’s tenure as the longestserving Music Director in Cleveland Orchestra history stands as a defining chapter in that evolution. @CleveOrchestra
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| 43
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Program Spotlight: POETRY OUT LOUD Ohio Poetry Out LoudState Champion Hiba Loukssi of Xenia High School (Greene County) reciting a poem at the 2023 state finals. She competed at the national finals in Washington, D.C. Image credit: Terry Gilliam
For You, By You County residents make this arts experience possible through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture. cacgrants.org
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TCO SPOTLIG HT
MEET THE NEW
Class of Musicians WITH SCHOOL BACK IN SESSION ACROSS NORTHEAST OHIO , it’s only
appropriate that The Cleveland Orchestra has welcomed a new “class” of musicians into its ranks. We sat down with the Orchestra’s five recent appointments — First Associate Concertmaster Elizabeth Fayette (Virginia M. Lindseth, PhD, Chair), Associate Concertmaster Philip Marten (Gretchen D. and Ward Smith Chair), second violinist Dustin Wilkes-Kim, and violists Sean Juhl and Gabriel Napoli — to get to know them and hear what they’re most excited for this season. What was your first exposure to The Cleveland Orchestra? ELIZABETH FAYETTE: My first — and until this year, only — time hearing the Orchestra live was during a pair of concerts at Carnegie Hall in May 2012. The first night was a concert performance of Richard Strauss’s Salome; the second was a program of Brahms, Saariaho, and Shostakovich. I had student tickets in the “nosebleed” section of the hall, but the music making was so visceral and gripping that the distance did not matter one bit.
PHOTO BY DANIELLE MAENG
PHILIP MARTEN: During my late high school and early college years, George Szell’s recorded cycle of Beethoven symphonies with the Orchestra became
l-r: Recently appointed TCO musicians Sean Juhl, Philip Marten, Elizabeth Fayette, Dustin Wilkes-Kim, and Gabriel Napoli pose for a photo at Blossom Music Center.
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my gold standard for these works. It wasn’t until very recently — as in August 2026! — that I got the opportunity to hear the modern Cleveland Orchestra perform live. I was so impressed with the cohesion and glow in the sound that sets it apart from other orchestras, including those old Szell recordings.
I had student tickets in the “nosebleed” section of the hall, but the music making [by The Cleveland Orchestra] was so visceral and gripping that the distance did not matter one bit. — Elizabeth Fayette, First Associate Concertmaster
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Why did you choose your particular instrument?
Elizabeth Fayette and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst share a laugh during a rehearsal break for the Orchestra’s recent Summer in Vienna concert at Blossom.
DUSTIN WILKES-KIM: I’m actually not sure why I chose the violin, but I think I stuck with it because of the great teachers I had when starting out. I distinctly remember the feeling of escape and curiosity that they instilled in me.
also played the viola (and still teaches at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music) and my cousin is a violist in the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, so it seemed like joining the family tradition.
SEAN JUHL: My mother was a profession-
al violist for most of her career and at one point, she encouraged me to switch to viola from violin because, as she put it, “the world always needs more good violists.” Her stepmother back in China 48 | 2026/2027 SEASON
GABRIEL NAPOLI: I studied violin for most of my life but dabbled in viola from time to time. Then, in college, I played string quartets in a pretty serious group and ended up falling in love with the viola. It was then that I decided to focus on it as much as I could.
PHOTO BY YEVHEN GULENKO
TCO SPOTLI G HT
What’s one thing about being a professional musician most people don’t realize? ELIZABETH: That the work never ends! The hours spent on stage — either rehearsing or performing — are only a fraction of the time it takes to prepare for a given concert or to keep fundamental artistic and technical skills in shape. Even though I have played violin for over 30 years, it takes intentional time on a regular (mostly daily) basis to be able to meaningfully contribute to a high-caliber institution like The Cleveland Orchestra. DUSTIN: Some people might not realize how flexible a live performance is and how different the music can sound and feel depending on the many decisions being made in real time by the performers on stage. SEAN: How much joy there is in the
act of making great music together on stage! There are definitely moments where things can feel intense and serious, but I try to think about my preparation for concerts as just making room for the possibility of those “goosebump” moments where everything comes together.
Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten is an extraordinary one. I have always loved opera, but was somehow less familiar with Strauss’s operas until very recently. This particular work is a massive undertaking, one that only a few organizations around the world dare to attempt, so getting to be part of this production will be a very rare treat.
[Die Frau ohne Schatten Schatten] is a massive undertaking, one that only a few organizations around the world dare to attempt, so getting to be part of this production will be a very rare treat. — Philip Marten, Associate Concertmaster GABRIEL: This season is packed with incredible programs. I’m so excited for both our fall tour repertoire and to experience performing in many of the great concert halls of Europe. As far as the entire season goes, though, I would have to narrow it down to either Beethoven’s Missa solemnis — both here in Cleveland and at Carnegie Hall — or Mahler’s Ninth Symphony.
What concert or piece are you most looking forward to this season? PHILIP: While it’s almost impossible to pick a single favorite from the upcoming season, the opportunity to perform
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Scan the QR code to read an extended version of this conversation on the Orchestra’s Content Hub.
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Enjoy cocktails, small bites, and shareables before the concert , or relax afterward in the inviting ambiance of the Severance Lounge. Located on the first floor between Lerner and Smith lobbies
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E XPLORE THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA’S DIGITAL HOME ON ADELLA Named after our pioneering founder, Adella Prentiss Hughes, our streaming service offers access to exclusive livestreams, on-demand concerts, special interviews, and more. Available on the web, iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Android TV, and Chromecast.
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2 1 6 -2 3 1 -1 1 1 1 | C L E V E L A N D O R C H E S T R A . C O M
I N THE N EWS
Vinyl Box Set Celebrates Franz Welser-Möst’s 25 Years with the Orchestra
BOTH CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA FANS
PHOTO BY YEVHEN GULENKO
and vinyl collectors will have a reason to celebrate this fall. November 6 sees the release of Signature Welser-Möst, a limited edition, 15-disc vinyl box set commemorating Franz Welser-Möst’s 25th and final season as Music Director of The Cleveland Orchestra. Personally curated by Welser-Möst, the deluxe collection celebrates this extraordinary artistic partnership, bringing together landmark recordings that have shaped the Orchestra’s acclaimed sound over the past quarter century. Spanning works by Haydn, Beethoven, Bruckner, Shostakovich, Richard Strauss, Eastman, Sibelius, Containing 14 works spread across 15 discs, this exclusive box set celebrates Franz Welser-Möst’s recorded legacy as Music Director of The Cleveland Orchestra.
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Tchaikovsky, Schubert, Mozart, and Verdi, the set reflects the scope and richness of Welser-Möst’s tenure as the Orchestra’s longest-serving Music Director. The collection also highlights his enduring commitment to contemporary music, featuring commissions by Kaija Saariaho, Bernd Richard Deutsch, and Allison Loggins-Hull, alongside three recordings with The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus. “For this retrospective, I have selected pieces and recordings that are meaningful to me personally and significant to my quarter century as Music Director of The Cleveland Orchestra. I am deeply grateful to have shared this journey with all of you, here in Cleveland and all around the world,” Welser-Möst said. With only 1,000 copies available, Signature Welser-Möst offers a rare opportunity to own a lasting document of one of the most significant artistic partnerships in The Cleveland Orchestra’s history.
Explore the complete track listing and preorder at clevelandorchestra.com/vinyl or by scanning the QR code. Preorder before September 21 for exclusive perks!
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I N THE N E WS
Orchestra to Depart on Nine-Country Europe Tour
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TCO returns to Vienna this fall with two concerts at the Musikverein (above) and one at the Konzerthaus.
The itinerary revisits cities with which The Cleveland Orchestra has a longstanding relationship — including Vienna, Linz, and Hamburg — while reaching new audiences. Notably, the Orchestra will return to Budapest for the first time since 2005 and also make its debut performances in Slovenia (Ljubljana) and Greece (Thessaloniki and Athens). From cherished stages to first-time venues, this European tour serves as a poignant celebration of Welser-Möst’s transformative leadership.
PHOTO BY JULIA WESELY
THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst will embark on a European tour on September 29, visiting nine countries and 13 distinguished venues. The tour honors the Orchestra’s enduring international presence and celebrates its long-standing artistic partnership with Welser-Möst, who first led the ensemble on a European tour in 2003. Across 15 concerts, the Orchestra presents programs that span both classical masterpieces and hidden gems, highlighting works by Shostakovich, Mozart, Liszt, Brahms, Richard Strauss, Martinů, and Bernd Richard Deutsch.
Two New Recordings Highlight Poulenc, Ustvolskaya, and Verdi OVER THE SUMMER , The Cleveland Orchestra released two new digital audio recordings on its in-house recording label. Conducted by Music Director Franz Welser-Möst and recorded live at Severance Music Center, they capture the Orchestra’s extraordinary artistry and commitment to a wide range of repertoire. The first release pairs two powerful and deeply personal 20th-century works by Galina Ustvolskaya and Francis Poulenc. Ustvolskaya’s Symphony No. 5 is scored for an unconventional ensemble of oboe, trumpet, violin, tuba, and wooden cube. Against this stark musical backdrop, reciter Tony F. Sias delivers The Lord’s Prayer with the intimacy of private devotion. Contrasting this is Poulenc’s one-act opera, La voix humaine, which follows a woman’s one-sided telephone conversation with her former
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lover. Soprano Sarah Aristidou takes on the starring role in this emotionally charged drama. The second release captures a performance of Verdi’s Requiem, one of the repertoire’s most profound and dramatic choral masterpieces. Joining Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra are The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and an internationally celebrated quartet of soloists: soprano Asmik Grigorian, mezzo-soprano Deniz Uzun, tenor Joshua Guerrero, and bass Tareq Nazmi. From the explosive power of the “Dies irae” to passages of remarkable tenderness, serenity, and hope, this recording adds another landmark work to the Orchestra’s growing catalog. Visit clevelandorchestra.com/ recordings or scan the QR code to view the Orchestra’s full catalog of digital releases.
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26 – 27 SEAS ON
CALE N DAR FALL
NOV 19–22 ROUVALI CONDUCTS STRAUSS
OCT 24 THE CHORUS AT 75 WITH ERIC WHITACRE
Santtu-Matias Rouvali, conductor Steven Banks, saxophone
The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus Lisa Wong, conductor Eric Whitacre, conductor Members of The Cleveland Orchestra JOHN CORIGLIANO Fern Hill ERIC WHITACRE Eternity in an Hour
OCT 30 & 31, NOV 1 MAHLER’S FIFTH SYMPHONY Petr Popelka, conductor
BILLY CHILDS Diaspora: Concerto for Saxophone* R . STRAUSS Ein Heldenleben
NOV 27–29 TCHAIKOVSKY’S SWAN LAKE Elim Chan, conductor Veronika Eberle, violin GUBAIDULINA Fairytale Poem BRUCH Violin Concerto No. 1 TCHAIKOVSKY Suite from Swan Lake
HAYDN Symphony No. 80 MAHLER Symphony No. 5
DEC 3–5 HADELICH PLAYS BARTÓK
NOV 5, 7 & 8 BRAHMS’S REQUIEM
Alan Gilbert, conductor Augustin Hadelich, violin
Petr Popelka, conductor Frank Rosenwein, oboe Julia Kleiter, soprano Lucas Meachem, baritone The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus
DALIT WARSHAW Responses BARTÓK Violin Concerto No. 2 DEBUSSY Images
ADOLPHUS HAILSTORK Distant Lands: Triptych for Oboe and Strings BRAHMS Ein deutsches Requiem
NOV 12, 14 & 15 ROYAL ILLUMINATIONS Jane Glover, conductor Julia Bullock, soprano HANDEL Suites Nos. 2 and 3 from Water Music BRITTEN Les Illuminations STACY GARROP Spectacle of Light HANDEL Music for the Royal Fireworks
WINTER JAN 14 & 16 BEETHOVEN’S MISSA SOLEMNIS Franz Welser-Möst, conductor Golda Schultz, soprano Taylor Raven, mezzo-soprano Julian Prégardien, tenor Anthony Schneider, bass The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus BEETHOVEN Missa solemnis
JAN 15 WELSER-MÖST CONDUCTS STRAUSS
FEB 4–7 HOLST’S THE PLANETS Thomas Adès, conductor The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus THOMAS ADÈS Inferno Suite FRANCISCO COLL Lilith HOLST The Planets
FEB 11–14 ALL TCHAIKOVSKY Kazuki Yamada, conductor Beatrice Rana, piano TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 1 TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 6, “Pathétique”
FEB 18 & 20 HUANG PLAYS BARBER Fabio Luisi, conductor Paul Huang, violin BENT SØRENSEN Evening Land BARBER Violin Concerto NIELSEN Symphony No. 4, “The Inextinguishable”
FEB 25–27 CHO PLAYS CHOPIN Santtu-Matias Rouvali, conductor Seong-Jin Cho, piano CHOPIN Piano Concerto No. 1 SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 15
MAR 4–7 RACHMANINOFF’S RHAPSODY Semyon Bychkov, conductor Alexandre Kantorow, piano BRITTEN The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra RACHMANINOFF Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini ELGAR Enigma Variations
Franz Welser-Möst, conductor
* Not performed on the Friday matinee concert
R . STRAUSS Introduction and Finale from Daphne R . STRAUSS Metamorphosen R . STRAUSS Symphonia domestica
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SPRING APR 15, 17 & 18 LIM PLAYS RACHMANINOFF Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor Yunchan Lim, piano ESA-PEKKA SALONEN NYX RACHMANINOFF Piano Concerto No. 4 BERLIOZ Suite from Roméo et Juliette
APR 22–24 ADAMS & TAO John Adams, conductor Conrad Tao, piano WEILL Suite from The Threepenny Opera COPLAND Piano Concerto HARRIS Symphony No. 3* JOHN ADAMS Slonimsky’s Earbox
APR 29, MAY 1 & 2 MAHLER’S NINTH Franz Welser-Möst, conductor MAHLER Symphony No. 9
MAY 6 & 7 STRAVINSKY & SIBELIUS Franz Welser-Möst, conductor STRAVINSKY Orpheus SIBELIUS Four Legends from the Kalevala
MAY 27 HAYDN’S CREATION Franz Welser-Möst, conductor Joélle Harvey, soprano Kai Kluge, tenor Ludwig Mittelhammer, baritone The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus HAYDN The Creation
MAY 16, 19 & 22 DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN Franz Welser-Möst, conductor Frederic Wake-Walker, director David Butt Philip, tenor (The Emperor) Sara Jakubiak, soprano (The Empress) Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzosoprano (The Nurse) Roman Burdenko, baritone (Barak) Ambur Braid, soprano (The Dyer’s Wife) The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus R . STRAUSS Die Frau ohne Schatten Opera presentation sung in German with projected supertitles
MAY 28 STRAUSS’S ALPINE SYMPHONY
MAY 29 THE LAST WALTZ
Franz Welser-Möst, conductor
A spirited concert of Viennese dances and overtures, celebrating Franz Welser-Möst and capping his 25 transformative years as Music Director of The Cleveland Orchestra.
BERND RICHARD DEUTSCH Intensity EASTMAN Symphony No. 2 R . STRAUSS An Alpine Symphony
Franz Welser-Möst, conductor
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Extraordinary Experiences Begin with You! Severance Music Center is seeking volunteers! Benefits include: • Flexible schedules • Access to Cleveland Orchestra concerts and other events • TCO Rewards points
“It’s all about the music and the people. Volunteering means helping people enter a very special place for some very special music.” — Barbara
For more information:
clevelandorchestra.com/volunteer 800-686-1141
Severance in R E C I TA L MAR 16 | TUE 7:30PM GARRICK OHLSSON Works by Chopin
OCT 19 | MON 7:30PM BATIASHVILI, CAPUÇON & THIBAUDET Lisa Batiashvili, violin Gautier Capuçon, cello Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano Works by Shostakovich, Debussy, and Dvořák
JAN 26 | TUE 7:30PM STEPHEN HOUGH Works by Schubert, Brahms, Schoenberg, Stockhausen, Beethoven, R. Schumann, and Sherman
APR 20 | TUE 7:30PM NOBUYUKI TSUJII Works by Grieg, Debussy, Ravel, and Kapustin
Tickets and more information at clevelandorchestra.com
To learn more, visit clevelandorchestra.com/give Adella Prentiss Hughes Society Gifts of $1,000,000 & more Mr. & Mrs.* Geoffrey Gund Haslam 3 Foundation Anne H. & Tom H.* Jenkins The Walter and Jean Kalberer Foundation Milton & Tamar Maltz Mr. & Mrs.* Richard K. Smucker Gifts of $200,000 to $999,999 The Musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra (in-kind contribution for community programs and opportunities to secure funding) Bruce* & Eleanor Kendrick Richard & Christine Kramer Dr.* & Mrs. Anthony T. Lauria Mrs. Norma Lerner Jan R. Lewis Deborah L. Neale Mr. & Mrs. Alfred M. Rankin, Jr. Mr. & Mrs. Albert B. Ratner Jenny & Tim Smucker Richard & Nancy Sneed Anonymous Gifts of $100,000 to $199,999 Mr. Yuval Brisker Rebecca Dunn Joan Alice Ford* Dr. Michael Frank & Patricia A. Snyder* Dr. Hiroyuki & Mrs. Mikiko Fujita Peter & Christina Gold (Miami) Mr. & Mrs. Michael J. Horvitz Dr. & Mrs. Herbert Kloiber (Europe) Dennis & Camille LaBarre Thomas & Jessica Lauria (Miami) Nancy W. McCann Ms. Beth E. Mooney Mrs. Jane B. Nord The Oatey Foundation (Cleveland, Miami) James* & Donna Reid Saul & Mary Sanders (Miami) Jim & Myrna* Spira Ginger Warner Paul & Suzanne Westlake Tony & Diane Wynshaw-Boris Anonymous (3)
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Lillian Baldwin Society Gifts of $75,000 to $99,999 Mr. & Mrs. Alexander M. Cutler Mr.* & Mrs. Bernard H. Eckstein JoAnn & Robert Glick Michael Hudson in memory of Susan Hudson Elizabeth B. Juliano Mr. & Mrs. Douglas A. Kern Astri Seidenfeld The Seven Five Fund R. Thomas & Meg Harris Stanton Herb & Jody Wainer George Szell Society Gifts of $50,000 to $74,999 Randall & Virginia Barbato Brenda & Marshall B. Brown Mr. & Mrs. Thomas H. Gale Mr.* & Mrs. Robert W. Gillespie Ms. Alexandra Hanna Richard & Michelle Jeschelnig Cynthia Knight Mr. & Mrs. Ben Mathews Mr. & Mrs. Scott C. Mueller William J.* & Katherine T. O’Neill Mr. & Mrs. Benjamin N. Pyne Mrs. Alfred M. Rankin, Sr.* Ilana & Chuck Horowitz Ratner Mark & Shelly Saltzman Donna E. Shalala (Miami) Holly Strawbridge (Miami) Dr. Russell A. Trusso Mr. & Mrs. Franz Welser-Möst Barbara & David Wolfort Elisabeth DeWitt Severance Society Gifts of $25,000 to $49,999 Victor & Abby Alexander Mr. & Mrs. A. Chace Anderson Art of Beauty Company, Inc. Mel Berger & Jane Haylor Dr. & Mrs. Wolfgang Berndt (Europe) Robin Dunn Blossom Mr. Richard J. Bogomolny & Ms. Patricia M. Kozerefski Dr. Ben H. & Julia Brouhard Jeanette Grasselli Brown* & Glenn R. Brown*
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Behind every powerful performance is a community of supporters who bring the music to life. We are deeply thankful for the generosity of every member of The Cleveland Orchestra family.
Meghan & Trent Brown Dr. Robert Brown & Mrs. Janet Gans Brown Douglas M. Bunker J. C. & Helen Rankin Butler Nancy & Tim Callahan Irad & Rebecca Carmi Bill & Jennifer Clawson Ted & Donna Connolly Judith & George W. Diehl Budd & Judy Dworkin Mary Jo Eaton (Miami) Drs. Wolfgang & Gabi Eder (Europe) Richard C. & Lisa Fedorovich David & Robin Gunning Alfredo & Luz Maria Gutierrez (Miami) Sondra & Steve Hardis Iris & Tom Harvie Mrs. Lynn Heisler Amy & Stephen Hoffman David & Nancy Hooker Allan V. Johnson Mr. & Mrs. Joseph P. Keithley Norma Kerlin Jonathan & Tina Kislak (Miami) Eeva & Harri Kulovaara (Miami) Ms. Cathy Lincoln Jon A. & Virginia M. Lindseth, PhD* Mr. & Mrs. Robert W. Malone Mr. Stephen McHale Loretta J. Mester & George J. Mailath Ann Jones Morgan Jennifer & Alexander Ogan The Honorable John Doyle Ong* Peter M. Padegimas, in memory of Beverly A. Padegimas Mr. J. William & Dr. Suzanne* Palmer Catherine & Hyun Park Douglas & Noreen Powers Mr. & Mrs. James A. Ratner James & Marguerite Rigby The Ralph and Luci Schey Foundation Mr. Eric A. Seed & Ms. Ellen Oglesby Kathryn & Duncan Stuart Dr. Elizabeth Swenson Tom & Shirley* Waltermire John & Deborah Warner Anya Weaving & Tom Mihaljevic Meredith & Michael Weil Tony & Christine White Mrs. Jayne M. Zborowsky Anonymous (2)
LISTING AS OF SEPTEMBER 2026
Individual Support
* IN MEMORIAM
THAN K YOU
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Dudley S. Blossom Society Gifts of $15,000 to $24,999 Mr. & Mrs. William Winfield Baker Ms. Viia R. Beechler Mr. & Mrs. Jules Belkin Doug & Barbara* Bletcher Mr. & Mrs. C. Perry Blossom Mr. & Mrs. Charles P. Bolton Dr. Christopher P. Brandt & Dr. Beth Sersig Mr. D. McGregor Brandt, Jr. James Burke Kathleen A. Coleman Mrs. Barbara Cook Mr. & Mrs. Matthew V. Crawford Brian & Susan Dickie Maureen A. Doerner & Geoffrey T. White Henry & Mary* Doll Nancy & Richard* Dotson Peter & Sandy Earl Mr. Brian L. Ewart & Mr. William McHenry Mr. James S. Gascoigne & Ms. Cynthia Prior Richard & Ann Gridley Calvin & Sherry Griffith Gary L. & Cari T. Gross Mr. & Mrs. Harley I. Gross Ms. Marianne Gymer Kathleen E. Hancock Jack Harley & Judy Ernest Ms. Susan K. Hemry Matthew & Elizabeth Horvitz Richard Horvitz & Erica Hartman-Horvitz (Cleveland, Miami) Gerald Hughes Mr. & Mrs. Brinton L. Hyde Sarah Liotta Johnston & Jeff Johnston John D. & Giuliana C. Koch Rob & Laura Kochis S. Ernest & Patricia Kulp Heather Lennox & Douglas Krause Dr. David* & Janice Leshner In honor of Emma Skoff Lincoln Linda Litton Mr. Jeff Litwiller Mr. & Mrs. Alex Machaskee Mr. Daniel Mansoor Alan Markowitz M.D. & Cathy Pollard Mr. Fredrick W. Martin Mr.* & Mrs. Arch J. McCartney John & Rebecca Minnillo Miba AG & Dr. & Mrs. Peter Mitterbauer (Europe) Sally S. & John C. Morley* Randy & Christine Myeroff Rick & Jamie Organ Mr. David A. Osage & Ms. Claudia C. Woods
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Mr. Winthrop Quigley & Ms. Bonnie Crusalis Dr. Isobel Rutherford David M. & Betty Schneider Robert W. Scully (Miami) Dr. & Mrs. James L. Sechler Meredith M. Seikel Hewitt & Paula Shaw Roy Smith F. William & Patricia Steere Mr. & Mrs. Richard P. Stovsky Alan & Barbara Taylor Bruce & Virginia Taylor Philip & Sarah* Taylor Mr. & Mrs. Alfred Umdasch (Europe) Mr. Daniel & Mrs. Molly Walsh Mr. & Mrs. Jeffery J. Weaver Robert C. Weppler Sandy* & Ted Wiese Katie & Donald Woodcock Max & Beverly Zupon Anonymous (3) Frank H. Ginn Society Gifts of $10,000 to $14,999 Dr. & Mrs. D. P. Agamanolis Mr. James Babcock Dr. James Bates Mr. & Mrs.* Eugene J. Beer Deena & Jeff Bellman Carol Bergman Laura & Jon Bloomberg Dale & Wendy Brott Laurie & Larry Brown Ms. Deborah R. Bryan Catharina Meints Caldwell Dr. & Mrs. William D. Carey Ms. Maria Cashy & Ms. Laura Cashy Mr. & Mrs. Edward A. Chuhna Ellen E.* & Victor J. Cohn Marjorie Dickard Comella Mrs. Anita Cosgrove Mr. & Mrs. Chester F. Crone Mr. & Mrs. Manohar Daga Ronald J. Davis & Cheryl A. Davis Allan* & Connie Dechert Gregory Dobbins Michael Dunn Brian & Renae Durdle Tamara Durn Dr. & Mrs. Robert Ehrlich (Europe) Dr.* & Mrs. Lloyd H. Ellis Jr. Dagmar & Ted Fellowes Bruce* & Nancy Fisher Friends of The Cleveland Orchestra Dr. Edward S. Godleski André & Ginette Gremillet Mr. & Mrs. Michael Gröller (Europe) Candy & Brent Grover Mr. Arthur C. Hall III George Hanley (Miami) Gary Hanson & Barbara Klante
Dr. Robert T. Heath & Dr. Elizabeth L. Buchanan Dr. Fred A. Heupler Ms. Mary Joe Hughes Donald* & Joyce Ignatz Mr. Fredrick Immormino Donna & Robert* Jackson Richard & Jayne Janus Robert & Linda Jenkins Barbara & Michael J. Kaplan Dr. Ronald H. Krasney & Vicki Kennedy* Ms. Elizabeth A. Krew David C. Lamb Michael Lederman & Sharmon Sollitto Dr. Edith Lerner Nancy F. Lerner Judith & Morton Q . Levin Ms. Jane Mattlin Dr. & Mrs. Stephen McClure Drs. Amy & James Merlino Claudia Metz & Thomas Woodworth Mr. Bert & Dr. Marjorie Moyar Brian & Cindy Murphy Patricia Perry Nock William & Alyce Norman Mark & Paula Nylander Mr. & Mrs. John Olejko Dr. Roland S. Philip & Dr. Linda M. Sandhaus Julia & Larry Pollock Beth & Clay Rankin David J. Reimer & Raffaele DiLallo Amy & Ken Rogat Kim Russel & Dirk Brom Dr. & Mrs.* Martin I. Saltzman Richard B. & Cheryl A. Schmitz Ms. Beverly J. Schneider John* & Barbara Schubert Gary Schwartz & Constance Young Kenneth Shafer Mr. John F. Shelley & Ms. Karen P. Fleming Howard & Beth Simon Rev. George Smiga Sandra & Richey* Smith Taras Szmagala & Helen Jarem Brian & Elizabeth Tierney Joe & Marlene Toot Mr. Christopher Towe Rich & Karen Turgeon Mr. & Mrs. Joshua Ungier Dr. Gregory Videtic & Rev. Christopher McCann Karen Walburn Susanne Wamsler & Paul Singer (Europe) Jessica & James Warren Mr. & Mrs.* Fred A. Watkins Greg & Lynn Weekley Anonymous (9)
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James & Virginia Meil Dr. Susan M. Merzweiler Mary Ellen Miller Lynn & Mike Miller Drs. Terry E.* & Sara S. Miller Roy Minoff Ms. Nancy C. Morgan Amy & Marc Morgenstern Elizabeth Morris Eudice M. Morse Mr. Raymond M. Murphy Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Myers Andrea Nobil (Miami) Richard & Kathleen Nord Mr. & Mrs. Forrest A. Norman III Courtney & Michael Novak Thury O’Connor Ms. Kathleen Ode Peter & Sue Osenar Mr. Henry Ott-Hansen Chris & Susan Pappas (Miami) John Perko Dale & Susan Phillip Dr. Marc A. & Mrs. Carol Pohl Dr. & Mrs. John N. Posch Mr. Robert & Mrs. Susan Price Sylvia Profenna Pysht Fund Lute & Lynn Quintrell Dr. James & Lynne Rambasek Elizabeth & Robert J. Reid Mickey & Angie Remen Mrs. Vicki Ann Resnick Mrs. Georgianna T. Roberts Lisa Robinson & Robert Hansel Robert* & Margo Roth Ms. Kathy E. Ruekberg Dr. Vernon E. Sackman & Ms. Marguerite Patton* Mr. & Mrs. Lowell Satre Sandra Sauder & Jack Brunner Bob & Ellie Scheuer Sally & Larry Sears John Sedor & Geri Presti Deborah Sesek Katie & Michael* Shames Mr. Philip & Mrs. Michelle Sharp Mr. Michael R. Shaughnessy Elizabeth & Timothy Sheeler Robyn Shifrin Zachary & Shelby Siegal The Shari Bierman Singer Family Drs. Charles Kent Smith & Patricia Moore Smith Mrs. Gretchen D. Smith Mr. & Mrs. William E. Spatz Diane M. Stack Maribeth & Christopher Stahl George & Mary* Stark Sue Starrett & Jerry Smith Mr. Marc L. Swartzbaugh Mr. Robert D. Sweet Ms. Lorraine S. Szabo
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Mr. James Graham & Mr. David Dusek Mr. Lou Grasso Nancy Hancock Griffith Nancy* & James Grunzweig Andrea Guerreri (Miami) Mr. Newman T. Halvorson, Jr. Mr.* & Mrs. David P. Handke, Jr. Clark Harvey & Holly Selvaggi Mr. & Mrs. Jonathan Hatch Barbara L. Hawley & David S. Goodman Matthew D. Healy & Richard S. Agnes Anita & William Heller Malcolm & Vivian Henoch Mr. & Mrs. Jerry Herschman Mr. & Mrs. Martin R. Hoke Dr. Keith A. & Mrs. Kathleen M. Hoover James* & Claudia Hower Elisabeth Hugh David & Dianne Hunt Ms. Kimberly R. Irish Rudy Ivancic Mr. David* & Mrs. Cheryl Jerome Karmendot Fund Andrew & Katherine Kartalis Rod Keen & Denise Horstman Joanne Kim & Jim Nash Dr. Shuzo Kobayashi Douglas & Monica Kridler Peter* & Cathy Kuhn Dr. Jeanne Lackamp Mr. & Mrs. Arthur J. Lafave, Jr.* Dr. & Mrs. John R. Lane Kenneth M. Lapine John N.* & Edith K. Lauer Charles & Josephine Robson Leamy* Joan & Young Sei Lee William & Virginia Lennon Mr. & Mrs. Roger J. Lerch in Memory of Carl J. & Winifred J. Lerch Dr. Stephen B. & Mrs. Lillian S. Levine Dr. Alan & Mrs. Joni Lichtin Dr. & Mrs. Jack Lissauer Drs. Todd & Susan Locke Logsdon Family Foundation Joan C. Long Caetano R. Lopes (Miami) Mr. & Mrs. Carlos Lopez-Cantera (Miami) Neil & Susan Luria Peter & Pamela Luria (Miami) Diann & Tom Mann Mr. Ryan T. Marrie Mr. David C. McAlister Mr. & Mrs. Christopher J. McKenna Mr. & Mrs. Sandy McMillan Ms. Nancy L. Meacham Dr. & Mrs. Kevin Meany Dr.* & Mrs. Dale Meers
LISTING AS OF SEPTEMBER 2026
The 1929 Society Gifts of $5,000 to $9,999 Ms. Nancy A. Adams Gabrielle Aryeetey Claudia Bacon Ms. Bonnie M. Baker Robert & Dalia Baker Thomas & Laura Barnard Fred G. & Mary W. Behm Marilyn & Jeffrey Bilsky Dr. & Mrs. Eugene H. Blackstone Barbara Blossom Laurel Blossom Jeff & Elaine Bomberger Whitney Bower (Miami) Elizabeth & Christopher Brauser (Miami) Adam & Vikki Briggs Mr. & Mrs. David* Briggs James & Mary Bright Sandy Brinn Bennett Brown Mrs. Frances Buchholzer Frank & Leslie Buck Mr. Gregory & Mrs. Susan Bulone Kim & Kenneth Burkins Mr. & Mrs. William D. Buss II Michael & Linda Busta Michael & Mary Carpenter (Miami) William & Barbara Carson Victor A. Ceicys MD & Mrs. Kathleen Browning Ceicys Mr. & Mrs. James B. Chaney Reneé & Kerry Chelm Ellen Chesler & Matthew Mallow (Miami) Dr. Gary Chottiner & Anne Poirson Drs. Wuu-Shung & Amy Chuang Drs. Mark Cohen & Miriam Vishny Diane Lynn Collier & Robert J. Gura Dr. Dale & Susan Cowan Mr.* & Mrs. Ralph Daugstrup Pete & Margaret Dobbins Carl Dodge Ms. Mary Lynn Durham Mr. & Mrs. Ronald E. Dziedzicki Regis & Gayle Falinski Michelle Fay Mr. William & Dr. Elizabeth Fesler Mr. & Mrs. Mark Filippell Jan & John Fitts Ms. Nancy Flogge Mr. & Ms. Dale Freygang Brian Gale & Elle Carolan Barbara & Peter* Galvin Joy E. Garapic Anne* & Walter Ginn Daniel & Kathleen Gisser Brenda & David Goldberg Mrs. Florence Goodman Barbara H. Gordon Harry & Joyce Graham
* IN MEMORIAM
THAN K YOU
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Robert & Carol Taller Eca & Richard Taylor Dr. James Taylor & Ms. Susan Slugg Caroline Theus Mr. John R. Thorne & Family Bill & Jacky Thornton Mr. & Mrs. Gary B. Tishkoff Dr. & Mrs. James E. Triner Mr.* & Mrs. Robert N. Trombly Dr. & Mrs. Michael B. Troner (Miami) Steve & Christa Turnbull Dr. & Mrs. Wulf H. Utian Robert & Marti* Vagi Mr. & Mrs. Steven M. Venezia Teresa Galang-Viñas & Joaquin Viñas (Miami) Mr. & Mrs. Les C. Vinney George & Barbara von Mehren Randall E. Wagner Ron Wakser John & Jeanette Walton Tilles-Weidenthal Foundation Mr. & Mrs. Mark Allen Weigand Mr. Peter & Mrs. Laurie Weinberger Paul & Nancy Wellener Dr. Edward L. & Mrs. Suzanne* Westbrook Dr. Paul R. & Catherine Williams Ms. Linda L. Wilmot Bob & Kat Wollyung Mr. Graham Wood Mr. Kal Zucker & Dr. Mary Frances Haerr Anonymous (4) Composer’s Circle Gifts of $2,500 to $4,999 Mr. & Mrs. Paul R. Abbey Mr. Leonard H. Abrams* David & Sharon Anderson Sarah May Anderson Jack & Darby Ashelman Ronen & Susan Avinir (Miami) Brian Balogh & Kathy Craig Mr. Richard H. Bamberger Ms. Carol Barnak Ms. Kimberley Barton Lucy Battle Kathryn & Gerald Berkshire Margo & Tom Bertin Mr. & Mrs. Charles Bittenbender Zeda W. Blau Marilyn & Lawrence Blaustein Peter Blazunas Ms. Pamela M. Blemaster Blossom Friends of The Cleveland Orchestra Mr. John & Mrs. Robyn Boebinger Dr. & Mrs. Timothy Bohn Mr. & Mrs. Richard H. Bole Mitchell & Caroline Borrow David & Julie Borsani, in memory of Marissa I. Borsani
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Ms. Ellen Botnick Lisa & Ronald Boyko Matthew D. Brocone Mr. & Mrs. Dale R. Brogan Mr. & Mrs. Barrett Brown Mrs. Nancy E. Brown Mr. Felix Brueck & Ms. Ann Kowal Smith William Busta & Joan Tomkins Robert & Beverly Cameron Dr. & Mrs. William E. Cappaert Mrs. Tana N. Carney Dr. Jeffrey Chaitoff & Ms. Margo Vinney Dr. Ronald Chapnick* & Mrs. Sonia Chapnick Gregory & Kathrine Chemnitz Natalie Cipriano Robert & Judy Ciulla Pete Clapham & Anita Stoll Mr. & Mrs. David Clark Jill & Paul Clark Richard J. & Joanne Clark Drs. John* & Mary Clough Ms. NancyBell Coe Christopher Colaluca Jeffrey Cole & Trisha O’Brien (Miami) William & Ruth Coleman Mr. & Mrs. Robert Conrad Jim & Mary Conway Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Cook The Honorable Colleen Conway Cooney & Mr. John Cooney Mr. Ed Covington Jane Cronin John Cunningham Dr. Lucy Ann Dahlberg Karen & Jim Dakin Mrs. Jane Dangler Dr. & Mrs. Thomas M. Daniel Carol Darnall (Miami) Karen & Neil Davies Gary Davis & Jane Cooper Jeffrey Dean and Barbara and Karen Claas Prof. George & Mrs. Rebecca Dent Michael & Amy Diamant Dr. & Mrs. Howard Dickey-White Ms. Marlene Dirksen Mr. & Mrs. David E. Dix Jack & Elaine Drage Mrs. Rhonda Drakulich Mr. & Mrs. Robert Dreshfield Ms. Barbara Dunaway S. Stuart Eilers Peter & Kathryn Eloff Louis* & Patricia Esposito Andy & Leigh Fabens Anne Ferguson & Peter Drench Holly Fluty Dempsey Mr. Jonathon R. Forman Mr. & Mrs. Turney P. Berry
Mr. & Mrs. Larry Frankel Howard Freedman & Rita Montlack Marvin Ross Friedman & Adrienne bon Haes (Miami) Peggy A. Fullmer The Fung Family Timothy & Susan Gall Mr. Stephen H. Gariepy & Ms. Nancy Sin Pamela Garrison (Miami) Mr. William Gaskill & Ms. Kathleen Burke Mr. & Mrs. M. Lee Gibson Edward & Delphenia Gilbert Holly & Fred Glock Dr.* & Mrs. Victor M. Goldberg Enrique Gomez (Miami) Agnes Tartara Goss Mr. Robert Goss Dr. & Mrs. Ronald L. Gould Bob Graf & Mia Zaper Robert K. Gudbranson & Joon-Li Kim Mr. & Mrs. John E. Guinness Mr. Davin & Mrs. Jo Ann Gustafson Mr. Ian S. Haberman Mary Louise Hahn Dr. James O. Hall Megan Hall & James Janning John Hannon Dr. Jared Harp Mr. Samuel D. Harris Lilli & Seth* Harris Thomas & Darlene Hawkins Dr. Toby Helfand In Memory of Hazel Helgesen Drs. Gene & Sharon Henderson T. K.* & Faye A. Heston Eric & Karen Hillenbrand Richard & Jean Hipple Arnold & Janice Hirshon Mr. & Mrs. Stephen J. Holler Charles M. Hoppel & Marianne Karwowski Hoppel Xavier-Nichols Foundation/ Robert & Karen Hostoffer Phillip Huber Phillip M. Hudson III (Miami) Mrs. Laura Hunsicker Mr.* & Mrs. J. David Hunter Ms. Melanie Ingalls Dr. & Mrs. Paul C. Janicki Helen & Erik Jensen Dylan Jin Mr. Jeremy V. Johnson Eric & Susan Johnson Joela Jones & Richard Weiss Steven Jones Dr. Eric Kaler Mr. David G. Kanzeg Mr. Donald J. Katt & Mrs. Maribeth Filipic-Katt Dr. Richard* & Roberta Katzman
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64 | 2026/2027 SEASON
Mr. James S. Simon Dr. Anne & Mr. Jay Singer Harry & Geri Singer Dr. Edward & Mrs. Barbara Sivak G. Michael & Kathy* Mead Skerritt Bruce L. Smith David Kane Smith Mr. Joshua Smith Mr. Eugene Smolik Mrs. Linda C. Smythe Drs. Nancy & Ronald Sobecks Drs. Thomas & Terry Sosnowski SPÄNGLER PRIVATSTIFTUNG Mr. David M. Spencer Mr. Michael Star Edward R. & Jean Geis Stell Foundation Ronald & Lauren Sterbank Janet Stern Nancy Stillwagon & Jon Stein AJ & Nancy Stokes Frederick & Elizabeth Stueber Mr. & Mrs. John* K. Sullivan Nancy & Patrick Sullivan Mike & Wendy Summers Mr. & Mrs. Michael Taipale Rebecca & Jeffrey Talbert Dennis J Taylor Mr. Robert Taylor Ms. Aileen Thong-Dratler Dr. & Mrs. Thomas* A. Timko Ms. Christeen Tuttle Koen van Besien & Ok-Kyong Chaekal Dr. Doug Van Auken & Mr. John Corlett Michael & Jaclyn Vary W. Joseph Vogel Sarah & Jim Vosmik Neha & Sanjay Vyas Mr. & Mrs. Eric Wald Ms. Lois Walters Harriet Warm Margaret & Eric* Wayne Edward & Ellen Weber Mr. Paul Wehrmeister Marilyn Wells Emily Westlake & Robertson Gilliland Mr. Peter White Mr. & Mrs. John W. Wilhelm John & Nancy Woelfl Dale & Cynthia Woodling Ladonna Woods Ms. Jennifer Wynn Rad & Patty Yates Ellen Zegarra Dr. Rosemary Gornik & Dr. William Zelei John & Jane Zuzek Anonymous (12)
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Joan Katz Napoli & August Napoli Dr. Anne & Mr. Peter Neff Karen Nemec Richard & Jolene O’Callaghan Robert & Mary Ann Olive Harvey* & Robin Oppmann Richard* & Elizabeth Osborne Dr. Kata & Mr. Len Pagon George Parras & Mary Spencer Drs. James & Marian Patterson Dr. Lewis E. & Janice B. Patterson David Pavlich & Cherie Arnold Matt Peart Alan & Charlene Perkins Robert S. Perry Mark & Eve Pihl Barbara Pittman Mr. Richard W. Pogue Mr. & Mrs. Frank Porter Patrick J. Holland Drs. Raymond R. Rackley & Carmen M. Fonseca Dr. Robert W. Reynolds Michael & Lydia Ridenour Mr. D. Keith* & Mrs. Margaret B. Robinson Mr. & Mrs. Jay F. Rockman Michael & Jodi Rogoff David & Mitsuko Rosinus (Miami) Dr. & Mrs. Ronald Ross Drs. Edward & Teresa Ruch Mr. & Mrs. Paul L. Rupert Nathan & Marie Rutherford Mr. & Mrs. Peter J. Ryerson Otmar & Rotraud Sackerlotzky Richard & Mary Lou Sanders Scott Savage & Denise Ruthenburg Ms. Patricia E. Say Bryan & Jenna Scafidi Mr. John Schambach Don Schmitt & Jim Harmon Michael Schneidler Mr. Don Schriver & Mrs. Jane Schriver Mr. James Schutte Nicklaus Schwenk Paul Secunde Ms. Kathryn & Mr. Michael Seider Mr. & Mrs. Joseph Selden Dr. Judith Sewell & Mr. Donald Sewell Donald Shafer & Katherine Stokes-Shafer Steve & Marybeth Shamrock Ginger & Larry Shane Harry* & Ilene Shapiro Ms. Frances L. Sharp Larry Oscar & Jeanne Shatten Charitable Fund of the Jewish Federation Lynn Shaw Mr. Richard Shirey Jim Simler & Dr. Amy Zhang
LISTING AS OF SEPTEMBER 2026
The Kendis Family Trust: Hilary & Robert Kendis and Susan & James Kendis Mr. Thomas Kinsey & Ms. Lynn Slifer Mrs. Judith A. Kirsh Steve & Beth Kish Mr. & Mrs. Stuart F. Kline Mr. Ronald & Mrs. Kimberly Kolz Drs. Jill Korbin & Lawrence Greksa Ursula Korneitchouk Dr. & Mrs. John P. Kristofco Mr. Andrew Kurman & Ms. Sharon Shapiro Mr. & Mrs. David S. Kushner Alfred & Carol Lambo Mr.* & Mrs. Robert J. Landgraf Mr. & Mrs. John J. Lane, Jr. Dr.* & Mrs. Roger H. Langston Mrs. Susan D. LaPine Mr. & Mrs. Richard L. Larrabee Mrs. Sandra S. Laurenson Mr. & Mrs. Michael Lavelle Richard & Barbara Lederman Mr. Elliot & Mrs. Christine Legow Michael & Lois Lemr Robert G. Levy Mr. & Mrs.* Thomas A. Liederbach Eva & Rudolf Linnebach Mr. Henry Lipian Dr. George I. Litman Mary Lohman Virginia Lovejoy Linda* & Saul Ludwig Elsie* & Byron Lutman Dr. Kalle J. Lyytinen Janet A. Mann Herbert L. & Ronda Marcus Dr.* & Mrs. Sanford E. Marovitz Ms. Dorene Marsh Mr. John R. Martin Kevin Martin & Hansa Jacob-Martin Ms. Judith E. Matsko Mark & Barbara Mazzone Bruce & Karen McDiarmid Mr. & Mrs. Thomas B. McGowan Mr. James E. Menger Mrs. Nathaniel C. Merritt-Mervine Dr. Miloslava Mervart & Dr. Terence Kilroy Mr. & Mrs. Gerald A. Messerman Mr. Glenn A. Metzdorf Mr. Stephen P. Metzler Beth M. Mikes Amy Miller & Nikhil Rao Mr. & Mrs. David S. Miller Dr. & Mrs. Leon Miller Mr. Tom Millward Anton & Laura Milo Michael Milo MindCrafted Systems Patti & Hadley Morgenstern-Clarren Mr. & Mrs. Thomas W. Morris Karen & Bernie Murray
* IN MEMORIAM
THAN K YOU
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Thank You, Franz Donations to the Franz Welser-Möst Legacy Fund honor Franz’s lasting impact on The Cleveland Orchestra. This fund sustains the artistic priorities that have defined his tenure — especially his commitment to opera and vocal music — while supporting key initiatives in his final season and beyond. Our sincerest thanks to donors who have ensured Franz’s vision continues to shape the Orchestra’s future on the global stage. To learn more, visit clevelandorchestra.com/gratitude Ms. Cathy Lincoln Mr. & Mrs.* Richard K. Smucker Mary E. & F. Joseph Callahan Foundation Kulas Foundation Jan R. Lewis Alan Markowitz M.D. & Cathy Pollard John P. Murphy Foundation Daniel R. Lewis (Miami) Paul & Suzanne Westlake Joanne & Blake Avenmarg Richard & Janet Wile Mr. Jeff Litwiller Mr. & Mrs. Jules Belkin Robert S. Perry Ms. Nancy A. Adams S. Ernest & Patricia Kulp
Mr.* & Mrs. Robert N. Trombly Samuel & Leigh Ann Kerns Patricia Biesiadny Florin Muscutariu Michelle Epps Atsuro Negishi Leo & Beth Hyland Megan Hall & James Janning Eugene Colombo Mrs. Eloise A. Coxe Mr. & Mrs. Lauren R. Pacini Mr. Stuart H. Theis Mr. Ihor Kowalysko Mr. Darryl Russ Elizabeth Sullivan Carrie Goga Helen Popritkin Mr. & Mrs.* Russell J. Warren Anonymous Nathan Hensley Samuel & Eva Horwitz Ms. Susan E. Burke Ms. Marianne Brager Lauri Stevenson Mrs. Barbara Coy Patrick Giuffrida Ann M. Cassidy
This institution carries a tremendous legacy, thanks to the steadfast support of music lovers like you. It is my great honor to share in that legacy. — Franz Welser-Möst, TCO Music Director
clevelandorchestra.com
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THAN K YOU
Corporate, Foundation & Government Support The Cleveland Orchestra extends heartfelt gratitude to these generous organizations and partners who bring concerts and educational programs to life for our community. Learn more at clevelandorchestra.com/partners
Gifts of $100,000 to $199,999 Akron Children’s KeyBank Quality Electrodynamics White & Case (Miami) Gifts of $50,000 to $99,999 Dealer Tire LLC FirstEnergy Foundation NOPEC Parker Hannifin Foundation PNC Thompson Hine LLP Gifts of $15,000 to $49,999 Acme Fresh Market Foundation BakerHostetler BlueBridge Buyers Products Company Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP DLR Group | Westlake Reed Leskosky Frantz Ward LLP Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. The Giant Eagle Foundation Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC Lake Effect Health Miba AG (Europe) Northern Haserot Olympic Steel, Inc. Park-Ohio Holdings RPM International Inc. RSM US LLP Westfield Anonymous
66 | 2026/2027 SEASON
FOUNDATION & GOVERNMENT SUPPORT Gifts of $1,000,000 & more The William Bingham Foundation The Brown and Kunze Foundation Mary E. & F. Joseph Callahan Foundation The Milton and Tamar Maltz Family Foundation The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation David and Inez Myers Foundation The Eric & Jane Nord Family Fund State of Ohio The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Richard & Emily Smucker Family Foundation Gifts of $500,000 to $999,999 Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts & Culture Ohio Arts Council The Payne Fund Anonymous
Gifts of $100,000 to $249,999 Paul M. Angell Family Foundation Wesley Family Foundation Anonymous Gifts of $50,000 to $99,999 The George W. Codrington Charitable Foundation The Jean, Harry and Brenda Fuchs Family Foundation, in memory of Harry Fuchs GAR Foundation The George Gund Foundation William Randolph Hearst Foundation Martha Holden Jennings Foundation Myra Tuteur Kahn Memorial Fund of the Cleveland Foundation
Gifts of $15,000 to $49,999 The Abington Foundation Akron Community Foundation The Batchelor Foundation, Inc. (Miami) The Mary S. and David C. Corbin Foundation Mary and Dr. George L. Demetros Charitable Trust The Sam J. Frankino Foundation Dawn M. Full Revocable Trust The Gerhard Foundation, Inc. The Helen Wade Greene Charitable Trust The Catherine L. & Edward A. Lozick Foundation The Nord Family Foundation Edwin D. Northrup II Fund The Reinberger Foundation SCH Foundation Albert G. & Olive H. Schlink Foundation The Sisler McFawn Foundation The Veale Foundation The George Garretson Wade Charitable Trust The Thomas H. White Foundation, a KeyBank Trust Anonymous
* IN MEMORIAM
Gifts of $200,000 to $299,999 Jones Day Foundation The J. M. Smucker Co.
Gifts of $250,000 to $499,999 Kulas Foundation John P. Murphy Foundation The Dr. M. Lee Pearce Foundation, Inc. (Miami)
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Gifts of $300,000 & more The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company Hyster-Yale, Inc. NACCO Industries, Inc.
Gifts of $2,500 to $14,999 Blue Technologies, Inc. BNY Wealth Brothers Printing Company The Cedarwood Companies The Cleveland-Cliffs Foundation Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation Evarts Tremaine GPD Foundation GPD Group Gross Residential Hahn Loeser & Parks LLP Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, LLP Nordson Corporation Foundation Northern Trust Sikich Something’s Popping Ver Ploeg & Marino (Miami) Warby Parker Welty Enterprises Winslow Assets
LISTING AS OF SEPTEMBER 2026
CORPORATE SUPPORT
clevelandorchestra.com/give
Gifts of $2,500 to $14,999 The Ruth and Elmer Babin Foundation The Bernheimer Family Fund of the Cleveland Foundation The Cowles Charitable Trust (Miami) James Deering Danielson Foundation Dorn Family Foundation Fisher-Renkert Foundation The Harry K. Fox and Emma R. Fox Charitable Foundation The Hankins Foundation George M. and Pamela S. Humphrey Fund The Kirk Foundation (Miami) The Laub Foundation The Lehner Family Foundation The Fred A. Lennon Charitable Trust The G. R. Lincoln Family Foundation Elizabeth Ring Mather and William Gwinn Mather Fund With the support of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners The M. G. O’Neil Foundation The O’Neill Brothers Foundation Ophthalmology Education Worldwide Paintstone Foundation The Perkins Charitable Foundation Charles E. & Mabel M. Ritchie Memorial Foundation Lloyd L. and Louise K. Smith Memorial Foundation The South Waite Foundation Third Federal Foundation Uvas Foundation The Welty Family Foundation The Edward and Ruth Wilkof Foundation The Wulwiger Foundation Anonymous
clevelandorchestra.com
The Cleveland Orchestra Board of Trustees O FFI CERS Richard J. Kramer Chair David J. Hooker Secretary Victor Alexander Treasurer André Gremillet President & CEO, The Richard K. Smucker Chair Richard K. Smucker Immediate Past Chair Richard J. Bogomolny Chair Emeritus Dennis W. LaBarre Chair Emeritus Norma Lerner Honorary Chair RESI DE N T TRUSTEES Victor Alexander Robin Dunn Blossom Yuval Brisker Helen Rankin Butler Nancy Slocum Callahan Irad Carmi Bill Clawson Matthew V. Crawford Lisa Fedorovich Michael Frank, MD JD Hiroyuki Fujita Robert Glick Arthur C. Hall III Iris Harvie Dee Haslam Stephen H. Hoffman David J. Hooker Michelle Shan Jeschelnig Sarah Liotta Johnston Elizabeth B. Juliano Nancy F. Keithley Douglas A. Kern John D. Koch Richard J. Kramer Dennis W. LaBarre Heather Lennox Cathy Lincoln Robert W. Malone Ben Mathews Nancy W. McCann Stephen McHale Scott C. Mueller Katherine T. O’Neill Hyun Park Alfred M. Rankin, Jr. Zoya Reyzis
Richard K. Smucker James C. Spira R. Thomas Stanton Richard Stovsky Russell A. Trusso Robert Walker Daniel P. Walsh Thomas A. Waltermire Jes Warren Jeffery J. Weaver Anya Weaving Meredith Smith Weil Paul E. Westlake Jr. David A. Wolfort Anthony Wynshaw-Boris N ATI ON AL TRUSTEES Virginia Nord Barbato (NY) Mary Jo Eaton (FL) Christina A. Gold (FL) Michael J. Horvitz (FL) Thomas E Lauria (FL) Loretta Mester (PA) Benjamin N. Pyne (NY) Geraldine B. Warner (OH) Tony White (OH) I N TERN ATIO N AL TRUSTEES Wolfgang C. Berndt (Austria) Herbert Kloiber (Germany) E X-O FFI C IO TRUSTEES André Gremillet Todd Diacon Denise Horstman Sarah Hutchins Eric Kaler Beverly J. Schneider H O N OR ARY TRUSTEES FO R LIFE Richard J. Bogomolny Charles P. Bolton Robert D. Conrad Alexander M. Cutler Richard C. Gridley Norma Lerner Alex Machaskee Robert P. Madison Milton S. Maltz Beth E. Mooney Audrey Gilbert Ratner Charles A. Ratner Hewitt B. Shaw Luci Schey Spring
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YOU R V IS IT LATE SEATING As a courtesy to audience members and musicians, late-arriving patrons are asked to wait quietly until the first convenient break in the program. These seating breaks are at the discretion of the House Manager in consultation with the performing artists.
CELL PHONES, WATCHES & OTHER DEVICES To ensure a quiet and respectful listening environment, please silence all electronic devices.
PHOTOGRAPHY, VIDEOGRAPHY & RECORDING Audio recording, photography, and videography are not allowed during performances at Severance. Photographs can only be taken when the performance is not in progress.
HEARING AIDS & OTHER HEALTH-ASSISTIVE DEVICES In consideration of others, please reduce the volume on hearing aids and other health-assistive devices that may produce noise. For Infrared Assistive-Listening Devices, please see an usher. To request one in advance, email info@cleveland orchestra.com.
IN THE EVENT OF AN EMERGENCY Contact an usher or a member of house staff if you require medical assistance. Emergency exits are clearly marked throughout the building. Ushers and house staff will provide instructions in the event of an emergency.
AGE GUIDELINES Regardless of age, each person must have a ticket and be able to sit quietly in a seat throughout the
THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA APP Official Mobile App of TCO Explore upcoming concerts, purchase and access your tickets, receive performance updates, and more. For more information and direct links to download, visit
clevelandorchestra.com/app
performance. Classical Season subscription concerts are not recommended for children under 8. However, there are several ageappropriate series designed specifically for children and youth, including Music Explorers (ages 3 to 6) and Family Concerts (ages 7 and older).
FOOD & MERCHANDISE Beverages and snacks are available at bars throughout the building and in the Lounge at Severance. Only bottled water is permitted in the hall. For Cleveland Orchestra apparel, recordings, and gift items, visit the Welcome Center.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE We are so glad you joined us! Want to share about your time at Severance? Send your feedback to cx@clevelandorchestra.com. Hearing directly from you will help us create the best experience possible.
The Cleveland Orchestra is grateful to the following organizations for their ongoing generous support of The Cleveland Orchestra: the State of Ohio and Ohio Arts Council and to the residents of Cuyahoga County through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.
The Cleveland Orchestra is proud of its long-term partnership with Kent State University, made possible in part through generous funding from the State of Ohio. The Cleveland Orchestra is proud to have its home, Severance Music Center, located on the campus of Case Western Reserve University, with whom it has a long history of collaboration and partnership.
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Program books for Cleveland Orchestra concerts are produced by The Cleveland Orchestra and are distributed free to attending audience members. EDI TORI AL
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Cleveland Orchestra performances are broadcast as part of regular programming on ideastream/WCLV Classical 90.3 FM, Saturdays at 8 PM and Sundays at 4 PM.
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68 | 2026/2027 SEASON
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