The New Jersey Symphony and Music Director Xian Zhang in Newark’s Prudential Hall, one of the five statewide venues where the orchestra performs every season.
In Friday’s (3/13) NJArts.net (New Jersey), Courtney Smith writes, “The New Jersey Symphony announced, on March 11, its 2026-27 season: a mix of old masters and new voices that push boundaries and cross genres in one way or another. Superstar soloists, familiar guests and emerging talent will star alongside celebrated artists from New Jersey’s local communities. The season goes big with 54 mainstage programs in five cities…. The season blends contemporary compositions by artists with ties to New Jersey, with canonical masterworks…. Under music director Xian Zhang, there is no shortage of the Middle-European Romantic composers and post-Romantics that play so well to [her] strengths … Violinist Joshua Bell will perform an all-Beethoven program [that] will include Bell as both soloist and conductor … The American symphonic canon will be expanded, too, with new treatments of the concerto genre … Gregory LaRosa, the Symphony’s principal timpani, will star in Timpani Concerto, a new co-commission written for him by Joseph Pereira, principal percussionist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic…. Jazz master Christian McBride (of Montclair) will make his Symphony debut with a concerto written for him. He will play double bass in George Duke’s Dark Wood: Bass Concerto for Christian McBride.” The article lists the New Jersey Symphony’s entire 2026-27 season.
