The Kennedy Center announced the 2025-26 season Thursday morning for both the National Symphony Orchestra and chamber music performances from ensembles, soloists, and vocalists that cover repertoire from the baroque era to the contemporary, and national, moment. The season will include five world premiere commissions by Philip Glass, Valerie Coleman, Carlos Simon (Kennedy Center composer-in-residence), Reena Esmail and Peter Boyer.

Music director Gianandrea Noseda, whose tenure was recently extended through 2031, will lead the NSO in ten weeks of concerts. The September 27 season-opening gala will feature Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, pianist Yuja Wang playing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Simons’ Warmth of Other Suns and Capriccio Espagnol by Rimsky-Korsakov. The first subscription program, October 2-4, will have pianist Simon Trpčeski playing Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 2, Mel Bonis’ Three Dances, and the complete Daphnis et Chloé ballet music by Ravel.

Other programming highlights include Alexander Zemlinsky’s vocal Lyric Symphony, with soprano Camilla Nylund and bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny. The program scales the heights of romanticism with the Adagio from Mahler’s Symphony No. 10 and Strauss’  Till Eulenspiegel’s lustige Streiche (December 4-6). January 15-16, the orchestra will play Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in a concert that opens with pianist Daniil Trifonov playing Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1; later in the month (Jan. 29-31), the NSO plays Scriabin’s Symphony No. 3, “Le divin poème,” for the first time in eight decades—the program also has Brahms’ Double Concerto, with concertmaster Nurit Bar-Josef and principal cellist David Hardy as soloists. April 29 and May 1, Noseda leads a concert performance of Puccini’s opera Il Trittico, with sopranos Erika Grimaldi and Sabrina Gárdez, mezzo-soprano Agnieszka Rehlis, tenor Jonathan Tetelman, and baritone Roman Burdenko.

Along with many other arts organizations, the NSO is celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States in 2026. A series titled “The Promise of Us” launches May 29-30 with conductor James Gaffigan and soprano Renée Fleming in a collection of songs and arias from Nico Muhly, Handel, Maria Schneider, Björk, and others titled Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene. That concert also has Ives’ Three Places in New England and the suite from Copland’s Appalachian Spring. In June, (5-6 and 12-13), guest conductor Kellen Gray and pianist Michelle Cann premiere a piano concerto from Valerie Coleman, and play Dvořák’s American Suite and Gershwin’s “Catfish Row” suite from Porgy and Bess; then conductor Karen Kamensek makes her NSO debut leading the world premiere of Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 15, “Lincoln,” (with baritone Zachary James) and Gershwin’s An American in Paris—violinist Johan Dalene solos in Barber’s Violin Concerto.

Other debuts with the orchestra include violinist Isabelle Faust, who will play the Beethoven Violin Concerto (Oct, 16-19) in an all-Beethoven program with Christopher Eschenbach conducting the Egmont Overture and Symphony No. 7; cellist Pablo Ferrández will play Lutosławski’s Cello Concerto in concerts that also have Edward Gardner leading Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 (Nov. 20, 22-23); and cellist Seth Parker Woods joins violinist Hilary Hahn in the world premiere of Simon’s Double Concerto (Mar. 12-14), with Noseda conducting—that program is filled out with Schumann’s Manfred Overture and Brahms’ Symphony No. 3.

Washington National Opera also announced a return to a five-production season, which will include Aida, The Marriage of Figaro, Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha, Robert Ward’s The Crucible, and West Side Story.

While not all chamber music programs were set as of the announcement, performers will include tenor Nicholas Phan in recital with pianist Myra Huang (Nov. 23), and Fortas Chamber Music Concerts artistic director violinist Jennifer Koh will play Beethoven’s Sonatas Nos. 1 and 9, “Kreutzer,” and Vijay Iyer’s Bridgetower Fantasy, with pianist Thomas Sauer (Dec. 4). February 1, the Brentano Quartet and violist Hsin-Yun Huang will play three of Mozart’s String Quintets and George Benjamin’s Viola, Viola, and March 24 clarinetist Anthony McGill joins the Viano Quartet for Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet (the quartet plays Haydn’s String Quartet Op. 76, No. 5 “Largo,” and Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 9).

The Fortas concerts also bring in vocal group Roomful of Teeth singing Allison Loggins-Hull’s De-Compartmentalize (Oct. 28), the great indie-classical group yMusic (Feb. 19), and PUBLIQuartet, with an intriguing program that includes Jeff Scott’s Blues for Buddy, String Quartet No. 1, “Mobile on a Stream into the Sound,” by Andy Akiho,  Sixfivetwo from composer Henry Threadgill, and Iyer’s  Dig the Say. Pianists Maria João Pires and Marc-André Hamelin will play in duo May 3 (program to be announced at a later date).

The NSO’s own Kennedy Center Chamber Players round out the chamber music offerings with programs that include Brahms, Hindemith, and Fauré (Nov. 2); Beethoven, Prokofiev, and Grieg (Jan. 18); and Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 2 and Dmitry Sitkovetsky’s arrangement of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, May 31. Baritone Matthias Goerne will sing Schubert’s Winterreise October 21, accompanied by Trifonov. For the Christmas holiday, Ton Koopman conducts Handel’s Messiah, December 18-21 (soloists to be announced).

For more information and tickets, go to kennedy-center.prg

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