Dance
This season, we offer dance events in five different venues, from flexible and intimate small theatres to Boston's grandest stages.
On our largest stages for dance, Camille A. Brown & Dancers bring the joyous and irresistible I AM to the Cutler Majestic Theatre, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, under the leadership of incoming artistic director Alicia Graf Mack, perform their founder's works and bring contemporary choreographers' visions to life at the Boch Center Wang Theatre.
We return to Boston Arts Academy Theatre with Music From The Sole, the tap dance and live music company that wowed and delighted sold-out houses in their Series debut. House is Open, Going Dark gives a glimpse behind the curtain at the creative process: musicians become dancers, and vice versa, as they negotiate and co-create their life together. And Trisha Brown Dance Company makes a Series debut with a program that offers works from three of its founder's "cycles" or conceptual eras.
Arrow Street Arts' Black Box Theatre, opened in 2024, is the setting for Metamorphosis, a music and dance collaboration between Third Coast Percussion and Movement Art Is (choreography by Lil Buck and Jon Boogz).
See Cambridge-based Jean Appolon Expressions, blending Haitian folkloric dance with modern choreography into a style that's both timeless and new, at Roxbury Community College.
Voices
From jazz to classical to Broadway and beyond, it's a tremendous season for vocalists!
Kelli O'Hara comes to Symphony Hall and Jessica Vosk brings her holiday extravaganza SLEIGH to Berklee Performance Center. The brilliant Cécile McLorin Salvant returns, and Dianne Reeves brings power and insight to her Series debut as a headliner. Bass-baritone Davóne Tines partners with Baroque continuo band Ruckus to consider this country's Revolutionary era and its legacy, and three of our frequent Neighborhood Arts partner organizations come together for a children's choir concert anchored in poems by Langston Hughes and Phillis Wheatley.
Making debuts are opera star J'Nai Bridges, launching the subscription season at Groton Hill Music Center, and French soprano Axelle Fanyo, a rising star on opera stages and recent Grammy Award winner. German baritone Matthias Goerne, an international opera star and lieder specialist, appears at NEC's Jordan Hall in a can't-miss all-Schubert performance alongside the great Daniil Trifonov at the piano. Acclaimed British vocal ensemble Tenebrae debuts, bringing us highlights from the island's rich choral traditions and contemporary works that inspire feelings of respite. Debuting singer-songwriter Elisapie beautifully reinvents iconic pop and rock songs in Inuktitut, an Inuit language, and Boston's own Zakiyyah debuts on the Series with a socially aware Hip-Hopera sound that's all her own.
Curated Classical
There are dozens of classical music events, and you're going to love exploring them all. Here are a couple of trends that have surprised us this season!
Orchestras
If you're a fan of orchestral music, consider this your subscription shopping list.
After almost 20 years, the Vienna Philharmonic returns, under the baton of Andris Nelsons for Mahler's First Symphony and Bartók's Third Piano Concerto with Lang Lang as the soloist. Chicago Symphony Orchestra gives us an exciting preview of things to come when Music Director Designate Klaus Mäkelä brings his future ensemble to Symphony Hall. And Iván Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra serve up Mahler's Third Symphony, a feast for music lovers. The longest symphony in the standard orchestral repertoire (and among the most sublime) calls for a mighty orchestra, adult and children's choirs, and an alto soloist.
Bach by the book
Complete suites of Bach are hot this year!
The phenomenal pianist Yunchan Lim performs Bach's Goldberg Variations in his solo recital debut at Symphony Hall. Yo-Yo Ma brings the Six Unaccompanied Cello Suites to the same stage in an epic evening of music, and insightful French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard performs the complete Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2 at NEC's Jordan Hall in his belated Celebrity Series debut.
Nordic strings
Finnish quartet Meta4 make an area debut at Groton Hill Music Center with a program featuring works by Beethoven, Shostakovich, and Kaija Saariaho, their fellow Finn and longtime artistic partner.
Returning ensembles from higher latitudes include the audience-favorite Danish String Quartet and Nordic folk trio Dreamers' Circus, who give you another chance to hear DSQ violinist Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen.
Why subscribe? Consider a subscription for 2025/26
Even though it might sound like a big commitment, becoming a subscriber is actually an easy and flexible way to enjoy Celebrity Series events. Subscribers can exchange their tickets until noon on the business day before their chosen event, and can add events to their subscription all season long with no additional handling fees. You'll lock in our low subscriber prices all season: they won't increase even if ticket prices for individual events go up.
It only takes three events to get started: look out for our season announcement in May with the date you can subscribe!