Orchestras

2026-27 Season

Auditions for the Stanford Symphony Orchestra and Stanford Philharmonia will take place in person from 14-20 September 2026 in the Braun Music Center. Students and community members interested in auditioning should fill out the 2026-27 Stanford Orchestra Participation Form. Audition excerpts will be posted in August.

The exciting events planned for the Stanford Orchestras in 2026-27 include visits from renowned guest composers, the Beethoven Bicentennial (1827/2027), and great repertoire by Bacewicz, Brahms, Haydn, Mahler, Mozart, Purcell, Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky, and Weill. Melody Eötvös will come to Stanford in November from Melbourne, Australia, for Stanford Philharmonia's performance of her composition Red Dirt | Silver Rain and Missy Mazzoli will visit in February when SP performs her Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres). This fall, SP will also perform Stanford Sérénade, a work for oboe and 11 instruments that Darius Milhaud composed in 1970 for the Stanford Symphony Orchestra and its conductor Sandor Salgo.
    Stanford Philharmonia Fall Concert / SP Beethoven Bicentennial Celebration 
    Saturday, 7 November 2026 at 7:30pm in Bing Concert Hall
    Melody Eötvos, guest composer      Paul Phillips, conductor
    HENRY PURCELL    The Gordion Knot Untied, Suite No. 2 (arranged by Gustav Holst)
    DARIUS MILHAUD     Stanford Sérénade   Cindy Liu '28, oboe soloist
    MELODY EÖTVOS     Red Dirt | Silver Rain *
    LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN    Symphony No. 1 in C, op. 21
      * with support from the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Orchestral Commissions Program, American Composers Orchestra, and League of American Orchestras. 

This fall, the Stanford Symphony Orchestra will perform Mahler's First Symphony plus music by Rachmaninoff and California premieres of recent works by Wang Lu and Paul Phillips. Wang Lu composed her Surge (another Toulmin commission) for the New York Philharmonic, which premiered it in 2023.
    Stanford Symphony Orchestra Fall Concerts
    Friday, 13 November 2026 at 7:30pm in Bing Concert Hall 
    Sunday, 15 November 2026 at 2:30pm in Bing Concert Hall    
    Paul Phillips, conductor
    WANG LU   Surge   California premiere
    PAUL PHILLIPS   Brass Knuckles   California premiere 
    SERGEI RACHMANINOFF   The Isle of the Dead, op. 29
    GUSTAV MAHLER    Symphony No. 1 in D Major, “Titan”​

Stanford Philharmonia Winter Concert / SP Beethoven Bicentennial Celebration     
    Saturday, 27 February 2027 at 7:30pm in Bing Concert Hall    
    Missy Mazzoli, guest composer
    Paul Phillips, conductor
    JOSEPH HAYDN   Symphony No. 44 in E minor, "Trauer"
    MISSY MAZZOLI   Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres)    
    CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS   Suite in D major, op. 49

Stanford Symphony Orchestra Winter Concerts / SSO Beethoven Bicentennial Celebration
       with Stanford Symphonic Chorus  Stephen Sano director   
    Friday, 5 March 2027 at 7:30pm in Bing Concert Hall   
    Saturday, 6 March 2027 at 7:30pm in Bing Concert Hall
    Paul Phillips, conductor
    Soloists TBA   
    GRAZYNA BACEWICZ   Variations for Orchestra
    JOHANNES BRAHMS   Gesang der Parzen (Song of the Fates), op. 89
    LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN    Symphony No. 9 in D minor, op. 125​

To commemorate the retirement of Stanford musicologist Stephen Hinton, a world-renowned expert on Kurt Weill's music, the SSO will open its spring program with Weill's Lady in the Dark: Symphonic Nocturne. SP will present a Mozart-themed spring program that will include the "Haffner" Symphony and Tchaikovsky's "Mozartiana". The season will conclude with a Stravinsky double-bill involving students from Stanford's orchestras performing his comic opera Mavra (in Paul Phillips's chamber version) and The Soldier's Tale, a theatrical work "to be read, played, and danced".

Stanford Symphony Orchestra Spring Concerts  
    Friday, 7 May 2027 at 7:30pm in Bing Concert Hall         
    Saturday, 8 May 2027 at 7:30pm in Bing Concert Hall            
    Paul Phillips, conductor
    KURT WEILL    Lady in the Dark: Symphonic Nocturne (arr. Robert Russell Bennett)
    Concerto TBA
    Additional work TBA

Stanford Philharmonia Spring Concert
    Friday, 14 May 2027 at 7:30pm in Bing Concert Hall
    Paul Phillips, conductor        
    W. A. MOZART    Symphony No. 35 in D major, "Haffner", K. 385   
    Concerto TBA    
    P. I. TCHAIKOVSKY    Suite No. 4, op. 61, "Mozartiana"

STRAVINSKY – Mavra & The Soldier's Tale (L'Histoire du Soldat)
    Staged productions in Dinkelspiel Auditorium
    Spring 2027 (date TBA)
    Paul Phillips, conductor

All programs subject to change.

2025-26 Season

The 2025-26 season opened with fall concerts by the Stanford Symphony Orchestra and Stanford Philharmonia in Bing Concert Hall under the direction of music director Paul Phillips. Stanford Philharmonia's Viva Italia! concert on 8 November 2025 celebrated the centenary of the birth of Luciano Berio with a performance of his Corale [su "sequenza VIII"] featuring violin soloist Alexander Goldberg, preceded by Respighi's Antiche Danze ed Arie, Suite 1, and followed by the complete Pulcinella of Igor Stravinsky, based on music by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and other early Italian composers. Charles Koechlin's Septuor d'instruments à vent, led by conducting major Sean Tan '27, rounded out the program. 

Following a lively Halloween Concert on 31 October 2025 that included Beauty and the Beast Suite for Orchestra (Menken & Ashman), Rossini's William Tell Overture, and other selections, SSO presented its Fall Concerts on 14/16 November 2025. The program opened with the California premiere of Quinn Mason's Serenade for Strings (co-commissioned by the SSO) and ended with Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin Suite, with the middle of the program comprising a pair of Spanish favorites: Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez featuring guitarist Eric Wang '26, a winner of the 2025 Concerto Competition, and Manuel de Falla's Suite Two from The Three-Cornered Hat, conducted by Sean Tan '27.

After conducting the fall SP and SSO concerts, Paul Phillips went on sabbatical, with former Golden State Youth Orchestra music director John Eells leading SSO and SP in Winter and Spring until Phillips returns in June to lead the Stanford Summer Symphony and resumes his full-time faculty position in September. On 27 February, SP performed a suite from Falla's El Amor Brujo, Schubert's Symphony No. 3, and Mozart's Symphony No. 41, "Jupiter", led by John Eells. On 6/7 March 2026, the SSO, joined by the Stanford Symphonic Chorus and Stanford University Singers, presented Verdi's Messa da Requiem conducted by Stephen Sano, with Eells conducting Britten's Passacaglia from Peter Grimes and William Grant Still's In Memoriam: The Colored Soldiers Who Died for Democracy to open the program.

The SSO Spring Concerts on 8/9 May 2026 conducted by John Eells featured Ivette Herryman Rodriguez's Un danzón a mi manera conducted by Sean Tan '27 and the first performance of the orchestral version of Joel Love's Solace: A Lyric Concerto featuring alto saxophone soloist Zachary Lin '26, a Concerto Competition winner. The SSO concert concluded with Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5. Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperin, Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 featuring Concerto Competition winner Alex Tordjman, and Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4, "Italian", was performed on the SP Spring Concert, conducted by John Eells, on 15 May 2026.

On 31 July and 1 August 2026, the 2026 Stanford Summer Symphony performed concerts featuring Mendelssohn's symphony-cantata Lobgesang (Hymn of Praise) in collaboration with the Stanford Summer Chorus.
    Stanford Summer Symphony Orchestra & Stanford Summer Chorus    
    Friday, 31 July 2026 at 7:30pm in Bing Concert Hall     
    Saturday, 1 August 2026 at 7:30pm in Bing Concert Hall            
    ETHEL SMYTH    Overture to The Wreckers   SSSO    Paul Phillips, conductor      
    SHAWN KIRCHNER (arranger)   Heavenly Home   SSC    Rafael Ornes, conductor     
    FELIX MENDELSSOHN    Lobgesang   SSSO & SSC   Paul Phillips, conductor    
       Esther Tonea, soprano I; Jennie Yukyung Byun, soprano II; Chance Jonas-O'Toole, tenor

2025-26 Season Program:

SSO HALLOWEEN CONCERT with the STANFORD WIND SYMPHONY

Friday, 31 October 2025 • 7:30 PM - Dinkelspiel Auditorium
The Stanford Symphony Orchestra teams up with the Stanford Wind Symphony to present the annual Halloween Concert. All SSO and SWS members dress in costume for the concert, which culminates with the annual Costume Competition, whose winner guest conducts the Stanford Wind Symphony.

ALAN MENKEN   Beauty and the Beast Suite
MANUEL DE FALLA   El sombrero de tres picos: “The Neighbors’ Dance”   
  Sean Tan ’27, conductor 
JOAQUIN RODRIGO   Concierto de Aranjuez: 1st mvt   
  Eric Wang ’26, guitar
GIOACHINO ROSSINI    William Tell Overture
plus selections by the Stanford Wind Symphony

A PREMIERE, AN ANNIVERSARY, AND SPANISH FAVORITES - SSO FALL CONCERTS

Friday, 14 November 2025 • 7:30 PM & Sunday, 16 November 2025 • 2:30 PM - Bing Concert Hall

The Stanford Symphony Orchestra co-commissioned Serenade for Strings by the extraordinary young composer-conductor Quinn Mason and performs the California premiere of this new work on a program that opens with music by two of the great Spanish composers of the 20th century, Manuel de Falla and Joaquin Rodrigo. The Miraculous Mandarin is a symbolic fable about the all-powerful force of love in even the most squalid conditions. Inspired by this story, written in 1916 by Melchior Lengyel, Béla Bartók composed the music from 1918-24 as the score for a pantomime ballet. The premiere took place in 1926 in Germany at the Cologne Opera House.

QUINN MASON    Serenade for Strings (2025)   
  SSO Co-commission / California premiere
JOAQUIN RODRIGO   Concierto de Aranjuez   
  Eric Wang ’26, guitar – 2025 Concerto Competition winner
MANUEL DE FALLA   El sombrero de tres picos, Suite 2   
  Sean Tan ’27, conductor  
BELA BARTOK    The Miraculous Mandarin Suite   
  100th anniversary

STANFORD PHILHARMONIA FALL CONCERT - VIVA ITALIA

Saturday, 8 November 2025 • 7:30 PM - Bing Concert Hall

OTTORINO RESPIGHI    Antiche Danze ed Arie, Suite 1
CHARLES KOECHLIN    Septet for Wind Instruments  
  Sean Tan ’27, conductor 
LUCIANO BERIO    Corale   
  Alexander Goldberg, violin   
  Berio centenary
IGOR STRAVINSKY    Pulcinella          
  HaYoung Jung, mezzo-soprano    
  Nicolas Vasquez-Gerst, tenor
  Glenn Healy, bass

SSO WINTER CONCERTS with the STANFORD SYMPHONIC CHORUS and UNIVERSITY SINGERS

Friday, 6 March 2026 • 7:30 PM & Saturday, 7 March 2026 • 7:30 PM - Bing Concert Hall

BENJAMIN BRITTEN    Passacaglia from Peter Grimes
WILLIAM GRANT STILL    In memoriam: The Colored Soldiers Who Died for Democracy    
  John Eells, conductor
GIUSEPPE VERDI    Messa da Requiem    
  Mikayla Sager, soprano    
  Malin Fritz Walrod, alto    
  Benjamin Liupaogo, tenor 
  Ashraf Sewailam, bass-baritone    
  Stephen Sano, conductor

STANFORD PHILHARMONIA WINTER CONCERT

Friday, 27 February 2026 • 7:30 PM - Bing Concert Hall

MANUEL DE FALLA   El Amor Brujo Suite
FRANZ SCHUBERT   Symphony No. 3 in D major
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART  Symphony No. 41 in C major, “Jupiter”     
  John Eells, conductor

SSO SPRING CONCERTS

Friday, 8 May 2026 • 7:30 PM & Saturday, 9 May 2026 • 7:30 PM - Bing Concert Hall

IVETTE HERRYMAN-RODRIGUEZ    Un danzón a mi manera
  Sean Tan '27, conductor
JOEL LOVE    A Lyric Concerto, Solace   premiere of orchestral version
   Zachary Lin '26   2026 Concerto Competition Winner
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH    Symphony No. 5     
  John Eells, conductor

STANFORD PHILHARMONIA SPRING CONCERT

Friday, 15 May 2026 • 7:30 PM - Bing Concert Hall

MAURICE RAVEL    Le tombeau de Couperin
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN    Piano Concerto No.3 in C Minor
   Alex Tordjman, graduate student   2026 Concerto Competition Winner
FELIX MENDELSSOHN    Symphony No. 4 in A major, “Italian”      
  John Eells, conductor