Philadelphia music lovers, mark your calendars: The Philadelphia Orchestra has just announced a one-night-only special performance with Emmy-nominated singer-songwriter, composer, and pianist Ben Folds, on Wednesday, December 16, 2026, at 7:00 PM in Marian Anderson Hall at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.
Conducted by Steven Reineke, the evening will blend Folds’s genre-bending songs — performed at piano and vocals by the artist himself — with the full power of one of the world’s great orchestras. It’s Folds’s third collaboration with the Orchestra, following acclaimed concerts in 2014 and 2019.
The night is doubly special: it’s a benefit concert — Orchestra musicians are donating their services, with proceeds supporting the Philadelphia Orchestra Musicians’ Retirement Fund — and it doubles as the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Kimmel Center, which opened on December 16, 2001 and has welcomed more than ten million visitors since.
And the joy doesn’t stop at the hall doors: one dollar from every ticket sold goes to Keys for Kids, Ben Folds’s charity that funds piano lessons for school-age children from economically disadvantaged households.
Tickets go on sale to the general public on Thursday, October 8 at 12:00 PM through philorch.org or 215.893.1999. A December night of great music for a great cause — that’s the sound of a happy city.
Photo: slgckgc, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
