A new era begins at Symphony Hall this weekend. The Phoenix Symphony opens its 2026-27 season with newly appointed Music Director Designate Paolo Bortolameolli on the podium for “Paolo Conducts Rachmaninoff & Prokofiev,” a three-performance celebration running October 9 through 11.
The curtain rises with the dazzling Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla by Mikhail Glinka, setting the stage for one of the most demanding works in all of piano literature: Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3. The soloist is Olga Kern, the Russian pianist who won the Gold Medal at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and famously performed all of Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos for the Symphony’s Rachmaninoff Festival in 2012.
The program closes with Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5, a sweeping triumph of power, lyricism and irony that premiered in the war-torn Soviet Union in 1945 and remains one of the composer’s most beloved works.
Performances are Friday, October 9 at 11:00 a.m. (Coffee Classics), Saturday, October 10 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, October 11 at 2:00 p.m. in the Jeanne L. Herberger Classical Series. Tickets are available at phoenixsymphony.org or by calling the box office at (602) 495-1999.
Photo: Natalia Rostova, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
