The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s 2026/27 Season Preview

By Jon Ross

A jazz pianist stepping out with the orchestra, two commissions and a season-spanning Brahms cycle: it’s all there in the 2026-2027 Atlanta Symphony Orchestra season

Across Music Director Nathalie Stutzmann’s 10-concert series in Atlanta, she’ll lead the orchestra in all four Brahms symphonies; four concertos; his Academic Festival Overture; and the choral masterwork Ein deutsches Requiem.

Brahms Revealed

The strategy mirrors her Beethoven Project symphony cycle, but spreads out the Brahms works throughout the season instead of concentrating them on a handful of concerts. This also allows for creative programming with other composers – like-minded contemporaries, works by musicians creating vibrant 21st-century music and even, perhaps, a musical adversary.

That last coupling might be the most compelling. Wagner and Brahms, who didn’t exactly care for each other, will be forced together in musical dialogue when Stutzmann performs music from Lohengrin and Tristan und Isolde with Brahms’s third symphony. The duo returns January 14, when Stutzmann conducts Brahms fourth symphony alongside music from Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg and Die Walkure.

“On the Brahms programs, some pairings are fairly orthodox,” said Gaetan Le Divelec, the ASO’s Vice President of Artistic Planning, adding that putting Brahms with Wagner at first felt counterintuitive. “We know that Wagner felt very, very little of Brahms’s music, but somehow it felt like it was the right thing to do. There’s a beautiful flow going through those programs.”

Other programs juxtapose Brahms with Missy Mazzoli’s Orpheus Undone (April 1) and Thomas Ades (April 15), while others look to Bach and Schumann. Stutzmann saves the only all-Brahms showcase for the penultimate concerts of the season (May 27), when she welcomes pianist Benjamin Grosvenor for the composer’s first piano concerto alongside the second symphony.

Artist Highlights

The ASO’s new season begins September 16 with guest conductor Michael Stern leading violinist Joshua Bell in Edouard Lalo’s “Symphonie espagnole.” For Stutzmann’s first concert of the new season (Oct 1), she brings along another violinist, Johan Dalen, to perform the Brahms violin concerto. The season wraps during the first week of June, with pianist Anna Geniushene performing Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini."

Artist In Residence, Anna Geniushene

Next season, audiences will get a lot more acquainted with Geniushene. The pianist, runner-up in the 2022 Van Cliburn piano competition, is Stutzmann’s first Artist In Residence. In addition to the Rachmaninoff, she’ll perform Brahms’ second piano concerto (November 5) and Schumann’s piano concerto (November 19).

Geniushene first joined Stutzmann with the ASO in April 2025 for Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto. That performance necessitated an encore (or two or three).

“They had great chemistry,” Le Divelec said, noting the importance of having the orchestra’s first artist in residence “a discovery rather than a household name.”

One of the most surprising programming choices might be the inclusion of pianist Sullivan Fortner. Fortner has performed in Atlanta for years – from his time on the headlining stage supporting trumpeter Roy Hargrove at the 2014 Atlanta Jazz Festival to his recent appearances with singer Cecile McLorin Salvant. He’s a jazz musician on the rise. He recently won the very first Gilmore jazz award, a $300,000 prize; this spring, he nabbed a Best Jazz Instrumental GRAMMY® for his album “Southern Nights.” October will find him sitting in with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, performing Gershwin with guest conductor Kristiina Poska.

Another highlight comes in the spring, when the ASO commemorates Coretta Scott King’s 100th anniversary with a concert featuring commissions by Jasmine Barnes and Carlos Simon. Guest conductor Kedrick Armstrong has also programmed Florence Price’s first symphony and William Grant Still’s “Festive Overture” on what is sure to be one of the can’t-miss programs in 2027.

Another gem? Conductor Peter Oundjian leading saxophonist Steven Banks in a fresh work by Joan Tower, “Love Returns” at the end of May.

“Stephen Banks is someone I’ve wanted to invite here even before moving to Atlanta. “He’s not just a great saxophonist; he’s an extraordinary musician,” Le Divelec said, adding that Oundjian is “one of the best conductors for American repertoire."

Stutzmann's Throughline Composers

With her programs, Stutzmann is creating a throughline across the seasons, highlighting composers that the ASO will come back to again and again. Bruckner (November 19) and Shostakovich (April 1), along with Mahler, have nearly become must-have composers when programming each season. Featuring their voices is a continuation of the conductor’s own journey with repertoire, but they’re also a focus because the music simply fits the orchestra well.

“These are composers that she feels close to the orchestra with. There is a feeling of mutual understanding that is organic and immediate,” he said. “They’re likely to be a feature of most of her seasons, if not every season.”

Learn More About the 2026/27 Season

Get to know the full 2026/27 season and learn how to subscribe at aso.org