Music News

Dallas Symphony Orchestra unveils 2024-25 season with 3 world premieres

DSO has released its 2024-2025 season.

Photo courtesy of Dallas Symphony Orchestra

Dallas Symphony Orchestra will become the first U.S. orchestra in recent history to perform Wagner’s Complete Ring Cycle in concert, as part of its newly unveiled 2024-25 concert season. The season also includes three world premieres, two co-commissions, and 14 DSO premieres.

In a statement, President & CEO of the Dallas Symphony Kim Noltemy says they've "packed the season with well-loved classics, a fantastic lineup of guest artists and conductors, dynamic new works from composers never-before-heard in Dallas and so much more.”

The 2024/25 season marks the fifth for Music Director Fabio Luisi, who will lead the orchestra in 10 concerts as part of the Texas Instruments Classical Series.

Subscriptions are on sale February 23, and single tickets will be available later this spring.

World premieres

Continuing a tradition of championing contemporary composers, the DSO has commissioned and will present three world premieres this season:

February 6-9, 2025: Native American Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Raven Chacon on a new orchestral work
March 6-9, 2025: World premiere from DSO composer-in-residence Sophia Jani
April 17-19, 2025: World premiere from Sean Shepherd

April 10-12, 2025, the orchestra will present the US premiere of Andrew Norman’s Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra featuring celebrated trombonist Jörgen van Rijen.

November 1-3, 2024, will feature the Dallas premieres of Estonian composer Allison Kruusmaa’s Five Arabesques for Chamber Orchestra and Amy Beach’s Piano Concerto in a program highlighting female musicians leading into the DSO’s sixth annual Women in Classical Music Symposium

October 5, October 8, 2024: Following the DSO’s performances of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre in the spring of the 2023/24 season, the orchestra will present an opera-in-concert version of Wagner’s epic Der Ring des Nibelungen (the Ring cycle) in its entirety, becoming the first American orchestra in recent history to do so. Luisi and the DSO will perform Siegfried on October 5, 2024, and Götterdämmerung on October 8, 2024, followed by the week-long presentation of the full Ring cycle beginning on Sunday, October 13, 2024.

This enormous endeavor is the culmination of many years of planning by DSO artistic staff and leadership and features a massive orchestra of over 100 players and a cast of more than 30 vocalists on stage at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center. The star-studded cast list includes Lise Lindstrom (soprano, Brünnhilde), Sara Jakubiak (soprano, Sieglinde), Deniz Uzun (mezzo-soprano, Fricka), Daniel Johanssohn (tenor, Siegfried), Mark Delavan (bass-baritone, Wotan), and Tomas Tomasson (baritone, Alberich). The production will be led by staging director Alberto Triola, who also produced the DSO’s opera-in-concert performances of R. Strauss’ Salome in 2020 and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin in 2022.

Featured artists and conductors

The DSO will welcome back in-demand performers including Jean-Yves Thibaudet (piano), Augustin Hadelich (violin), Jamie Barton (mezzo-soprano), Hélène Grimaud (piano) and Leonidas Kavakos (violin). Additionally, Anne-Marie McDermott, acclaimed pianist and Artistic Director of Bravo! Vail, which hosts the DSO in residency each summer, will perform Amy Beach’s Piano Concerto with the orchestra in November.

Artists who will grace the Meyerson stage for the first time include Francesca Dego (violin), Charles Yang (violin), Norman Garrett (baritone), Nelson Goerner (piano), Benjamin Grovesnor (piano), Sofia Fomina (soprano) and Catriona Morison (mezzo-soprano).

The 2024/25 season will also see the return of several celebrated conductors, including former DSO Music Director Jaap van Zweden, who will lead the orchestra in concerts featuring Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 (May 1 – 3, 2025), in his first appearances in Dallas since 2018.

Other notable returns to the podium include Juanjo Mena, Matthew Halls, and John Storgårds, along with Edward Gardner, Anu Tali, Markus Poschner, Mortiz Gnann, Giedrė Šlekytė, Aziz Shokhakimov, Jonathon Heyward and Ilan Volkov in their DSO debuts.

Additionally, the orchestra will perform the world premiere of Sean Shepherd’s Concerto for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon featuring DSO Principal Winds David Buck (Principal Flute, Joy & Ronald Mankoff Chair), Erin Hannigan, Gregory Raden (Principal Clarinet, Mr. & Mrs. C. Thomas May, Jr. Chair) and Ted Soluri (Principal Bassoon, Irene H. Wadel & Robert I. Atha, Jr. Chair), for which the DSO is the lead commissioner.

2024 Dallas Symphony Orchestra Gala

The DSO, led by Music Director Fabio Luisi, will welcome superstar pianist, Lang Lang in a one-night-only performance of Rachmaninoff’s expressively virtuosic Second Piano Concerto on Saturday, September 28, 2024. This once-a-season fundraising event will benefit the DSO’s education and outreach programs. The DSO will soon announce the 2025 gala chairs and leadership team, along with ticketing options for the full gala experience as well as the concert and after party.

Other Highlights

November 14-17, 2024: Bartók The Wooden Prince: Dallas audiences will hear the Hungarian composer’s massive, bombastic ballet score for the first time.

April 3-6, 2025: Sibelius Symphony No. 3: Finnish conductor and violinist John Storgårds returns to the Meyerson stage as both performer and conductor in a unique program. Storgårds will perform the solo violin part from the podium in the DSO premiere of jazz composer Keith Jarrett’s Elegy for Violin and String Orchestra. He will also lead the orchestra in Henriette Renié’s Concerto for Harp and Orchestra (DSO debut) with soloist Emily Levin and Sibelius’ Third Symphony.Mahler Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection:”

May 30-June 2, 2025: Fabio Luisi leads the DSO and Dallas Symphony Chorus in performances of Mahler’s transcendent Second Symphony, which holds special significance for Dallas symphony-goers as the first subscription concert ever performed at the newly opened Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in 1989 under former Music Director Eduardo Mata.

Cherished Classics

Popular symphonic works spanning the entire season include:

Elgar’s Enigma Variations (November 1 – 3, 2024)
Mozart Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter” (November 22 – 24, 2024)
Dvořák Symphony No. 9, “From the New World” (November 29 – December 1, 2024)
Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique (January 23 – 26, 2025)
Beethoven Symphonies No. 5 (February 6 – 9, 2025)
Beethoven Symphones No. 3, “Eroica” (May 22 – 24, 2025)
Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (April 10 -12, 2025)
Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3, “Scottish” (April 17 – 19, 2025)

Recordings

The DSO will record several performances this season for future commercial release on its in-house label DSO Live, including Brahms Symphony No. 4, the final installment in the orchestra’s initiative with Fabio Luisi to record all four of the Romantic composer’s symphonies. The orchestra will also record Sophia Jani’s new work, Arlene Sierra’s Kiskadee and Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater.

Pops Series

Principal Pops Conductor Jeff Tyzik will lead the DSO in three concerts within the Pops Series Presented by Capital One.

September 20-22, 2024: Twist and Shout: The Music of The Beatles
February 21-23, 2025: Let's Groove Tonight: Motown & the Philly Sound
May 9-11, 2025: A Night of Latin Music,featuring an all-star lineup of artists including Grammy Award-winning Argentine bandoneón player Héctor Del Curto, singer/songwriter/guitarist Edna Vázquez and Argentine master dancers Celina Rotundo and Hugo Patyn.

November 8-10, 2024: Chart-topping piano artist Lara Downes joins the DSO to perform A Lovesome Thing: Billy Strayhorn Suite, a work co-commissioned by the DSO and premiered by her in 2022 with the Boston Pops.

Movies-in-concert

August 29-September 1, 2024: Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire
December 20-22, 2024: Holiday classic Elf
April 25-27, 2025: The Princess Bride

Supported, in part, by funds from the Office of Arts & Culture, City of Dallas, Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents more than 150 orchestra concerts annually at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, and also offers more than 200 concerts in neighborhoods throughout Dallas.

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Theater News

Dallas' Kitchen Dog Theater unveils powerful 2026-2027 season lineup

Photo by Cameron Cobb

Kitchen Dog Theater in Dallas will put on three mainstage productions for their 2026-2027 season.

Kitchen Dog Theater in Dallas has revealed the lineup for the 2026-2027 season, featuring a slate of plays that boasts power players like kings, prime ministers, space force commanders, and would-be presidents.

According to a release, the theater company's 36th season — their "most powerful yet" — will consist of three mainstage productions at its new permanent home in the Design District, as well as the annual New Works Festival, featuring a readings series and the 26th annual D-PAC PUP (Playwrights Under Progress) Fest.

The season will start with The Absentee by Julia Doolittle, running September 10-October 4, 2026. The play was the winner of the 2019-2020 Woodward/Newman Drama Award.

Far out in the Milky Way, “Beacons” serve as lighthouses for warping spaceships around the galaxy. When a U.S. Space Force ship explodes in the galaxy, the Operator finds herself alone in deep space, with only her ship’s AI for companionship. That is, until a persistent canvasser calls, desperate to convince her to vote absentee in the 2088 election.

As the Operator waits for the clean up to be over, she finds she has to come to terms with her isolation, grief, and her political voice.

The season's second production comes four months later, with Equivocation by Bill Cain, running February 4-28, 2027. In 1605 England, a terrorist plots to assassinate King James I and blow Parliament to kingdom come. Shagspeare (after a contemporary spelling of the Bard's name) is commissioned by the prime minister, to write the “true historie” of the plot. And it must have witches — the king wants witches.

But as Shag and the acting company of the Globe investigate the plot, they discover that the king's version of the story might, in fact, be a coverup. Shag and his actors are confronted with the ultimate moral and artistic dilemma. Speak truth to power and perhaps lose their heads? Or take the money and lie? Is there a third option? Equivocation?

A high-stakes political thriller with contemporary resonances, Equivocation gallops from the great Globe to the Tower of London to the halls of Parliament to the heart of Judith, Shag's younger daughter, who finds herself unexpectedly at the very heart of the political, dramatic and — ultimately — human mystery.

The final mainstage production of the season comes at the 2027 New Works Festival with Black Republican by KDT Artistic Company Member Jamal Gibran Sterling, running June 3-27, 2027.

Originally featured as a Staged Reading in the 2026 New Works Festival, the ambitious first play by Sterling centers on a Black Republican candidate on the national stage who finds his campaign threatened by an activist who challenges everything he claims to stand for. Their battle exposes uncomfortable truths about race, politics, and the stories we tell ourselves.

In addition to Black Republican, the 2027 New Works Festival will showcase four staged readings of some of the newest and most exciting Texas-based playwrights. Each reading will feature accomplished Dallas-Fort Worth actors and directors to highlight the breadth of talent in the area.

The final part of the festival is D-PAC PUP (Playwrights Under Progress) Fest, featuring six staged readings of jury-selected plays written by Dallas-Fort Worth high school students and featuring student actors directed by area professionals. PUP Fest is the culmination of Dallas Playwriting Arts Collective (D-PAC), a partnership with Dallas ISD and Junior Players.

Kitchen Dog Theater offers two season subscription packages for their inaugural season in their new facility. The Kitchen Dog package includes a ticket to all three mainstage productions for any performance date for $90+ $8 fees for adults and $75 +$8 fees for students and seniors (ages 65+). The Saver Dog package includes a ticket to all three mainstage productions for Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays only. It is $60 + $8 fees for adults and $45 + $8 fees for students and seniors.

Both packages grant full access to the Staged Reading Series and PUP Fest. Subscribers also receive premium reserved seating for in-person performances, as well as subscriber-only discounts on additional single tickets, 2026 special events, and KDT merchandise.

Subscription packages are on sale now, and single tickets for each show will go on sale on Monday, August 24, at kitchendogtheater.org.

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