Madison’s classical scene embraces the new yet upholds tradition

‘Abstract, but beautiful’

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As we head into cooler days, Madison’s downtown classical music groups will keep the stage warm with world premieres, a celebration of Earth, dueling violins, and a true crime ghost story as they prepare their 2025-2026 seasons.

MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

The upcoming season for the Madison Symphony Orchestra is bittersweet. It celebrates its 100th anniversary, but it’s also the final season for John DeMain, the MSO’s music director since 1994.

DeMain says he will continue his conducting career and, if asked, will conduct a concert here and there as a guest conductor or conductor emeritus.

The MSO’s centennial celebrations begin in Overture Hall on Sept. 19 with an all-Tchaikovsky program starring pianist Olga Kern. They continue on Sept. 20 with Cirque de la Symphonie, a mix of circus arts and film music.

The opening concert of the MSO’s 2025-2026 subscription season happens on Oct. 17-19 in Overture Hall. The concert stars UW-Madison piano professor Christopher Taylor, soprano Jeni Houser, mezzo-soprano Emily Fons, and the Madison Symphony Chorus. On the program is Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 and Mason Bates’s Resurrexit, which DeMain describes as “abstract, but beautiful.” César Franck’s Symphonic Variations features Taylor’s piano artistry.

Several guest artists return. Alban Gerhardt plays Haydn’s Cello Concerto in D Major on November 21-23. Yefim Bronfman plays Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 on Jan. 23-25, 2026, and Rachel Barton Pine returns on Feb. 20-22 with Korngold’s Violin Concerto in D Major. On March 20-22, Emanuel Ax plays Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25, a charming piece that shows off Ax’s clean, delicate touch.

Spanish rhythms take center stage on April 10-12 with the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet.

The season features many 21st-century compositions, including a newly commissioned work by Jake Heggie. EARTH: A Choral Symphony, gets its world premiere in the final concert of the season on May 1-3.

In a 2012 interview with Isthmus Heggie said that DeMain understands his work innately because they both have backgrounds in American musical theater. DeMain, he added, is “one of the top conductors in the world.”

EARTH features the Madison Symphony Chorus, Mt. Zion Gospel Choir, and the Madison Youth Choirs. “We wanted to write something for our arts partners in Madison who we have worked with,” says DeMain. It also stars Met Opera soprano Ailyn Pérez. DeMain says Gene Scheer’s libretto “recounts the evolutionary process of our extraordinary planet.”

“I didn’t want Jake to write a piece that was centennial and Madison-specific because then it would be played one time and never played again,” says DeMain. “I wanted Jake to write a piece that had legs and that other orchestras may want to perform in the future.”

DeMain will conduct his final concert as the MSO’s music director during a weekend of free centennial events at the Overture Center on June 13-14. “There will be rock groups, world music groups, and jazz as well as chamber music,” he says. 

MSO’S OVERTURE CONCERT ORGAN

Greg Zelek, the MSO’s principal organist, has built a sizable and avid audience for the Overture concert organ. “I want to introduce different audiences to the organ, new people who would otherwise not come,” he says.

This season highlights the organ’s versatility: ideal for classical and sacred music, but also for jazz and folk songs.

The organ series has four concerts that run Oct. 2 to March 31, 2026. All performances are in Overture Hall.

The first concert features Zelek and the UW-Madison Concert Choir under the direction of Mariana Farah. The repertoire ranges from sacred music to Brazilian folk songs. Instrumentalists from the School of Music will also make an appearance in Eriks Esenvalds’ Trinity Te Deum.

On Nov. 18, Zelek and trumpeter Caleb Hudson, Zelek’s former colleague at the Juilliard School, play a mix of Bach and jazz. Also included are Bartok’s Romanian Folk Dances, exotic little tunes that look deceptively easy to play.

Organist Felix Hell returns on Feb. 24, 2026, with his own arrangement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Zelek says the audience will hear the Fifth in a new and exciting way.

The final concert on March 31 features Zelek and nine of his MSO colleagues in celebration of the centennial. Works of Handel, Mozart, Bach and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor bring another organ season to a rousing finale.

WISCONSIN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra continues its exploration into the innovative works of composers of color in a concert titled Endeavor on Oct. 10 in the Overture Center’s Capitol Theater. This is the third installment of its Musical Landscapes in Color project. 

“We have a multi-generational approach to this year’s lineup,” says music director Andrew Sewell. “Autumn Maria Reed and Xavier Foley represent the younger composers, while older composers include Regina Harris Baiocchi, Eric Gould, and Omar Thomas, who are in mid-career.” This concert will be recorded live for a 2026 album release.

The WCO’s Masterworks series consists of five concerts, all in the Capitol Theater.

Masterworks I on Nov. 14 features Finnish composer Rautavaara’s Suite for Strings from 1952. The Suite’s layered textures are reminiscent of Bach, but its wispy veils of sound place it in modern times. Then Vladyslava Luchenko plays Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor.

Masterworks II on Jan. 30, 2026, features Ilya Yakushev in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Yakushev’s style is fresh and energetic, just right for the concerto’s fast pace and unpredictable twists and turns.

Masterwork III on Feb. 27 features the world premiere of Dan Cavanagh’s Concerto for Jazz Trio. Cavanagh is the director of the Mead Witter School of Music at the UW-Madison.

Concluding this concert, the WCO presents Regeneration: A Pentalogy, a symphony by local composer Michael Bell. Kanopy Dance joins the WCO in the company’s world premiere of Renascence, choreographed to Bell’s music. This will be the first time Renascence is performed in its entirety with an orchestra.

Masterworks IV and V are vastly different. For IV, violinists Eric Silberger and Gilles Apap return on March 27 as dueling violinists. Masterworks V on April 17 features pianist Salome Jordania. Sewell says Jordania is a Georgian pianist based in both the U.S. and London making her Madison debut playing Saint Saens’ Piano Concerto No. 2.

MADISON OPERA

La Bohème opens the Madison Opera’s season on Nov. 7 and 9 in Overture Hall. “At its core, La Bohème is about a group of young people dealing with the realities of friendship, love, financial hardship, illness, and ultimately death,” says Kathryn Smith, general director of the Madison Opera. “In real life, everyone deals with at least some of these issues, and Puccini set it all beautifully to music.”

After its world premiere in Turin in 1896, La Bohème premiered in the United Kingdom in 1897, the same year that a murder happened across the Atlantic in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Trout Shue killed his wife. But the doctor classified her death as an “everlasting faint,” a 19th century phrase used when a woman’s cause of death is unknown. Her ghost returns to tell her mother that Trout killed her.

This true crime story is the subject of the next opera, Everlasting Faint, on Feb. 13 and 15 in the Overture Center’s Capitol Theater. Madison-based composer Scott Gendel and librettist Sandra Flores-Strand weave together an intriguing contemporary opera about a mother’s efforts to find justice for her daughter.

After Puccini’s gritty realism and Gendel’s ghost story, the season ends in Overture Hall on April 24 and 26 with Mozart’s well loved romantic comedy, Cosỉ fan tutte.

Welcome to the salon

The seasons for the MSO, WCO and the Madison Opera take place in large venues that seat hundreds, even thousands. Farley’s House of Pianos in Madison is a go-to for the Salon Piano Series of intimate piano concerts. This season’s six concerts feature international artists, award winners, and returning favorites. Opening the series on Oct. 4 is Polish pianist Tomasz Lis with works by Brahms and Chopin and the Baroque masters Bach and Scarlatti. On April 18, 2026, American pianist Angie Zhang plays the contemporary music of Philip Glass and Caroline Shaw. The final concerts on May 9-10 features Grammy Award-winning jazz pianist Bill Charlap known for his wide-ranging styles from stride piano to bebop to modern jazz.

The pianists also hold masterclasses that the public is invited to observe for free.