The Cleveland Orchestra has rolled out its 2026–27 lineup as an extended farewell tour for Franz Welser‑Möst, who will wrap up a 25-year run as music director in June 2027. The season strings together big choral and orchestral blockbusters, an ambitious European tour, and a new Strauss opera production into one long, carefully staged goodbye. For Cleveland audiences, it amounts to a season full of last chances to catch Welser‑Möst at Severance and on the road with the orchestra.
According to Cleveland.com, the season opens Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026, at Severance Music Center with Welser‑Möst on the podium for Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 8. The programming lineup also features Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, Holst’s The Planets, and a special Eric Whitacre program celebrating the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus’s 75th anniversary. It is not exactly a low-key way to start saying goodbye.
Guest conductors, soloists, and premieres
Season materials and calendar listings on The Cleveland Orchestra site spotlight a broad mix of guest conductors and soloists, combining long-established maestros with emerging names and keeping the bench deep for Welser‑Möst’s final run. The schedule flags several contemporary commissions and premieres that the music director has consistently pushed for, keeping those new-music partnerships front and center in Severance programming even as the organization looks back on his tenure.
Opera, touring dates and a vinyl retrospective
As reported by Cleveland.com, Welser‑Möst will lead a new production of Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, staged by Frederic Wake‑Walker. The Cleveland Orchestra is also lining up a 2026 European tour of 15 concerts at 13 venues, with first-time stops in Ljubljana, Thessaloniki, and Athens, plus a return to Carnegie Hall on Jan. 19–20, 2027. To top it off, the organization plans to release an expansive vinyl box set surveying Welser‑Möst’s years on the podium. Guest soloists named for the season include Augustin Hadelich, Golda Schultz, Beatrice Rana, Alexandre Kantorow, Conrad Tao, and Yunchan Lim.
What this means for Cleveland
Welser‑Möst’s departure will close what AP News describes as a defining chapter for the orchestra, one marked by expanded international touring, new recordings, and major opera projects. Orchestra leaders say the 2026–27 season is deliberately crafted as both tribute and transition, giving local listeners multiple chances to hear the ensemble with its longtime music director before a successor steps in. Ticketing and subscription details will roll out through the orchestra’s regular channels as they are announced.
