Grammy winners Jason Mraz and Isabel Leonard will share a San Diego stage together for the first time when they perform with conductor Rafael Payare and the San Diego Symphony at the orchestra's 2026 gala fundraising concert, billed as AMPLIFY, on November 21 at Jacobs Music Center.
The pairing marks a notable crossover moment for the symphony, blending Mraz's pop songwriting with Leonard's opera pedigree, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. Mraz, a longtime North County resident known for hits including “I'm Yours,” “I Won't Give Up,” “The Remedy (I Won't Worry)” and his duet with Colbie Caillat, “Lucky,” has collaborated with the symphony before. His gala appearance follows a seven-country concert tour of Asia that wraps up in Seoul on November 14, and comes after he released the album “Grandma's Gospel Favorites” in May.
Leonard, a mezzo-soprano who has won three Grammy Awards, previously performed in the symphony's season-opening staging of Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortilèges and gave a recital with guitarist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas presented by San Diego Opera in 2022. Mraz has won two Grammy Awards of his own. Their joint appearance at AMPLIFY represents the first time the two artists will share a San Diego stage.
A Gala Built Around a Longtime Donor
This year's concert will honor philanthropist Raffaella Belanich, described as a longtime supporter and advocate of the San Diego Symphony. Belanich helped make possible the $85 million Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, according to the Union-Tribune, and also played a key role in the $163 million reimagining of the historic Jacobs Music Center — a figure that differs from the $125 million renovation cost cited by San Diego Magazine when the hall reopened in September 2024. That earlier project reduced seating from 2,248 to 1,831 angled seats and added a choral terrace behind the main stage, changes designed by HGA architects and acoustician Paul Scarbrough to sharpen the room's sound.
The venue itself carries nearly a century of San Diego history. It opened in November 1929 as the Fox Theatre, became the permanent home of the San Diego Symphony in 1984, and was renamed Copley Symphony Hall at Jacobs Music Center in 2013, per its Wikipedia entry. The Rady Shell, the orchestra's outdoor waterfront venue, was completed in 2021 as an $85 million project with 99% of its construction cost raised through private philanthropic gifts, according to the Coronado Times.
Cocktails, a Concert and a Three-Course Dinner
The AMPLIFY evening follows a set schedule: a 5 p.m. cocktail reception curated by Chef Richard Blais, a 6:30 p.m. concert inside the Miller Theater at Jacobs Music Center, and a three-course dinner by chef Tracy Borkum in the Symphony Towers B Street lobby, according to a San Diego Symphony press release. Tickets to the gala are on sale now. The venue operates as a cash-free space for all concession and service transactions, and formal black-tie or evening wear is recommended for attendees.
Symphony President and CEO Martha Gilmer said AMPLIFY is about bringing people together to experience the energy and joy of live performance, per the Union-Tribune's reporting. Gilmer, who has led the symphony since 2014, was named Musical America's 2026 Impresario of the Year in December — a national classical music honor last given out in 2007, as Times of San Diego reported at the time.
Proceeds Fund Education and Community Programs
Gala proceeds will support the symphony's artistic initiatives as well as its education and community engagement programs, which reach audiences across San Diego County and several locations in Baja California. The symphony's 2022 opening night gala, which also featured a menu curated by Blais, raised $600,000 for similar programming, according to Ranch & Coast Magazine.
Payare, the Venezuelan-born conductor who took the San Diego podium in January 2019, had his contract with the symphony extended through the 2028-29 season last November, according to Moto Perpetuo. In April, Canada's Orchestre symphonique de Montréal separately extended his contract there through the 2031-32 season, meaning Payare continues to split his conducting duties between the two orchestras.
Mraz's ties to the symphony date back at least to August 2023, when he closed out a national tour with a free finale concert at The Rady Shell that drew a capacity crowd of 6,000. That show wrapped his Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride tour, setting the stage for a partnership the symphony is now building on with November's gala.
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