The San Diego Symphony is packing up more than 90 musicians and support staff for its first-ever European concert tour, a nine-day run from April 28 to May 6, 2027, that will carry the orchestra to five cities across four countries. It is the only California orchestra — and the only West Coast orchestra — taking part in the national America250 semiquincentennial concert series, placing it alongside institutions like the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
The tour, first reported by the San Diego Union-Tribune, will send the orchestra to Barcelona, Dublin, Hamburg, Paris and Toulouse, with stops in Spain, Ireland, Germany and France. Venues include the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie — which opened in 2017 — La Seine Musicale in Paris, and La Halle aux Grains in Toulouse. Every instrument except the pianos is being transported from San Diego for the run, according to the Union-Tribune's reporting by George Varga.
San Diego Symphony CEO and president Martha Gilmer called the tour a milestone in the orchestra's development, per the same account, and Music and Artistic Director Rafael Payare said he is proud to bring the orchestra to European concert halls and hopes the trip marks the start of a long international career for the ensemble. Payare added that the shared travel and performances abroad will strengthen bonds among orchestra members, the Union-Tribune reports.
A Seven-Figure Budget, Fully Underwritten by Donors
The tour carries a seven-figure budget, underwritten entirely by San Diego Symphony donors rather than ticket revenue or public funds, according to the Union-Tribune's reporting. Named supporters include tour title sponsors Gary and Jean Shekhter — Gary Shekhter is the founder of Helix Electric — along with Una Davis, Hayley Janecek, Laurie Sefton Henson, Ross Caleca, Jaqueline and Jean-Luc Robert, and Dorothea Laub. Gary and Jean Shekhter said the tour will let the orchestra be heard by audiences across Europe, the paper reports.
The financial backing behind this trip stands in sharp contrast to the orchestra's history. The San Diego Symphony filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation in May 1996 and halted operations for two years before reorganizing and resuming concerts in July 1998, according to the Los Angeles Times. A $2 million gift helped restart performances that year. The turnaround accelerated in January 2002, when Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs and his wife Joan pledged $120 million to the symphony's endowment — then just $1 million — in what The Washington Post reported at the time was the largest single donor gift to an American orchestra.
Program Pairs Shostakovich With a Kavakos Reunion
The touring program leans on large-scale Romantic and 20th-century repertoire, including Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1, Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, Stravinsky's The Firebird, Bartók's The Miraculous Mandarin Suite and Gabriela Ortiz's Kauyumari. Internationally acclaimed Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos, who was featured soloist at two February concerts in the symphony's four-part Brahms festival, will join the orchestra for the Firebird suite in Paris, Toulouse, Hamburg and Dublin. Pianist Javier Perianes, who has previously guested with the symphony at Jacobs Music Center and the Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, will perform as guest soloist at the opening Barcelona concert, playing Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor.
The orchestra has also built a recorded calling card ahead of the trip. It recorded Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 during two spring 2025 concerts at Jacobs Music Center, and the label Delos released that recording in Brussels on June 25, 2026. A more than 75-minute-long CD version follows on September 11, 2026, with Apple Music Classical streaming the recording exclusively.
Building on a 116-Year History and Recent Venue Overhauls
The San Diego Symphony has a 116-year history and has performed at Carnegie Hall twice. Its last major international trip was a 2013 China Friendship Tour that included stops in Shanghai, Beijing and San Diego's sister city Yantai following a Carnegie Hall debut, led at the time by former music director Jahja Ling, according to the orchestra's own historical account. This new tour follows two major capital projects that reshaped the institution's home turf: the $85 million open-air Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, which opened on San Diego Bay in August 2021 with 99 percent of its construction costs funded through private philanthropy, and the $125 million acoustic overhaul of the indoor Jacobs Music Center, which reopened in September 2024 with 1,831 seats and a new choral terrace inside the reconfigured 1929 former Fox Theatre, as detailed by the Los Angeles Times.
The orchestra now employs 82 full-time musicians, performs more than 120 concerts annually for over 250,000 attendees, and serves as the resident orchestra for the San Diego Opera, according to the San Diego Tourism Authority. Payare's own tenure has been extended through the 2028–29 season, giving him ten total years at the podium since he first took over as music director in January 2019, as Hoodline previously reported. He also serves concurrently as Music Director of Canada's Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, a post he has held since the 2022–23 season and where his contract was extended in April 2026 through 2031–32.
The tour is being framed within the nationwide America250 initiative marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence through 2026 and 2027, which includes concerts at Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie and features orchestras including the Cleveland Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Kansas City Symphony. Back home, the symphony's Jacobs Masterworks season continues to draw top international names to its own stage, including a November 2026 appearance by pianist Daniil Trifonov performing Brahms's First Piano Concerto alongside Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony, according to 21C Media Group.
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