Philharmonia Orchestra Unveils 2026-27 London Season

The Philharmonia Orchestra has announced its 2026-27 London season, and it opens its vocal programming with a single, resonant fact: Marin Alsop will conduct Beethoven's "Symphony No. 9" on April 22, 2027, as part of her Global Ode to Joy project.

The date anchors a season that pairs a reimagined Ninth with a full-scale "Carmina Burana" in June. Two concerts. Two conductors with international profiles. One orchestra testing how far the choral symphony can stretch in the 21st century.

What does Alsop's 'Ode to Joy' change?

Alsop's Global Ode to Joy project does not simply perform Beethoven's Ninth. It reimagines it. According to the orchestra's announcement, the project replaces the eponymous verse with a poetically reimagined version of the libretto, written for the 21st century, and sets new choral music around Beethoven's score.

The program is not Beethoven alone. It also includes:

• Jennifer Higdon's "blue cathedral"
• A choral work by Rerena Esmail (credited in the announcement as Reena Esmail)

The performance takes place on April 22, 2027. Alsop, one of the most prominent conductors of her generation, has carried the Global Ode to Joy concept across multiple continents, and its London stop now sits at the front of the Philharmonia's vocal calendar.

What does this change for London audiences? It offers a Ninth that speaks in a new libretto rather than Schiller's original text — a version built for contemporary listeners rather than reconstructed from 1824.

Who conducts 'Carmina Burana' — and who sings?

The season's second major vocal event arrives on June 3, 2027. Principal Conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali leads Orff's "Carmina Burana" with a named soloist trio:

• Soprano Julie Roset
• Tenor Brett Sprague
• Baritone Germán Olvera

The program opens with Julia Wolfe's "Fountain of Youth" and, between the Wolfe and the Orff, places pianist Hayato Sumino in Gershwin's "Piano Concerto in F." It is a bill that moves from contemporary American composition to Weimar-era jazz concerto to the medieval-tinged cantata that closes it.

What does this change for the season?

The pairing tells a story about scale. Beethoven's Ninth and "Carmina Burana" are the two most commercially reliable choral blockbusters in the repertoire, and the Philharmonia has scheduled both within seven weeks of each other, on April 22 and June 3, 2027. That concentration suggests the orchestra is betting on large-chorus spectacle as a pillar of its London identity under Rouvali's principal conductorship.

Both programs also frame their headliners with living composers — Higdon, Esmail and Wolfe — which places new music alongside canonical scores rather than in separate contemporary series.

London audiences now have two fixed dates for the diary. If the reimagined "Ode to Joy" lands as Alsop intends, the April 22 performance could become the season's most talked-about event.