The Cleveland Orchestra announced its 2026 summer season on March 13, comprising the Blossom Music Festival at Cuyahoga Valley National Park and the Summers at Severance series. The programs mark music director Franz Welser-Möst’s 25th and final season leading the ensemble; the Austrian conductor will lead one concert at each venue before departing the podium after a quarter century.
The Blossom season opens July 3 with “America at 250,” a semiquincentennial tribute featuring conductor Edwin Outwater and tenor Limmie Pulliam in works by Gershwin, Copland, and Bernstein, followed by a fireworks display. On July 11 and 12, John Williams’s score for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets will be performed live while the film plays on the outdoor screen. Broadway and film star Idina Menzel — known for Wicked, Frozen, and Rent — returns to Blossom on July 26 for a career-spanning evening as part of the Blossom Summer Soirée, following last year’s appearance by Cynthia Erivo.
Semyon Bychkov, music director of the Czech Philharmonic and incoming conductor at the Paris Opera, will lead programs at both Severance and Blossom in mid-July featuring Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, Dvořák, and Brahms. In August, “The Voices That Changed Music” will feature vocalists performing arrangements of hits by Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Whitney Houston, and Elvis Presley. Welser-Möst closes his final Blossom summer on Aug. 29 with a program titled “Summer in Vienna.” Concert tickets are available at clevelandorchestra.com.
Source: WKYC