Rutgers Symphony's 2026/27 Season Opens On September 20th

Rutgers Symphony's 2026/27 Season Opens On September 20th

Season celebrates Beethoven, John Adams

Published by New Jersey Stage
originally published: 09/15/2026

Photo by Lynne DeLade/Rutgers University

(NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ) -- The Rutgers Symphony Orchestra's season opens on Sunday, September 20, 2026, with a concert at Nicholas Music Center featuring Viet Cuong's Ladders, commissioned by Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. Also: a performance of Aaron Copland's Clarinet Concerto, featuring Maureen Hurd Hause, associate director of the Music Department. Showtime is 5:00pm.

Tickets are $15 for the general public and are available for purchase online. Tickets are $10 for Rutgers Alumni, Rutgers employees, and seniors 62+. Student tickets are available for $5 as well. Nicholas Music Center is located at 85 George Street in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

The season continues at Nicholas Music Center on Saturday, October 24, 2026 at 7:30pm with Robert Schumann's Rhenish Symphony, a piece that conjures the Rhine River and the surrounding region. Drawing inspiration from Beethoven's Third and Sixth symphonies, as well as Felix Mendelssohn, the work exemplifies Schumann's lyrical style. The program opens with Campos Flotantes by Angélica Negrón, whose music was featured in the reopening of David Geffen Hall with the New York Philharmonic. Violin faculty member Christina Bouey performs Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Violin Concerto, marking her first appearance with the orchestra. Get tickets online.

The RSO returns in the spring semester with two concerts at Nicholas Music Center. The ensemble will also serve as the live accompaniment for an Opera Theater Rutgers production at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center (NBPAC).

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On Saturday, February 27, 2027 at 7:30pm, the RSO unites with Rutgers Kirkpatrick Choir, Rutgers Voorhees Choir, and Rutgers University Glee Club at Nicholas Music Center for a performance of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. The program opens with John Adams's Short Ride in a Fast Machine in celebration of the composer's 80th birthday, and features Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4, performed by graduate student Guannan Liu as part of a commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Beethoven's death. Get tickets online.

The ensemble continues to commemorate Beethoven on Friday, March 12, 2027 at 7:30pm with a performance of his Symphony No. 7. The program also features Dvořák's Violin Concerto, performed by Rutgers Concerto Competition-winner Hyeonah Hong, and Richard Strauss's tone poem Death and Transfiguration, presented in recognition of Beethoven's influence on Strauss. Get tickets online.

The RSO winds up their 2026/27 season at NBPAC with Opera Theater Rutgers' production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, April 9–12, 2027. Performances are at 7:30pm on April 9, 10, and 12, and at 2:00pm on April 11. Set in Imperial Russia, the opera explores the tension between personal desire and societal expectation. The story encompasses a rejected love letter, a tragic duel between friends, and a final confrontation marked by profound regret. Rich in emotional depth and memorable music, Eugene Onegin invites reflection on the consequences of choices made too late. Get tickets online.

Nicholas Music Center is part of the Mason Gross Performing Arts Center at 85 George Street (near Route 18) on the Douglass Campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The New Brunswick Performing Arts Center (NBPAC) is at 11 Livingston Avenue in downtown New Brunswick.

Tickets for all RSO concerts are $15 plus taxes and fees for the general public; $10 plus taxes and fees for Rutgers employees/alumni and seniors 62+; $5 plus taxes and fees for students and children 5+. Opera tickets are $25 plus taxes and fees for the general public; $20 plus taxes and fees for Rutgers employees/alumni and seniors 62+; $15 plus taxes and fees for students and children 5+. Restrictions apply. Tickets are also available in person during box office hours and before the show. Plan your visit, get details on purchasing tickets in person, and register for your free parking here.

Explore additional events in music, art, film, and dance at masongross.rutgers.edu/events. Or sign up for the school's bi-weekly newsletter detailing upcoming events at go.rutgers.edu/mgsanews.

All Mason Gross Performing Arts Center & Galleries events offer discounts to the Rutgers community and to seniors 62+. Mason Gross offers more than 60 free events annually.

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The Rutgers Symphony Orchestra (RSO) is the flagship ensemble of the Mason Gross School's instrumental program. Presenting an annual concert series of symphonic programs and a main-stage opera, RSO aims to prepare students for professional careers as orchestral musicians with a keen awareness of entrepreneurship and community engagement. Besides tackling the major symphonic repertoire, RSO is also committed to promoting non-traditional orchestral music and playing works by cutting-edge composers, such as Amy Beach, Gabriela Lena Frank, Joan Tower, and Chen Yi. Each season, RSO hosts student composition readings/recordings and an annual concerto competition, which awards winners with a solo performance the following season. RSO has performed at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Symphony Space, and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center with many of the world's leading conductors, including maestros James Judd, Andrea Quinn, and Rossen Milanov; soloists Lara St. John, Philippe Quint, Barbara Dever, Thomas Studebaker, Nancy Gustafson, Susan Starr, Ruth Laredo, Alexander Ivashkin, and Paquito D'Rivera, and pop artists Ray Charles and Jay-Z.

Mason Gross School of the Arts is a vibrant community of artists and scholars committed to pursuing excellence, innovation, and inclusivity. Its mission is to create socially relevant art, foster diverse programming and curricula, cultivate community partnerships, and advance the arts through teaching, creative activity, advocacy, and research that contributes to the public good. Comprising more than 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students across programs in music, theater, dance, filmmaking, art, and design, Mason Gross is housed within Rutgers–New Brunswick, a premier Big Ten research university that serves some 50,000 students and is the flagship campus of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.