Cleveland Orchestra

Mondays at 10:00 pm

Richly adorned concert hall with full orchestra and audience

The Cleveland Orchestra onstage at Severance Hall (Photo: Cleveland Orchestra / Roger Mastroianni)

A new series of concerts from one of the world's cherished orchestras

One of the most respected American ensembles, the Cleveland Orchestra shares an exciting slate of concerts from its home at Severance Hall. Featuring music director Franz Welser-Möst and a cast of soloists including Joélle Harvey, Alisa Weilerstein, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Daniil Trifonov, don't miss this 13-week series as Cleveland Orchestra makes its debut in the WFMT Orchestra Series.

Latest Episodes
Upcoming Episodes

Sibelius’s Second Symphony

April 7, 2025

Season Finale: With its rich, sweeping melodies and dynamic brass chorales, Sibelius’s Second Symphony vividly evokes the beauty of his native Finland. Icy Nordic landscapes are also heard in Rautavaara’s Cantus Arcticus, a haunting “concerto for birds and orchestra” that weaves recordings of birdsong into the orchestral tapestry. Julia Perry’s setting of the 13th-century Stabat Mater hymn adds a powerful ...

The Miraculous Mandarin

March 31, 2025

Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin tells of a girl forced to lure a wealthy mandarin to his tragic fate. Its theme of the tragic, dark passions between men and women is equally as gripping and powerful – and controversial – as when it first premiered. It’s paired with a striking arrangement for string orchestra of Bartók’s String Quartet No. 3, by ...

Mahler’s Fourth Symphony

March 24, 2025

Mahler’s Fourth Symphony paints an uplifting picture of the afterlife, a child’s vision of heaven as a place filled with earthly delights and tuneful melodies. Here it is paired with Ces belles années… (These Good Years), a new work by esteemed French-American composer Betsy Jolas, which reveals hidden allusions to the classic “Happy Birthday” tune within its sparkling and wondrous ...

Hannigan Conducts Strauss

March 17, 2025

Embodying music with an unparalleled dramatic sensibility, soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan is an artist at the forefront of creation. Her much-anticipated Severance conducting debut features a fascinating juxtaposition of works by Haydn, Ligeti – marking the centenary of the composer’s birth – and Vivier. The program concludes with Richard Strauss’s exploration of the most universal of questions: what lies ...

Mahler’s Song of the Night

March 10, 2025

Simon Keenlyside is one of the world’s most sought-after and charismatic singers, noted for his versatility and highly charged performances on stage. He joins music director Franz Welser-Möst for an evening of Mahler, featuring the moody, enigmatic Seventh Symphony, sometimes called Song of the Night.

Tchaikovsky’s Second Symphony

March 3, 2025

Plus the world premiere of a percussion concerto commissioned for Christoph Sietzen, “a refreshingly natural musician notable for his technical mastery and powerful stage presence.”

Trifonov Plays Brahms

February 24, 2025

Trifonov's not-to-be-missed performance of Brahms’s well-loved concerto is paired with a late symphony by Prokofiev, filled with powerful atmospheric writing and dark, thrilling melodic lines.

Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony

February 17, 2025

In 1937 at the height of the Stalinist purges, Shostakovich was in disgrace – an outcast who feared for his life. (He slept in the stairwell outside his apartment so that his family might be spared if he were arrested.) In these darkest moments, he somehow found the courage to write his Fifth Symphony, publishing it with the ironic subtitle ...

Weilerstein Plays Barber

February 10, 2025

Cleveland-born cellist Alisa Weilerstein joins music director Franz Welser-Möst to perform Barber’s “lyric and romantic” Cello Concerto, a piece praised for its “Brahms-like grandeur.” Written while Barber was serving in the U.S. military during World War II, the concerto is bookended by the world premiere of Allison Loggins-Hull’s Can You See? and Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4 (revised 1947 version), a ...

Marsalis and the New World

February 3, 2025

Dvořák traveled to America in the 1890s, and this wild, new country thrilled him. He admired the beauty of African American spirituals and was fascinated by Native American traditions. When describing his “New World” symphony, he said, “I tried to write only in the spirit of those national American melodies,” but his Ninth is clearly an expression of both the ...