From the Stage Door: A Season of New Beginnings

RYAN FLEUR
President and CEO

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

There is nothing more bittersweet than taking your child back to college. As a parent, you are excited by everything ahead of them: the people they will meet, the discoveries they will make, and the ways they will grow. At the same time, it’s hard not to wonder about the challenges they will face and the inevitable tough life lessons they’ll cross. And so, in August, smiling for her benefit and keeping the rest to ourselves, my wife and I joyfully took a road trip with our youngest and relished in the seasonal transition and new beginnings of the months ahead.

New beginnings were happening back home, too, when audiences gathered for our All Mozart and All Beethoven concerts. These performances were built for audiences who might not regularly experience us but certainly know the iconic opening of his Fifth Symphony or Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro Overture through commercials, television, and film scores. The weekend was filled to capacity and was an introduction to some, and a chance to hear familiar music with fresh ears to others. Congratulations to Naomi Woo, who closed her two-year tenure as our assistant conductor leading both programs.

At the Beethoven matinee, we tried something new. Before the concert, we asked the audience how they were feeling and watched the answers build into a word cloud in Commonwealth Plaza. “Excited” came up most, alongside “Anxious” and “apprehensive”—and, true to Philly, “LeBron” and “King James.” We asked again after the last note. “Exhilarated,” “Inspired,” “Chills,” “Renewed,” and “Thankful.” It takes a legend of another kind to make a room in Philadelphia stop thinking about LeBron.

The Orchestra continued its annual summer journey in upstate New York at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC), where we celebrated 60 years of partnership. The venue was built for our Fabulous Philadelphians and the New York City Ballet, with former Music Director Eugene Ormandy shaping its acoustics and design. Yannick Nézet-Séguin led Beethoven’s Ninth, the same work the Orchestra performed on its first Saratoga concert in 1966.

A few moments from the annual residency really stood out for me, starting with Beethoven’s Ninth, which was truly extraordinary. The night with Brian Stokes Mitchell narrating Copland’s Lincoln Portrait with Principal Guest Conductor Marin Alsop was another—a little more than 50 years to the day after Marian Anderson narrated the same piece at SPAC with the Orchestra and Copland himself conducting. And listening to Gershwin’s An American in Paris, I sat in SPAC’s amphitheater with my family, old friends, and colleagues, and observed how completely the audience was drawn into the experience. If it had been available, my personal word cloud for the residency would have read “awed,” “energized,” and “grateful.”

Back in Philly, we’re gearing up for a new season. At ALOK’s Eat Pray Leave Tour, phones were tucked away, the audience was listening, and the room was fully present. There was a simple humanity to the scene—hundreds of strangers giving their minds permission to unwind and connect, all of it held together by one performance.

Every August brings an end to a season, and I’ve always appreciated that it comes coupled with a new era around the corner. Whether you spent the month getting kids ready for school, learning a new skill, or refining your craft, I invite you to turn the corner with us into our 2026–27 season. We can’t wait to see you.

Sincerely,
Ryan

FUN FACT: Two hundred years on, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which we will feature on The Philadelphia Orchestra’s Opening Night on September 24, is still the piece humanity reaches for to feel united. It has opened the Olympic Games and brings nations together in song. Its melody is the official anthem of the European Union. Protestors played recordings of it in Tiananmen Square in 1989, and students claimed it again that same year as the Berlin Wall came down. It returned in the weeks after 9/11, enlisted once more for its hopeful message.