Pasadena Symphony Announces 25/26 Season with American Spirit Full of Stellar Classical Masterworks Plus Two Commissions and Premieres

Brett Mitchell
Music Director

Orion Weiss
Piano

One of the most sought-after soloists and chamber music collaborators today, Orion Weiss is a “brilliant pianist” (The New York Times) with “powerful technique and exceptional insight” (The Washington Post). He has dazzled audiences worldwide with his “head-spinning range of colors” (Chicago Tribune) and has performed with all of the major orchestras of North America, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic. 

In 2024 Weiss released Arc III, the final album in his Arc recital trilogy (First Hand Records). His live performance schedule includes engagements the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, led by Michael Tilson Thomas, the National Symphony; multiple performances in the United States, Canada and Asia with violinist Augustin Hadelich; and the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. Known for his affinity for chamber music, Weiss performs at venues and festivals around the United States with such artists as violinists Augustin Hadelich, William Hagen and James Ehnes; pianists Michael Brown and Shai Wosner; cellist Julie Albers; and the Ariel, Parker, and Pacifica Quartets. 

A native of Ohio, Weiss attended the Cleveland Institute of Music and made his Cleveland Orchestra debut performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in 1999. That same year, with less than 24 hours’ notice, Weiss stepped in to replace André Watts for a performance of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Weiss’s awards include the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year, Gilmore Young Artist Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant and more. His teachers include Paul Schenly, Jerome Lowenthal and Sergei Babayan. In 2004, he graduated from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Emanuel Ax. Learn more www.orionweiss.com. 

Tessa Lark
Violin

Increasingly in demand in the classical realm, violinist Tessa Lark was nominated for a Grammy in 2020 in the Best Classical Instrumental Solo category. She is also a highly acclaimed fiddler in the tradition of her native Kentucky, delighting audiences with programming that includes Appalachian and bluegrass music, and inspiring composers to write for her.   

Tessa is the newly minted Artistic Director of the Moab Music Festival, and is the Artistic Director of Musical Masterworks, a chamber music series in Old Lyme, Connecticut. Her 25-26 season features a new concerto written for her by Lisa Biewala, premiering with The Louisville Orchestra.  

Tessa has performed with orchestras, recital venues and festivals around the world including the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart Philharmonic and the Indianapolis, Knoxville and Seattle Symphonies; as well as being presented by Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and other prestigious venues and festivals.  

Tessa’s most recent album, The Stradgrass Sessions, released in spring 2023, features an all-star roster of collaborators and composers including Edgar Meyer, pianist Jon Batiste, mandolinist Sierra Hull and fiddler Michael Cleveland Tessa’s debut commercial recording was the Grammy-nominated Sky, a bluegrass-inspired violin concerto written for her by Michael Torke and performed with the Albany Symphony Orchestra.  Her discography also includes Fantasy on First Hand Records: Fantasias by Schubert, Telemann and Fritz Kreisler; Ravel’s Tzigane; and Lark’s own composition Appalachian Fantasy.   

Lark is a recipient of the Hunt Family Award, one of Lincoln Center’s prestigious Emerging Artist Awards, as well as a 2018 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and a 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant. She was Silver Medalist in the 9th Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis and winner of the 2012 Naumburg International Violin Competition. She is a graduate of New England Conservatory and completed her Artist Diploma at The Juilliard School, where she studied with Sylvia Rosenberg, Ida Kavafian, and Daniel Phillips. Her primary mentors include Cathy McGlasson, Kurt Sassmannshaus, Miriam Fried, and Lucy Chapman. She plays a ca. 1600 G.P. Maggini violin on loan from an anonymous donor through the Stradivari Society of Chicago. 

Michelle Cann
Piano

Lauded as “exquisite” by The Philadelphia Inquirer and “a pianist of sterling artistry” by Gramophone, GRAMMY Award winning pianist Michelle Cann is one of the most sought-after artists of her generation. Recent engagements include appearances with Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, and Orquestra Sinfônica Municipal de São Paulo. She is a recipient of the Sphinx Medal of Excellence and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, and she served as the inaugural Christel DeHaan Artistic Partner of the American Piano Awards. 

Highlights of Cann’s 2025-26 season include appearances with the Colorado Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, and Ireland’s National Symphony Orchestra. She also performs the world premiere of a new piano concerto by Valerie Coleman with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. Her recital appearances include Stanford Live, Music Toronto, Chamber Music Detroit, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Spivey Hall, and a recital tour in China.  

Recognized as a leading interpreter of the piano music of Florence Price, Cann performed the New York City premiere of Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement with The Dream Unfinished Orchestra in 2016. Her recording of the concerto with the New York Youth Symphony won a GRAMMY Award in 2023 for Best Orchestral Performance. She won a GRAMMY Award in 2025 for Beyond the Years: Unpublished Songs of Florence Price, recorded with soprano Karen Slack, which features 19 unpublished songs composed by Price. Her acclaimed debut solo album Revival, featuring music by Price and Margaret Bonds, was released in 2023.  

Cann holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and an Artist’s Diploma from Curtis Institute of Music. She joined the Curtis piano faculty in 2020 as the inaugural Eleanor Sokoloff Chair in Piano Studies, and she is on the piano faculty of the Manhattan School of Music. 

Juan Pablo Contreras
Composer

Juan Pablo Contreras is a three-time Latin GRAMMY®-nominated composer and conductor who masterfully weaves Western classical and Mexican folk music into an exhilarating soundscape. His music has been performed by 60 major orchestras across the United States, Mexico, Austria, Slovakia, Colombia, Spain, Argentina, and Venezuela, as well as in prestigious concert halls such as Walt Disney Concert Hall, Carnegie Hall, and Hollywood Bowl. He is renowned as the first Mexican-born composer to sign a record deal with Universal Music, to serve as Sound Investment Composer for Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and to win the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise. 

Julian Schwarz
Cello

Schwarz made his concerto debut at the age of 11 with the Seattle Symphony. Since being awarded first prize at the inaugural Schoenfeld International String Competition in Hong Kong, he has led an active career as soloist, performing with prestigious orchestras in the United States and abroad.  

As a chamber musician, Mr. Schwarz performs extensively in recital with pianist Marika Bournaki, and the pair was awarded first prize at the inaugural Boulder International Chamber Music Competition’s “The Art of Duo”. Mr. Schwarz is a founding member of the New York based touring ensemble “Frisson” and is also a member of the Olmos Ensemble in San Antonio, TX, the Palladium Chamber Players (St Petersburg FL) and the Alaria Ensemble (New York NY).  

Mr. Schwarz is deeply committed to the future of American music, and will present the world premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s first Cello Concertro with a large consortium of orchestras in spring 2026. Past commissioning projects include concertos by Lowell Liebermann, Richard Danielpour and Samuel Jones and he has premiered chamber music by Adolphus Hailstork and Dobrinka Tabakova among others. Mr. Schwarz’s commitment to the music of Jewish experience includes projects with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, the Defiant Requiem, Central Synagogue, the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music, and a new association with South Florida Public Broadcasting to raise awareness of the history of Jewish music.  

Mr. Schwarz serves as Associate Professor of Cello and String Area Coordinator at Shenandoah Conservatory of Shenandoah University (Winchester, VA), and on the artist faculty of NYU’s Steinhardt School of Music. In the summer, he teaches and performs at the Eastern Music Festival and the Josef Gingold Festival.  

Born in Seattle, WA in 1991, Mr. Schwarz has studied at the Colburn School in Los Angeles under Ronald Leonard and at The Juilliard School with Joel Krosnick. Julian plays a Neapolitan cello made by Gennaro Gagliano in 1743 and American bows by Paul Martin Siefried.