San Diego Symphony Orchestra
The San Diego Symphony Orchestra stands among the nation’s leading orchestras and serves as a dynamic cultural ambassador for the United States and the San Diego region. Led by President and Chief Executive Officer Martha Gilmer and Music and Artistic Director Rafael Payare, its 82 internationally distinguished musicians bring artistry of the highest caliber to audiences at home and abroad.
Now in a defining period in its history, the San Diego Symphony is shaping a forward-looking vision of the 21st-century American orchestra. Globally connected and firmly grounded in its community, the Symphony’s artistic life is anchored by two iconic venues: The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, a striking open air performance space on the San Diego waterfront, and the recently renovated Jacobs Music Center, now a premier concert hall and architectural landmark. Together, these halls have transformed the cultural landscape of downtown San Diego and established distinctive homes for the Symphony’s year-round work.
Since his appointment in 2019, Music and Artistic Director Rafael Payare has led a period of significant artistic expansion, sharpened the ensemble’s sound, and deepened its expressive range. The Orchestra presents a broad and ambitious repertoire, from cornerstone symphonic works to major new commissions, and collaborations with leading artists of our time, positioning San Diego as a destination for leading conductors, soloists, composers, and creative partners. Its profile continues to grow through regional and national appearances and an increasingly visible presence on the global stage.
Guided by its mission of Changing Lives Through Music, the Symphony serves more than 65,000 students, families, educators, military service members, and nonprofit partners each year. In schools and neighborhoods throughout the region, its programs integrate music into daily learning and expand access to live performance. Sustained binational collaborations with artists, youth, and cultural institutions across the San Diego-Tijuana region further reflect the shared cultural identity of this community.
The Orchestra debuted at Carnegie Hall in 2013 and returned in 2023 under Payare to an enthusiastic audience and positive critical notice. Its 2022 recording of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11, “The Year 1905,” was praised by Gramophone as “right up there with the best we have.” The coming 2027 European tour signals continued artistic momentum and international ambition.
Rooted in its community and resonant on the world’s great stages, the San Diego Symphony is shaping a cultural ecosystem that spans the border region and reaches across continents, carrying the creative vitality of its region to audiences worldwide.
rafael payare, music and artistic director
With his innate musicianship, charismatic energy, gift for communication, and irresistibly joyous spirit, conductor Rafael Payare is “considerable grace and considerable swagger, making the two go unusually yet inexorably together” (Los Angeles Times). Payare conducted the San Diego Symphony (SDS) for the first time in 2018 and was subsequently named the orchestra’s music director designate one month later, assuming the role of music director in January 2019.
Now in the seventh season of his transformative tenure, Payare and the SDS continue their ongoing performances of the complete cycle of symphonies by Shostakovich and Mahler, performing Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony and Mahler’s Seventh. Other highlights include Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony; Beethoven’s First Symphony; Mendelssohn’s Third Symphony; a two-week Brahms festival in the spring encompassing the German Requiem, all four symphonies, and the Violin Concerto performed by Leonidas Kavakos; and Gabriela Ortiz’s new ecology-themed cello concerto, Dzonot, featuring dedicatee Alisa Weilerstein.
The 2025-26 season also marks his fourth as music director of Canada’s Montreal Symphony Orchestra/OSM. With the OSM he leads a similarly full season with Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust, followed in October by a Berlioz album release. Other season highlights there include Mahler’s Fourth and Ninth Symphonies; Beethoven’s Piano Concerto featuring Emanuel Ax; Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro; and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. The conductor rounds out his season with high profile returns to the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, London’s Philharmonia, and the NHK Symphony. He also makes his debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He was appointed Principal Conductor of Virginia’s Castleton Festival in 2015, and is Conductor Laureate of Northern Ireland’s Ulster Orchestra, where he was Principal Conductor and Music Director from 2014-19, making multiple appearances at London’s BBC Proms.
Also a dedicated opera conductor, Payare has made debuts at both London’s Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and the Glyndebourne Festival with Il barbiere di Siviglia and he has led Madama Butterfly and La bohème at Stockholm’s Royal Swedish Opera, Tosca at the Royal Danish Opera, Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette at the Castleton Festival, and a new production of La traviata in Malmö, Sweden.
Since winning first prize at Denmark’s Malko Competition for Young Conductors in 2012, Payare has made debuts and forged longstanding relationships with many of the world’s preeminent orchestras. His U.S. collaborations include engagements with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Houston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, and Philadelphia Orchestra, while his notable European appearances include dates with the Bavarian Radio Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, and Vienna Philharmonic, which he has led at the Vienna Konzerthaus and Musikverein, on a Baltic tour, and at Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.
