Stanford Live Unveils the 2025–26 Season, Amplifying Voices
Stanford Live has unveiled its 2025–26 season, Amplifying Voices, with more than 60 planned performances spanning music, dance, theater, spoken word, film, and comedy. It will be the first season led by Iris Nemani, the newly appointed McMurtry Family Director of Stanford Live.
"Driven by the belief that art and creativity can shift culture, the 2025–2026 Stanford Live season aspires to fill our stages with artists and stories that reflect our communities. These artists will not only entertain, but also challenge, teach, and strengthen our community with their stories, their perspectives, and their passion. Together, let us inspire future generations of artistic creators, thinkers, and dreamers."
The performances will take place across four venues on the Stanford campus, including Bing Concert Hall, The Studio, Memorial Auditorium, and Memorial Church.
Maurice Ravel: A 150th Celebration
The season’s classical programming will celebrate the life and legacy of Maurice Ravel (1875–1937), marking the 150th anniversary of his birth. Some of his pieces are associated with musical Impressionism, but others are crystalline and sharply etched. In the 1920s, Ravel was heavily influenced by American jazz and blues, and his work in turn influenced multiple generations of jazz, from George Gershwin to John Coltrane.
"Maurice Ravel was a modern man captivated by the technological advancements of the early 20th century. He was a passionate traveler and a board game enthusiast. Like a master architect, Ravel crafted music with meticulous care, leaving no note to chance. An unpretentious genius who composed Boléro, the most performed work in classical music history, with just two simple phrases, he epitomized musical rebellion like no other composer in modern history. Ravel was a visionary who embraced the bold new sound of his era—jazz—infusing its spirit into his work with masterful precision."
On October 8, Grammy Award–winning pianist Michelle Cann is scheduled to perform his early Sonatine, while cellist Santiago Cañon-Valencia, a Tchaikovsky Competition medalist, will perform an arrangement of Pavane for a Dead Princess, among other works, on October 22. Pianist Hayato Sumino closes out the fall, on October 26, with Ravel’s most famous orchestral work, Boléro, which he will perform in a unique arrangement for one player on two pianos and two keyboards at the same time.
Resuming after the holidays, pianist Zee Zee will play Ravel’s storybook Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose Suite) on February 22, followed by soprano Nadine Sierra singing the Shéhérazade song cycle, about the Arabian Nights heroine, on March 13. On April 1, Bomsori Kim will play his bluesy Violin Sonata No. 2, and the Jerusalem Quartet will perform Ravel’s sole String Quartet on April 22.
Several other programs feature music connected to Ravel—including the complete Préludes by his elder colleague Claude Debussy, performed by pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet on May 10. Aterballetto will dance Iratxe Ansa & Igor Bacovich’s choreographed version of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue on February 11–12, and jazz pianist Emmet Cohen will give an 100th anniversary celebration of Miles Davis and John Coltrane on April 8.
More Classical
Other classical concerts include New Century Chamber Orchestra with violinist Simone Porter (January 23), a recital by the explorative Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes (January 25), and three programs by Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale (December 7, February 8, and March 15).
On the contemporary front, Sandbox Percussion and The Crossing will perform Harold Meltzer's You Are Who I Love, exploring the undocumented immigrant experience in America (February 25) and the Danish String Quartet and Danish National Girls’ Choir premiere a Stanford Live co-commission by composer and Stanford alumnus David Lang.
St. Lawrence Legacy Series
Stanford Live's 2025-26 season will also feature a new series that celebrates musical tradition and the future of chamber music. After nearly four decades of acclaimed performances at Stanford and around the world, the St. Lawrence String Quartet introduces the St. Lawrence Legacy Series, a new initiative in partnership with Stanford Live that showcases three of today’s most celebrated string quartets—ranging from legendary ensembles to rising stars and fresh competition winners. Each group will spend a week on campus in a wide-ranging residency focused on mentorship, collaboration, and community engagement, culminating in a world-class performance at Bing Concert Hall.
The inaugural series opens on October 19 with the Viano String Quartet, joined by acclaimed singer-songwriter Vienna Teng in a program featuring Beethoven’s No. 10, Op. 74 “Harp” Quartet alongside Teng’s own works. The series continues March 8, featuring the winner of the newly inaugurated St. Lawrence Prize, awarded to the 1st prize winner of the 2025 Banff International String Quartet Competition (ensemble to be announced in August 2025). On May 3, the esteemed Brentano String Quartet closes the series with all-Beethoven program.
Jazz, Blues, and Broadway
Stanford Live’s standout jazz, blues, and Broadway programming will feature up-and-coming artists and established stars.
Lucía, winner of the 2022 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, will present her fusion of American jazz and the Latin American Songbook on October 3, followed by Rosanne Cash, joined by John Leventhal, playing her bluesy brand of country on October 5. Artemis, the all-women jazz collective will perform works from their new album, ARBORESQUE, on October 12, and Morgan Freeman will present his own show, Symphonic Blues Experience, on November 19.
In the new year, vocalist Stella Cole shares favorites from the Great American Songbook on January 28. Later in the spring, in addition to Emmet Cohen’s tribute to Miles and Coltrane on April 8, Bay Area Renaissance Man John Santos brings his sextet for an Afro-Caribbean–tinged program on April 19. On May 20, the Tony and Grammy Award-winning Renée Elise Goldsberry, known from the original Broadway cast of Hamilton, leads a high-energy spiritual revival.
Global Music
Fado is the traditional Portuguese genre of lovelorn song, and its greatest contemporary exponent, Mariza, will perform November 5. Then on April 25, Angélique Kidjo, called “Africa’s premier diva” by Time magazine and a Polar Music Prize winner, will sing at Bing Fling.
Direct from Edinburgh Festival Fringe
For the first time, Stanford Live will present three productions from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the cutting-edge Scottish festival.
“These works offer a unique opportunity to engage with current and provocative ideas in real time … by bringing them to The Studio, we invite our audiences to experience the thrill of discovery, and to connect with the pulse of the global creative landscape.”
Burnout Paradise by the experimental collective Pony Cam (November 12–15) is described as “a delusional and physical celebration of our collective struggle to establish clear boundaries in our lives.” Four performers on treadmills will test the limits of mind, body, and spirit through an increasingly frenetic juggling act of absurdity.
BATSHIT by Leah Shelton (February 4–7), is a wildly theatrical and deeply intimate story of female madness. Created by psycho-siren Leah Shelton and directed by Olivier Award–winning Ursula Martinez, this is a requiem for Leah’s grandmother Gwen, who was incarcerated for seeking independence in 1960s Australia.
Blind Summit’s The Sex Lives of Puppets is a multi-layered piece of theater—on the surface, offering a fun and frank exploration of puppet desire at the hands of their Dionysian puppet-masters, and on a deeper level engaging skilled puppetry to express human moods, fears, worries, hang-ups, and desires (February 18–21).
Contemporary Dance and Circus
Created by circus visionary Yaron Lifschitz, Humans 2.0 by Circa, on November 1 and 2, is intimate, primal, and deeply engaged with the challenge of being human. On December 5, Dökk blends light, sound, and movement into a breathtaking, multi-dimensional universe created by fuse*, the Italian studio and production company that explores the creative use of digital technologies. Italian dance company Aterballetto makes its Stanford Live debut on February 11–12, presenting Crystal Pite’s Solo Echo, the US premiere of Diego Tortelli’s Glory Hall, and other works.
Hysterical Comedy
The newly named Hysterical comedy series brings sharp wit and personal storytelling to The Studio, with a focus on women and gender nonconforming comedians. The season features Sandra Bernhard’s Shapes and Forms on October 4, ALOK’s Hairy Situation on October 25, Naomi Ekperigin on December 13, and Marsha Warfield’s Book of Marsha on February 27
Spoken Word and Film
Jodi Kantor, the Pulitzer Prize–Winning Reporter for The New York Times who broke the story of allegations against Harvey Weinstein, helping to ignite the #MeToo movement, will speak on October 9.
Then on November 7 will be a screening of Sugarcane, a 2024 National Geographic documentary that helped bring to light the injustice and abuses of the Canadian Indian residential school system. This special presentation of the film will be accompanied by the Mali Obomsawin Quartet, playing her original score live to picture. Obomsawin is a genre-defying bassist, composer, vocalist, and citizen of the Odanak First Nation whose music models 21st-century Indigeneity.
On November 9 and February 21, Rob Kapilow brings What Makes it Great? back to Bing Hall, revealing the inner workings of Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Standards by jazz legends Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson.
Holidays at Stanford Live
The holiday season brings several seasonal celebrations including Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale performing Vivaldi’s Gloria, Corelli’s Christmas Concerto, a world premiere by Roderick Williams, and a US premiere of work by Pulitzer Prize–winner Caroline Shaw (December 7); Pink Martini’s Holiday Spectacular (December 10); A Chanticleer Christmas (December 11); and Jazz Mafia: Holiday Heist, a funky take on classics (December 14).