Simply months after resigning from the San Antonio Philharmonic, conductor Jeffrey Kahane is launching a brand new orchestra and academic initiative in San Antonio, the place he’ll function founding creative director.
Kahane introduced Tuesday that the brand new group, Harmonium of Texas, will deal with orchestral performances, music training and neighborhood partnerships throughout the town.
The launch comes because the San Antonio Philharmonic continues to navigate monetary and organizational instability following the 2022 collapse of the San Antonio Symphony. Kahane resigned because the Philharmonic’s music director in February, and the group later canceled a lot of its 2025-2026 season amid ongoing uncertainty surrounding its future and its deliberate everlasting house on the historic Scottish Ceremony Corridor downtown.
The Philharmonic has since introduced a smaller sequence of “Amor Fati” performances — named after the Latin phrase for “love of destiny” — whereas it really works to stabilize the group.
In a December interview with TPR, carried out months earlier than his resignation, Kahane acknowledged the uncertainty surrounding San Antonio’s broader classical music scene.
“I do know there’s been a whole lot of drama,” he mentioned. “I can think about that there’s a whole lot of confusion among the many music lovers right here in San Antonio.”
Reached by textual content, Kahane instructed TPR of present fundraising success for Harmonium of Texas.
“We’ve raised $835,000 as of right this moment in 2 1/2 months,” Kahane mentioned. “And we now have fairly plenty of individuals who have indicated that they completely intend to pledge to Harmonium.”
Kahane added the brand new group’s 501(c)(3) is pending and must be finalized inside the subsequent few months.
Harmonium of Texas will turn out to be no less than the town’s third skilled orchestra. Alongside the Philharmonic, The Orchestra San Antonio has additionally emerged lately because the resident symphony on the Tobin Middle for the Performing Arts, accompanying productions by Ballet San Antonio and Opera San Antonio.
In accordance with the press launch and its web site, Harmonium of Texas will function collaborations with the San Antonio Mastersingers, side-by-side performances with the Youth Orchestras of San Antonio (YOSA), and academic programming aimed toward younger musicians and grownup learners.
The group has additionally named Spanish conductor Cosette Justo Valdés as principal visitor conductor, cellist and composer Andrea Casarrubios as composer-in-residence, and Grammy-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Tooth as a creative accomplice.
The inaugural season will run from October 2026 by means of Could 2027 and have performances at venues throughout San Antonio, together with Lila Cockrell Auditorium and Secure Corridor at Pearl.
Visitor artists scheduled to seem embody Joshua Bell, Larisa Martínez, Emanuel Ax, Tessa Lark and Nancy Zhou. The season will embody a two-part Beethoven celebration, Bach’s “St. Matthew Ardour,” the entire Brandenburg Concertos and collaborations with YOSA and the San Antonio Mastersingers.
The opening live performance on Oct. 2, 2026, will function Tessa Lark performing Michael Torke’s Sky alongside John Adams’s Brief Trip in a Quick Machine and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.
Kahane mentioned the group additionally plans to create a fund to assist households get hold of musical devices and music classes.
“It’s my agency conviction that an orchestra can and should function an instrument of neighborhood,” Kahane mentioned within the launch.
Tickets for the inaugural season go on sale July 27. A full season schedule and extra data can be found at Harmonium of Texas.
Nathan Cone contributed to this report.
This story initially appeared on Texas Public Radio.
