Rachmaninoff's Second Concerto

Rachmaninoff's Second Concerto

Saturday, October 24, 2026 | 7:30 PM

Sunday, October 25, 2026 | 3:00 PM

The Granada Theatre

Concert Duration: Approximately 100 minutes (including intermission)

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Program Notes & Digital Program
Coming in October

Plagued by self-doubt, Sergei Rachmaninoff had abandoned his music. When inspiration returned, he poured every ounce of longing and triumph into the concerto that made him immortal. Grammy Award-winning pianist Michelle Cann brings it to life. “She displayed her own powerful technique,” raved Washington Classical Review. Nir Kabaretti also conducts Shostakovich’s Fifth —a stirring masterpiece of courage, conflict, and survival.

The Artists

Nir Kabaretti, conductor

Michelle Cann, piano

Repertoire

RACHMANINOFF | Piano Concerto No. 2

SHOSTAKOVICH | Symphony No. 5

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 She won a GRAMMY Award in 2025 for Beyond the Years: Unpublished Songs of Florence Price, recorded with soprano Karen Slack, which features 19 unpublished songs composed by Price.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.

Nir Kabaretti

is The Santa Barbara Symphony's world-renowned Music & Artistic Director
Nir Kabaretti has worked with some of the world’s most sought-after musicians. Some of his most well-known collaborators include Lang Lang, Placido Domingo, Joyce Di Donato, Angel Joy Blue, Vadim Repin, Gilles Apap, Hélène Grimaud, and André Watts.

Nir Kabaretti

is The Santa Barbara Symphony's World-Renowned Music & Artistic Director
Nir Kabaretti has worked with some of the world’s most sought-after musicians. Some of his most well-known collaborators include Lang Lang, Placido Domingo, Joyce Di Donato, Angel Joy Blue, Vadim Repin, Gilles Apap, Hélène Grimaud, and André Watts.

A very warm and special thank you
to our 2026/27 season donors and the sponsors making
this event possible!

Concert
Sponsors
Principal Sponsor
Barbara Rosenblum
Artist Sponsors
Susan Aberle
Ann & Eric Capogrosso
Selection Sponsors
Barbara Burger & Paul Munch*
Robert Koenig
Ruth & John* Matuszeski
Jerry & Joan Rocco


* in memoriam

2026/27 Concert Season Sponsors

Corporate Season Sponsor

Grand Venue Sponsor

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