The Metropolitan Museum of Art Announces Its MetLiveArts Fall and Winter 2025–26 Season

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today the fall and winter 2025–26 MetLiveArts season, which will feature world premiere performances and commissions created specifically for the Museum’s galleries as well as concerts in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. This upcoming season will highlight a significant number of new works created by female artists, including composers and musicians Gabriela Ortiz, Wu Man, Hanzhi Wang, Emily Wells, Layale Chaker, and Leilehua Lanzilotti. Throughout the 2025–26 season, The Met collection and galleries, including the new galleries for the arts of Africa, the ancient Americas, and Oceania and special exhibitions like Man Ray: When Objects Dream, will provide inspiration for several new performances.

Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and CEO, said, “This season of Live Arts will bring The Met’s collection to life through music, dance, and performance art created by an array of international superstars and emerging artists. We are thrilled to invite audiences in to experience The Met’s galleries in entirely new and exhilarating ways.”

The 2025–26 season will begin on September 9, with Wu Man and The Knights performing a program that celebrates repertoire for the solo pipa and features Lou Harrison’s Concerto for Pipa. The season will continue in October with George Lewis and International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) performing Jennie C. Jones’s graphic scores in conjunction with her 2025 Roof Garden Commission, Ensemble. November begins with Grammy Award–winning composer Gabriela Ortiz’s Canta la Piedra-Tetluikan for Roomful of Teeth, with text by Nauhatl poet Mardonio Carballo, co-commissioned with Carnegie Hall to celebrate the new galleries for the arts of the ancient Americas. This will also include a performance of a new arrangement of Ortiz’s Kauyumari by Roomful of Teeth and the Mexican choral ensemble Coro Acardenchado and selections from the endangered Mexican canto cardenche folk tradition by Coro Acardenchado. Also this fall and winter, there will be events inspired by the special exhibition Man Ray: When Objects Dream, including live music by SQÜRL (Carter Logan and Jim Jarmusch) for four films by Man Ray recently restored in 4K, and the premiere of an evening-length work by artist Alex Da Corte along with his collaborator, the electronic composer and musician Emily Wells.

This season will also include JACK Quartet as the Museum’s 2025–26 Quartet in Residence. New York City’s foremost new-music quartet will create a season of new and transformative concert experiences beginning in December.

MetLiveArts performances will be both ticketed and free with Museum admission and take place in person at The Met Fifth Avenue or at The Met Cloisters. The Museum’s popular Date Night at The Met evenings, held every Friday and Saturday from 5 to 9 p.m., will continue to feature live music by ETHEL & Friends and occasional pop-up performances throughout the galleries.

In May 2025, The Met announced that Sarah Jones has been appointed as Lulu C. and Anthony W. Wang Head of Live Arts. She will begin her role at The Met in August.

MetLiveArts 2025–26 Performance Details:

Wu Man and The Knights
Tue. Sept. 9, 2025, 7 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

For decades, Wu Man has reigned as the world’s leading exponent of the pipa, a pear-shaped Chinese lute whose history dates back more than 2,000 years. She has premiered hundreds of new works for the instrument, preserving and promoting millennia of ancient Chinese musical traditions while breaking new ground in Western classical, jazz, electronic, and folk music. Now, Wu Man returns to The Met to perform the Pipa Concerto of American composer Lou Harrison (1917–2003), one of the many pieces written especially for her, alongside traditional and original works for solo pipa. She is joined by the acclaimed Brooklyn orchestra The Knights—hailed as one of the ensembles paving “the future for classical music in America” (Los Angeles Times)—led by concertmaster and co-Artistic Director Colin Jacobsen.

This performance is presented in conjunction with The Met’s Department of Musical Instruments.

Tickets start at $30.

Red Baraat
Fri. Oct. 24, 2025, 7 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

Celebrate Diwali with a fusion of Punjabi, hip-hop, jazz, and punk rhythms that’s sure to get you on your feet.

The electrifying Brooklyn band Red Baraat ignites stages across the globe with their signature energy, spreading infectious joy and vitality all along the way. Join us at The Met to hear a one-of-a-kind sound that “hits with the force of a spiritual awakening” (Stereogum).

Tickets start at $30.

Hanzhi Wang, Accordion
Fri. Oct. 10, 2025, 6 and 7:30 p.m.
Astor Court

Praised for her “staggering virtuosity” (Oberon’s Grove), accordion player Hanzhi Wang is leading her instrument’s resurgence onto the world’s largest classical music stages. For her Met debut, Wang presents a recital of new and original compositions in Astor Chinese Garden Court. Enter the world of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytales with works by Danish composer Martin Lohse alongside pieces by Wang herself, which tell of her hometown of Suzhou, China.
Tickets are free with Museum admission.

Kahil El’Zabar & Ethnic Heritage Ensemble
Sat. Feb. 21, 2026, 7 p.m.
The Temple of Dendur

Visionary jazz multi-instrumentalist and composer Sir Kahil El’Zabar embarks on a spiritual journey through time with his storied Ethnic Heritage Ensemble.
It’s been more than fifty years since El’Zabar and his ensemble first took the stage in 1974. Eighteen albums, countless tours, and multiple international awards later, their pioneering “spiritual groove” still inspires artists across disciplines. Join the band for a healing spiritual journey that connects ancient history to the future of music, improvisation, love, and freedom through artistic expression.

This program is presented as part of The Met’s celebration of Black History Month

This performance is free with Museum admission.

Sight into Sound Series at The Met

In the series Sight & Sound at The Met, The Orchestra Now (TŌN) explores the parallels between orchestral music and visual art. Each performance includes a discussion with conductor and music historian Leon Botstein accompanied by on-screen exhibition images and live musical excerpts, followed by a full performance of the works and an audience Q&A.

Tickets start at $30. Series: $120.

Sight & Sound: Egypt in Music and Art
Sun. Dec. 7, 2025 at 2 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

Leon Botstein conductor
Terrence Wilson piano
Johann Strauss II Egyptian March
Mozart The Magic Flute Overture
Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 5, “Egyptian”
Artwork from the exhibition Divine Egypt

In ancient Egypt, images of gods weren’t just images—they brought the gods to life. Egyptians believed that it was through their depictions in tombs, temples, and shrines that the deities could enter sacred spaces and become active participants in rituals, offering a vital connection between the human and divine worlds. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, European composers like Mozart and Johann Strauss II incorporated influences from the Middle East into some of their music. Saint-Saëns’s Fifth Piano Concerto was written in Egypt, where the composer included in his work the melody of a Nubian love song he had heard along the Nile. Grammy-nominated pianist Terrence Wilson, winner of the SONY ES Award for Musical Excellence, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the Juilliard Petschek Award, will perform the concerto with TŌN.

This performance is in conjunction with the exhibition Divine Egypt.

Sight & Sound: Sibelius, Schjerfbeck, and Finland
Sun. March 1, 2026 at 2 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

Leon Botstein conductor
Sibelius Finlandia
Sibelius Symphony No. 7
Artwork by Helene Schjerfbeck and others

Beloved in Nordic countries for her highly original style, Finnish painter Helene Schjerfbeck overcame immense personal struggles working in a remote location for decades, producing a powerful body of work through sheer willpower. Over the years, her art shifted from traditional and realistic subjects to a simplified, spare style. The music of Schjerfbeck’s contemporary compatriot Jean Sibelius saw a similar change over time. His patriotic 1900 work Finlandia paints a clear picture of the historical progress of Finland and its bright future. By the time he finished his Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh symphonies 20 years later, Sibelius became increasingly concerned with paring down his music to the bare essentials.

This performance is in conjunction with the exhibition Seeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck.

Sight & Sound: Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony
Sun. March 29, 2026, 2 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

Leon Botstein conductor
Mozart Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter”
Artwork to be announced

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was one of the most prolific and influential artists of the Classical period. He gave piano concerts starting at age 5 and wrote his first opera at age 11. He composed more than 800 works by the time of his death at age 35. Mozart wrote dozens of symphonies, composing the final three over six weeks in the summer of 1788. The 41st, his last, puts on full display the extraordinary compositional technique he mastered over the course of his career.

Inspired by The Met’s Exhibitions:

International Contemporary Ensemble performs Jennie C. Jones
Sun. Oct. 5, 2025, 2 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

The Met’s 2025 Roof Garden Commission artist joins one of the world’s most renowned new music ensembles for a discussion and world premiere performances of her musical compositions.

Artist Jennie C. Jones’s fascination with sound manifests in her sculptures, from early works made from audio cables to her 2025 Met Roof Garden Commission, Ensemble, a set of abstract string instruments that “hits a high note” (Artnet).

For this special performance, “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker) International Contemporary Ensemble brings to life Jones’s “graphic scores,” works on paper that investigate sound through visual means. Jones and the Ensemble’s Artistic Director, composer and musicologist George Lewis, will also discuss the scores’ formal and sonic structures, which reframe Minimalism’s legacy and illuminate new intersections between music, abstraction, and experimentation.

Tickets start at $30.

This performance is in conjunction with the exhibition The Roof Garden Commission: Jennie C. Jones, Ensemble.

SQÜRL: Live music for Four Films by Man Ray
Fri. Nov. 14, 2025, 7 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

Dive into the visionary world of Man Ray’s short films with inventive live accompaniment by a leading avant-garde post-rock duo.

American artist Man Ray (1890–1976) was a visionary known for radical experiments that turned recognizable subjects into wonderfully mysterious compositions, pushing the limits of photography, painting, sculpture, and film. Among his vast output are four pioneering silent films—his Le Retour à la raison (Return to Reason) was the first motion picture made without using a camera.

For nearly a decade, the avant-garde post-rock duo SQÜRL (composed of Jim Jarmusch and Carter Logan) have captivated audiences with their accompaniments to Man Ray’s surreal silent films. Join them for an evening of psychedelic dreamscapes alongside the artist’s groundbreaking films, newly restored in 4K resolution.

Program
The Starfish (1928)
Emak Bakia (1926)
Return to Reason (1923)
The Mysteries of the Castle of the Dice (1929)

Tickets start at $30.

This performance is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Man Ray: When Objects Dream.

Trajal Harrell: Five Friends in Five Acts
Thurs.Dec. 4, 2025, 4 p.m.; Fri. Dec. 5, 2025, 4 and 8 p.m.
Gallery to be announced

In this U.S. premiere, a distinguished dancer-choreographer reimagines the relationships between the “Five Friends” who helped shape modern art.

American dancer and choreographer Trajal Harrell first rose to fame for works that envisioned interplay between performance schools and mediums. His 2009 Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church imagined an encounter between Harlem’s vogueing ball scene and early postmodern dancers in downtown Manhattan, using a signature, genre-defying style to interrogate the very history of dance itself. He then followed with a second period of work that addressed the aesthetic relationship between early modern dance and Japanese butoh dance.

Now he continues to create and question those interactions with Five Friends in Five Acts. This co-commission by Museum Ludwig, Holland Festival, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Festival d’Automne, Tanzquartier Wien, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art is inspired by the relationships between the influential postwar “Five Friends” circle—Cy Twombly, Jasper Johns, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, and Robert Rauschenberg—both as artistic contemporaries and queer men.

This performance is free with Museum admission.

This performance is in conjunction with the exhibition Man Ray: When Objects Dream.

Alex Da Corte & Emily Wells: The Glass Age
Thurs. Jan 15, 2026, 7 p.m.
The Charles Engelhard Court

In The Glass Age, conceptual artist Alex Da Corte—renowned for works that shatter boundaries between media—inhabits the persona of the Dada pioneer, Marcel Duchamp, delivering a lecture as a poem to hundreds of pictures, with live musical accompaniment performed by multi-instrumentalist Emily Wells. For this performance, Duchamp finds himself inside the prism world of copies, duplicates, replicas, proxies, memes—the places where, like in the visionary artist Man Ray’s rayographs, image, object, and time coalesce.
Tickets start at $70.

This performance is in conjunction with the exhibition Man Ray: When Objects Dream.

In Celebration of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing:

Singing Stones: Celebrating the Ancient Americas
Fri. Nov. 7, 2025, 7 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

Celebrate Michael C. Rockefeller Wing’s newly reimagined Art of the Ancient Americas galleries with an illustrious lineup of U.S. and Mexican performers.

This exciting evening will include two newly commissioned works by acclaimed Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz, whose list of accolades includes a Grammy award, a Guggenheim fellowship, and Mexico’s National Prize for Arts and Literature.

The program begins with Grammy-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth singing Ortiz’s Canta la Piedra—Tetluikan, commissioned by The Met on the occasion of the reopening of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing and based on poems by Nahua multidisciplinary artist Mardonio Carballo that reflect on the deep connection to nature that informs Mesoamerican culture. Then, Mexican folk ensemble Coro Acardenchado, appearing in partnership with the Mexico Now Festival, presents a rare taste of the endangered Mexican canto cardenche musical tradition, a wrenching expression of pain and heartbreak through song. Finally, the two ensembles come together to premiere a brand-new double-choir arrangement of Ortiz’s powerful Kauyumari, in which a single melody unfolds into an entrancing, rhythmic ode to music as a means of healing and transformation. The performance will include live, hand-drawn animated projections by Arturo López Pío, as well as video of the sacred Wirikuta desert by Mercedes Aquí and Paola Stefani.

Tickets start at $30.

Jahra Wasasala: GOD-HOUSE
Fri. Feb. 6 and Sat. Feb. 7, 2026, 7 p.m.
The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing

Experience an award-winning movement artist’s exploratory meditation of the body as a powerful genealogical vessel in a performance that channels their connection with the ancestral homelands of Oceania.

Interdisciplinary artist Jahra Wasasala (Fiji/NZ) builds worlds and writes realms, finding compelling poetry in movement and raw physicality in bold, visceral performances that draw directly on the artist’s genealogical connections with the ancestral homelands of Oceania. Join Wasasala in the newly reopened Arts of Oceania galleries in the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing as they reprise their 2019 Met-commissioned activation work GOD-HOUSE, which explores the limits of the body as a vessel-container, and tests its creative potential in expressing the complexity of deeply-felt connections with the ancestral gods and treasures of Oceania. At once a relentless rejection and a deep embrace, GOD-HOUSE offers a profoundly moving challenge to the legacies of post-colonialism by creating space for dialogue. Don’t miss this one-of-a-kind performance.

These performances are free with Museum admission.

Holiday Performances:

ETHEL: Seasons Now
Fri. Dec. 12, 2025, 7 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

Celebrate the holidays at The Met with an evening of seasonal string quartets by four trailblazing composers, paired with signature arrangements of Vivaldi’s iconic The Four Seasons.

The “vital and brilliant” (The New Yorker) string quartet ETHEL brings joy and verve to The Met this holiday season. Experience the quartet’s original program Seasons Now, which celebrates the 300th anniversary of Vivaldi’s timeless The Four Seasons by pairing ETHEL’s signature arrangements of the Baroque concerti with new compositions by Ching-chu Hu, Layale Chaker, Leilehua Lanzilotti and Daniel Bernard Roumain.

Tickets start at $30.

Skylark: Illuminations
Mon. Dec. 15, 2025, 6:30 and 8:15 p.m.
Romanesque Hall, The Met Cloisters

Celebrate the holidays with an intimate concert featuring the “gripping” (The Boston Globe) four-time Grammy-nominated vocal ensemble Skylark. Feel the magical warmth of a candlelit winter’s night with a journey through 800 years of music, from medieval chant to modern masterpieces.

Featuring works by Britten, MacMillan, Shaw, and more.

Tickets start at $90.

JACK Quartet: Modern/Medieval
Sun. Dec. 14, 6:30 & 8:15 p.m
Romanesque Hall, The Met Cloisters

New York City’s leading avant-garde string quartet kicks off its 2025-26 Met residency with a holiday-season homage to medieval music at The Met Cloisters.

Over the last 20 years, the fearsomely talented JACK Quartet has established itself as today’s “leading new-music foursome” (The New York Times), championing 20th- and 21st-century composers around the world. Now, The Met’s 2025-26 Quartet in Residence kicks off its exciting season just in time for the holidays with a program of new and old works inspired by the most daring musical experiments of the Middle Ages. The program inlcudes JACK violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, plus many more New York City trailblazers, set against the Romanesque architecture of The Met Cloisters.

Tickets start at $70.

JACK Quartet is The MetLiveArts 2025-26 Quartet in Residence. More details about the residency will be announced.

The Clarion Choir
Sat. Dec. 20, 2025, 6:30 & 8;15 p.m.
Romanesque Hall, The Met Cloisters

After two sold-out Renaissance marathons, four-time Grammy nominee The Clarion Choir returns to The Met Cloisters with a serene program for the season. The program will inlcude music from Renaissance motets to recent settings of favorite carols, presented by some of New York City’s finest vocalists.

Featuring works by Poulenc, Sweelinck, Victoria, Davis, Dawson, Tavener, Weir, and more.

Tickets start at $90.

Program Credits
Chamber music performances at The Met are made possible with support from the Grace Jarcho Ross and Daniel G. Ross Concert Fund.

International Contemporary Ensemble Performs Jennie C. Jones
This performance is made possible with support from the Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Fund.

Jahra Wasasala: GOD-HOUSE
Events and programming related to the reopening of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing are made possible by the Breyer Family Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Samuel and Gabrielle Lurie, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Thompson Family Foundation. Additional support is provided by Stephen M. Cutler and Wendy N. Zimmermann, Kyveli and George Economou, Ed and Dale Mathias, the Mex-Am Cultural Foundation Inc., Hawaiian Airlines, and two anonymous donors.

Singing Stones: Celebrating the Ancient Americas
Events and programming related to the reopening of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing are made possible by the Breyer Family Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Samuel and Gabrielle Lurie, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Thompson Family Foundation. Additional support is provided by Stephen M. Cutler and Wendy N. Zimmermann, Kyveli and George Economou, Ed and Dale Mathias, the Mex-Am Cultural Foundation Inc., Hawaiian Airlines, and two anonymous donors.

Vocal music performances at The Met are made possible with support from the estate of Katherine Walter Stein.

Wu Man, pipa & The Knights
This performance is made possible by the Grace Jarcho Ross and Daniel G. Ross Concert Fund, and Friends of Musical Instruments: The Amati.

Exhibition Credits

Divine Egypt
The exhibition is made possible by The John A. Moran Charitable Trust.
Additional support is provided by the Kelekian Fund, Alaina and Stirling Larkin, and Norby Anderson.

The Roof Garden Commission: Jennie C. Jones, Ensemble

The exhibition is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Additional support is provided by Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky, and Melony and Adam Lewis.

Man Ray: When Objects Dream

The exhibition is made possible by the Barrie A. and Deedee Wigmore Foundation.

Major funding is provided by Linda Macklowe, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Daniel and Estrellita Brodsky Foundation, The International Council of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Andrea Krantz and Harvey Sawikin, and Schiaparelli.

Additional support is provided by the Vanguard Council.

The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing

We thank all who have made possible the renovation of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, including leadership commitments from The Carson Family Charitable Trust, Kyveli and George Economou, Bobby Kotick, Drs. Daniel and Marian Malcolm, Adam Lindemann and Amalia Dayan, Samuel H. and Linda M. Lindenbaum, Samuel and Gabrielle Lurie, The Marron Family, Naddisy Foundation, the City of New York, the Estate of Abby M. O’Neill, Andrall E. Pearson and Rappaport Family, the Estate of Ruth J. Prager, Ceil and Michael E. Pulitzer, Carlos Rodríguez-Pastor and Gabriela Pérez Rocchietti, Alejandro and Charlotte Santo Domingo, and the Skarstedt Family. Major support was provided by Mr. and Mrs. Richard Lockwood Chilton, Jr., Mariana and Raymond Herrmann, Mary R. Morgan, and Laura G. and James J. Ross.

Events and programming related to the reopening of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing are made possible by the Breyer Family Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Samuel and Gabrielle Lurie, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Thompson Family Foundation. Additional support is provided by Stephen M. Cutler and Wendy N. Zimmermann, Kyveli and George Economou, Ed and Dale Mathias, the Mex-Am Cultural Foundation Inc., and two anonymous donors.

Seeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck

The exhibition is made possible by Elsa A. Brule.

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