The Cleveland Orchestra, under the leadership of Franz Welser-Möst since 2002, is one of the most sought-after performing ensembles in the world. Year after year, the ensemble exemplifies extraordinary artistic excellence, creative programming, and community engagement. In recent years, The New York Times has called Cleveland “the best in America” for its virtuosity, elegance of sound, variety of color, and chamber-like musical cohesion.

Founded by Adella Prentiss Hughes, the Orchestra performed its inaugural concert in December 1918. By the middle of the century, decades of growth and sustained support had turned the ensemble into one of the most admired around the world.

The past decade has seen an increasing number of young people attending concerts, bringing fresh attention to The Cleveland Orchestra’s legendary sound and committed programming. More recently, the Orchestra launched several bold digital projects, including the streaming platform Adella.live and its own recording label. Together, they have captured the Orchestra’s unique artistry and the musical achievements of the Welser-Möst and Cleveland Orchestra partnership. 

The 2025–26 season marks Franz Welser-Möst’s 24th year as Music Director, a period in which The Cleveland Orchestra has earned unprecedented acclaim around the world, including a series of residencies at the Musikverein in Vienna, the first of its kind by an American orchestra, and a number of celebrated opera presentations.

Since 1918, seven music directors — Nikolai Sokoloff, Artur Rodziński, Erich Leinsdorf, George Szell, Lorin Maazel, Christoph von Dohnányi, and Franz Welser-Möst — have guided and shaped the ensemble’s growth and sound. Through concerts at home and on tour, broadcasts, and a catalog of acclaimed recordings, The Cleveland Orchestra is heard today by a growing group of fans around the world.

Now in his 24th season, Franz Welser-Möst continues to shape an unmistakable sound culture as Music Director of The Cleveland Orchestra. Under his leadership, the Orchestra has earned repeated international acclaim for its musical excellence, reaffirmed its strong commitment to new music, and brought annual opera productions back to the stage of Severance Music Center. In recent years, the Orchestra also launched its own streaming platform, Adella.live, and a recording label. Today, it boasts one of the youngest audiences in the United States.

In addition to residencies in the US and Europe, Welser-Möst and the Orchestra perform regularly at the world’s leading international festivals. Welser-Möst will remain Music Director until 2027, making him the longest-serving music director of The Cleveland Orchestra.

Welser-Möst enjoys a particularly close and productive artistic partnership with the Vienna Philharmonic. He regularly conducts the orchestra in subscription concerts at the Vienna Musikverein, at the Salzburg Festival, and on tour in Europe, Japan, China, and the US, and has appeared three times on the podium for their celebrated New Year’s Concert (2011, 2013, and 2023). At the Salzburg Festival, Welser- Möst has set new standards in interpretation as an opera conductor, with a special focus on the operas of Richard Strauss.

Among Welser-Möst’s many honors and awards, he was named an Honorary Member of the Vienna Philharmonic in 2024, one of the orchestra’s highest distinctions.

Sara Jakubiak is renowned for her ability to bring complex characters to life, blending musical understanding with dramatic instincts. Her 2025–26 season is a season of firsts. She makes her La Scala debut in the opening-night production of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, sings her first Isolde with the London Symphony Orchestra, and opens the Norwegian National Opera season with her role debut as Rusalka.

Recent orchestral highlights include Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Britten’s War Requiem with the Dresden Philharmoniker, and Schoenberg’s Erwartung with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Jakubiak also has a significant discography, including the 2020 Opus Klassik Award–winning production of Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane with Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Jakubiak hails from Bay City, Michigan and received her university training at Yale and the Cleveland Institute of Music

David Butt Philip is one of Britain’s most exciting tenors and quickly becoming a firm favorite on major international stages. A graduate of the Jette Parker Young Artist Program at the Royal Opera House, he has earned major critical and public acclaim at the Wiener Staatsoper, Edinburgh International Festival, Bayerische Staatsoper, and Deutsche Oper Berlin, among others.

Highlights of the 2025–26 season include his company and role debut as Siegmund in Die Walküre at Teatro alla Scala, a return to the Wiener Staatsoper as Florestan in Fidelio, Apollo in Daphne with Seattle Opera, The Flying Dutchman and Guerrelieder at the Tokyo Spring Festival, and Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos with the Glyndebourne Festival.

Polish bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny regularly appears at the world’s most important opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Teatro Real Madrid, and at the Bayreuth and Salzburg festivals.

Highlights of his 2025–26 season include Arabella and Tristan und Isolde at the Metropolitan, Salome at the Vienna State Opera, and Fidelio at the Bavarian State Opera and with The Cleveland Orchestra.

Konieczny is also a successful concert performer, with a repertoire ranging from J.S. Bach to Penderecki. His discography includes recordings of the Ring cycle and Schubert’s Winterreise, alongside his recent lied CD, From Secession to Distortion.

Konieczny was named Austrian Kammersänger in 2019 and was awarded the Gold Medal for Cultural Merit “Gloria Artis” in 2022.

Bass-baritone Dashon Burton’s 2025–26 season highlights include Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Fidelio with The Cleveland Orchestra. He also sings Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer and Mozart’s Requiem with the New Jersey Symphony, appears with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, and presents a recital at The Phillips Collection.

Burton received the Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album in 2021 for Ethyl Smyth’s The Prison with The Experiential Orchestra and has twice won with the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, of which he is a founding member. His discography also includes Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road and Caroline Shaw’s The Listeners.

Burton holds degrees from Oberlin College and Conservatory and Yale University. He is assistant professor of voice at Vanderbilt University.

Soprano Ashley Emerson is sought after for her effervescent singing and storytelling in repertoire ranging from Vivaldi to Thomas Adès. In the 2025–26 season, Emerson returns to The Cleveland Orchestra for Beethoven’s Fidelio and makes her debut with Anchorage Opera in The Medium and Gianni Schicchi.

Emerson is a veteran of the Metropolitan Opera, where she holds over 220 performance credits. She has also appeared in major roles with Boston Lyric Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Seattle Opera, and Opera National de Bordeaux. In concert, Emerson has appeared with the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, Brooklyn Art Song Society, Bangor Symphony Orchestra, and ChoralArt of Maine, among others.

Emerson received training at the University of Southern Maine, the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and the Opera Theatre of St. Louis’s Gerdine Young Artist Program.

Canadian tenor Owen McCausland is increasingly in demand for both operatic and symphonic engagements worldwide.

Recent highlights include Berg’s Wozzeckwith the Canadian Opera Company, Mozart’s Requiem with the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, and Così fan tutte and The Magic Flute with Vancouver Opera. He returns to The Cleveland Orchestra after appearances in Verdi’s Otello and Puccini’s The Girl of the Golden West.

Additional prior engagements include Haydn’s The Creation with the Victoria Symphony, Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the world premiere of Matthew Ricketts’s opera Chaakapesh: The Trickster’s Quest with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal under the baton of Kent Nagano.

Now in its 74th season, The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus is celebrated for its versatility and refined musicianship, appearing regularly with The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance and Blossom Music Center. As one of the few all-volunteer, professionally trained choruses affiliated with a major American orchestra, it received the 2019–20 Distinguished Service Award, recognizing extraordinary service to the Orchestra. 

Visit cochorus.com for more information on the Chorus and auditions.