Announcing The Soraya's 2025-26 Season

News provided by

Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts at California State University, Northridge

May 13, 2025, 21:11 ET

Highlights of the 15^th Anniversary Season:
Opening Weekend - Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish
World Premiere: Martha Graham Dance Company & Leonard Bernstein
Disney and Pixar's Toy Story 30^th Anniversary Live-to-Film Concert
Quincy Jones Tribute Concert; Chris Walden and Pacific Jazz Orchestra
Gregory Porter: Christmas Wish
Riccardo Muti Conducts Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Duke Ellington Concert of Sacred Music: Led by Gerald Clayton

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Click HERE for full press release & press kit

LOS ANGELES, May 13, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Executive and Artistic Director Thor Steingraber unveiled The Soraya's 15^th Anniversary Season May 9 at the annual Director's Dinner. The season will include 41 performances across 32 events, and run from Sept. 13, 2025 to Apr. 25, 2026.

"Each of The Soraya's performance seasons is a journey, an exploration of new or novel themes, as well as a return to timeless ideas," said Steingraber. "The Soraya's 2025–26 Season—our 15^th—encompasses diverse experiences including the nightlife of Lisbon, Buenos Aires, and Mexico City; the daily life of West Africa; the spiritual realms explored by Alice Coltrane and Duke Ellington; the masterworks of Brahms and the megahits of Quincy Jones; and more."

Continuing a Soraya tradition, the season features events from nearly every performing arts genre — jazz, dance, classical, Broadway, and film, along with Soraya original productions.

The 2025–26 Season Includes:

The Classical Music series with the Soraya debut of violinist Ray Chen (Oct. 30); the return of Joshua Bell and Academy of St Martin in the Fields (Feb. 26), and The Soraya debut of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra with Yuja Wang (Apr. 25).
The Soraya's Music Knows No Borders series, which brings not only a wide spectrum of world-class international musicians to The Soraya stage, but their cultures as well. The series will begin Nov. 6 with fado singer Mariza and includes the Tigran Hamasyan Trio (Mar. 7); Quinteto Astor Piazzolla (Mar. 21); and Cirque Kalabanté's Afrique En Cirque (Mar. 22).
The fifth-annual Jazz at Naz festival, held in Feb. 2026. Recently named by DownBeat magazine as one of the world's top jazz venues of 2025 and the winner of "Best Festival" in San Francisco Classical Voice's 2024 Audience Choice Awards.