The Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s 2026/27 season signals a turning point. With Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu stepping in as Quantedge Music Director, the orchestra enters what its leadership describes as a period of discovery, recalibration and ambition.

For Lintu, the decision to come to Singapore was not incidental, but deeply tied to a moment of transition in his own career. These kinds of engagements depend on the stage of an artist’s career,” he reflects. “I was working so much in Europe, but something big was happening in Singapore, and I wanted to be part of it.”

That sense of momentum was both personal and institutional, and lies at the heart of the new season. Alongside Lintu, the orchestra welcomes new leadership figures, including Associate Conductor Nathanaël Iselin and Concertmaster Andrew Beer, forming what is effectively a refreshed artistic core.

Internally, the 2026/27 season is being framed as a period of mutual adjustment. As Christopher Cheong (Head, Artistic Planning) puts it: “It’s a bit of a season of discovery for a new music director to get to know the orchestra and for us to learn how to work with Hannu.”

That spirit of discovery is reflected in the scale and scope of the season itself. The Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s 2026/27 programme brings together cornerstone repertoire, contemporary voices and an expanded international presence.

Lintu’s inaugural concerts set the tone. He opens with Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 alongside Nomad Concerto, written for violinist Gil Shaham. The following week pairs Thus Spoke Zarathustra with Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, signalling a season that moves fluidly between the canonical and the contemporary.

Large-scale choral works remain central, including Messa da Requiem, while programmes across the year juxtapose Romantic staples by Brahms, Schumann and Schubert with music by living composers such as Lera Auerbach, Donghoon Shin and John Adams.

The season also marks a significant return to international touring. In October, the orchestra embarks on a seven-city China tour—its first since 2011—led by Lintu and featuring soloists Chloe Chua and He Ziyu. Pre-tour concerts in Singapore will preview the programme, including Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante.

Beyond the mainstage, the season is notable for its breadth of collaborations. Digital-era phenomenon TwoSet Violin joins the orchestra for a July project, while Agápe – The Human Connection, a cross-disciplinary production with Apsaras Dance Company and Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, brings together music and classical Indian dance.

At the same time, Singaporean voices remain firmly in focus. New commissions by composers including Germaine Goh, Sulwyn Lok and Tan Chan Boon will receive their premieres, while the National Day Concert spotlights local works alongside emerging performers. Taken together, the season reflects an orchestra balancing multiple priorities, tradition and experimentation, global reach and local identity, within a single, expansive programme.

Lintu’s inaugural concerts centre on cornerstone repertoire, Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, Strauss’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle deliberately. “The best way to create a good contact with an orchestra is to play standard repertoire,” Lintu explains. “Music which we all know, and which is part of our common background.”

For him, these works are not just audience favourites, but tools—ways of shaping sound, building trust, and establishing a shared musical language. Mahler’s Fifth, in particular, carries symbolic weight. “For Mahler himself it was a new start,” Lintu says. “He begins with a trumpet fanfare announcing that something new is happening. So something new is happening here.”

If Lintu brings artistic philosophy, Cheong provides the structural framework. The season reflects an intricate balancing act: between conductor, orchestra, soloists and audiences. “We discuss what we want to achieve,” Cheong explains. “Then I work with guest artists to find the best fit for them to do their best work.”

This collaborative model extends across the entire season. This results in a programme that blends established repertoire with contemporary works, international stars with local talent, a deliberate mix of the familiar and the exploratory. “Giving orchestra what orchestra needs, giving audience what audience needs, I get what I want here and there. He gets what he wants,” Lintu adds.

The season also underscores the SSO’s expanding international ambitions, most visibly in its October China tour, its first return since 2011, spanning seven cities including Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. Touring, Lintu notes, is essential for an orchestra seeking global stature: “If we want to make this orchestra even more internationally significant, touring is really needed.”

Yet even as the orchestra looks outward, questions of identity, particularly local identity, are increasingly central. For example: Singaporean composers who had historically been underrepresented. It is a challenge both Lintu and Cheong acknowledge. “We are the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, so we need to do Singaporean music,” Lintu says plainly. Cheong describes a more measured approach: “Our strategy is to do one-off commissions. If it works well, we recommission, and we are playing the long game.”

For Lintu, the opportunity lies not just in representation, but in discovering such distinct voices: “There is a possibility that we find a new Magnus Lindberg, because there are original voices here. Most of them have very strong local influences, more than anywhere else at this time.”

The challenge, he suggests, is to connect that local character to a broader international language without losing its identity. And underlying all of this is a deeper artistic question: what makes an orchestra truly distinctive in a globalised world? Lintu is candid about the current state of play: “Orchestras tend to sound the same: many play wonderfully, technically perfect, but they sound like each other.”

Part of the problem, he suggests, lies even beyond the concert hall: “The recording industry has their own sound. So it’s possible that many orchestras have the sound of a recording engineer, not their own. But it is actually possible to mould the sound into something more recognisable.”

For Singapore, a multicultural city with a diverse orchestra, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity. “It’s very important to know how different groups in this city react to different kinds of music,” he says. “That’s why we have Chris, because he knows the ecosystem.”

If the 2026/27 season is about laying foundations, the long-term ambition is unmistakable. Lintu envisions an orchestra that is not only regionally significant, but globally distinctive: “It already is a very significant Asian orchestra, but it’s possible to make it one of the best.”

And beyond that, a broader cultural aspiration: “Singapore can become the brightest star of Southeast Asia in terms of culture.”

For now, however, both conductor and orchestra are focused on the immediate journey ahead, one built on trust, experimentation and gradual transformation. We want the audience to trust us,” Lintu says. “That anything we offer them, we believe in it.”

As the season unfolds, with its mix of Mahler and Mozart, new commissions and returning stars, that trust will be tested, shaped and, perhaps, strengthened. Or as Cheong puts it: “Come with us on this journey and discover new music together, discover old classics together, and let’s see what the future holds.”

Photo Credits: Singapore Symphony Group

Tickets sales for the Singapore Symphony’s 2026/27 season begin on 20th April 2026 at sso.org.sg.