Artis—Naples’ Beethoven Festival TO LIGHT 2026-27 Season

Even two hundred years after his death, Ludwig van Beethoven cannot be consigned to the past. Attempting to separate his influence from the music that followed would be something like trying to remove salt from seawater. His symphonies, concertos and chamber works altered expectations of what music could express, while some of his melodies have become part of a cultural vocabulary that extends far beyond the concert hall.

Eminent soprano
Renée Fleming

In 2027, Artis—Naples joins orchestras and cultural institutions around the world in marking the bicentenary of Beethoven’s death with a season-long multidisciplinary tribute to his music, life and legacy, culminating in a special Beethoven Festival: To Light, March 2-20, featuring the Naples Philharmonic performing all nine symphonies in sequence.

Rather than approaching Beethoven solely through a collection of familiar masterworks, the 2026-27 season follows the path of an artist, composer, innovator and human being who never stopped evolving: an ambitious young composer stretching the constraints of existing forms, a maturing mind reinventing them and, eventually, a musician confronting profound personal challenges while continuing to imagine music of extraordinary vitality.

In a season guided by the theme To Light: The Art of Hope, Beethoven’s growth is a natural central thread.

“As we planned the 2026-27 Artis—Naples season, I kept returning to the idea that so many of the great musical journeys begin in struggle and move toward illumination,” says Alexander Shelley, Sharon and Timothy Ubben Artistic and Music Director. “Beethoven stands at the center of that tradition.”

Alexander Shelley conducts the Naples
Philharmonic.
Photo by Darron R. Silva Photography.

Naturally, a season connected to a figure of Beethoven’s stature takes many forms, from chamber music and orchestral performances to discussions, theatrical programs and visual arts. At The Baker Museum, Linling Lu: Fugue in 3 Voices, open through January 3, moves the conversation into the visual realm through new paintings inspired by composers heard in the Naples Philharmonic Masterworks series, including Beethoven. A December 11 artist talk with Lu, Shelley and The Baker Museum Director and Chief Curator Courtney McNeil further considers the relationship between sound and color. Visiting orchestras add their own perspectives as The Cleveland Orchestra performs the Fifth Symphony on January 26 and the London Symphony Orchestra performs the Violin Concerto with violinist Maxim Vengerov on March 9. In addition to the symphony cycle, the Naples Philharmonic collaborates with eminent soprano Renée Fleming and baritone Thomas Hampson in a Masterworks program on January 7 and 9, and in special performances on March 10-12 with actor and playwright Tama Matheson in his award-winning music-play, Beethoven: I Shall Hear in Heaven. Encountered in these diverse settings, Beethoven emerges by turns as witty, defiant, restless, vulnerable and deeply humane.

“We wanted to find ways to show the growth and development of Beethoven as an artist throughout his life and how this evolution impacted his music,” says David Filner, Artis—Naples executive vice president, artistic operations. “These insights allow audiences to have a deeper understanding even of familiar works in the context of Beethoven’s life and career.”

All of these paths converge in March. During the Beethoven festival, March 2-20, Shelley and the Naples Philharmonic undertake all nine symphonies in order, presenting listeners with a rare opportunity to experience Beethoven’s artistic metamorphosis almost in real time: the Classical poise of the First, the widening scale of the Second, the revolutionary reach of the Eroica, the concentrated force of the Fifth, the openness of the Pastoral and the rhythmic drive and invention that propel the later works.

Heard in sequence, the nine works reveal a composer continually searching, experimenting and expanding before arriving at the Ninth and its affirmation of joy and human fellowship. “Through performances of all nine symphonies across two exceptional weeks, the Naples Philharmonic follows the arc of a composer who transformed the symphonic form into something philosophical, something political and, ultimately, something universal,” Shelley explains. “To hear the nine symphonies in sequence is to hear an idea develop into conviction—the belief that music can change how we feel and how we understand ourselves
and one another.” Here, the cycle becomes the culmination of a much longer encounter, one that has spent a season immersed in Beethoven’s life and music across the concert hall, the gallery and beyond.

Tickets and additional details can be found at ArtisNaples.org

ARTIS-NAPLES Home of The Baker Museum & Naples Philharmonic