The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Pulitzer Arts Foundation announce programming for 2026/27 Live at the Pulitzer chamber music series

(October 20, 2026, St. Louis, MO) – The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Pulitzer Arts Foundation announced details for its 2026/27 Live at the Pulitzer concerts—the 23rd year of their innovative collaboration that explores the intersection of music and visual art. A convergence of aural and visual storytelling, Live at the Pulitzer concerts present bold and adventurous chamber music by composers of the 20th and 21st centuries, performed by SLSO musicians within the galleries of the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in response to the exhibitions on display. The concerts are November 10, January 26, and April 13–14. All concerts begin at 7:30pm.

Recognized for its exceptional programming, the 26/27 Live at the Pulitzer concerts were curated by Christopher Stark—composer and Associate Professor of Composition at Washington University in St. Louis—whose new SLSO-commissioned violin concerto will receive its world premiere by SLSO Music Director Stéphane Denève and Associate Concertmaster Erin Schreiber as soloist in April 2027. The concerts serve as a conversation between music and visual art, curated in response to the remarkable exhibitions on display at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation: Olga de Amaral: Weaving the Infinite (fall/winter 2026/27); Fred Wilson: Irma, Ota, and I (spring 2027); and Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination (spring 2027). The series has become a highlight of the St. Louis concert scene, and enjoys deeply engaged, capacity audiences. 

This season, the Live at the Pulitzer series includes performances of music by leading composers of the 21st century, including Martin Bresnick, Donnacha Dennehy, Sarah Gibson, Jonny Greenwood, Fred Onovwerosuoke, Shawn Okpebholo, Caroline Shaw, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Christopher Theofanidis, Olly Wilson, and Julia Wolfe, along with music by György Ligeti and Adolfo Mejía, two influential composers of the 20th century.

At the Live at the Pulitzer concerts, the Tadao Ando-designed building—one of the finest examples of contemporary architecture in the United States—provides an intimate setting for these innovative concerts, all played by small ensembles of SLSO musicians under the 2001 wall sculpture Blue Black by American painter, sculptor, and printmaker Ellsworth Kelly.

These concerts add to the SLSO’s diverse musical offerings for the season, the 147th of the orchestra, and to the portfolio of activities at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, the museum presenting acclaimed exhibitions of contemporary and historical art. The two institutions serve as cultural and civic assets for the St. Louis region, both located in the city’s Grand Center neighborhood.

Concerts take place at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, 3716 Washington Blvd. Tickets for the series are on sale now.

Tuesday, November 10, 7:30pm CST

Jennifer Nitchman, flute
Kevin Ritenauer, percussion
Peter Henderson, piano
Bjorn Ranheim, cello

Martin Bresnick Ishi’s Song (First SLSO performance)
Donnacha Dennehy Bridget (First SLSO performance)
Adolfo Mejía Preludio:Luminosidad de las aguas (First SLSO performance)
Adolfo Mejía El burrito (First SLSO performance)
Donnacha Dennehy Woven (First SLSO performance)
Julia Wolfe  Weave (First SLSO performance)

Inspired by the exhibition Olga de Amaral: Weaving the Infinite, this eclectic program explores the intersection of textiles and folk traditions across the Americas, with musical textures that echo the pattern of Amaral’s visionary works. Martin Bresnick channels melodies of the Yahi people of Northern California for solo piano, while a solo flute builds repetitious patterns inspired by the British artist Bridget Riley in Donnacha Dennehy’s Bridget. Adolfo Mejía infuses his piano music with the sounds of musical life in his native Colombia. The concert closes with two pieces deeply tied to textiles. Dennehy’s triptych for cello and marimba evokes sounds of sewing and knitting, while Julia Wolfe’s Weave, the piano knits a tapestry of intense rhythmic energy.

Tuesday, January 26, 7:30pm CST

Sarah Kirkland Snider Thread and Fray (First SLSO performance)
Christopher Theofanidis Aria (First SLSO performance)
Jonny Greenwood Suite from There Will Be Blood (First SLSO performance)
Sarah Gibson Carry (First SLSO performance)
Caroline Shaw Valencia (First SLSO performance)
Caroline Shaw Blueprint (First SLSO performance)

Artists to be announced.

Presented during the final week of Olga de Amaral: Weaving the Infinite, this singular performance offers a final opportunity to experience the exhibition through a vibrant tapestry of sound. Jonny Greenwood and Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Caroline Shaw are composers equally at home in the film studio and on the concert stage. Two string quartets, Shaw’s Blueprint takes its title from Japanese woodblock printing traditions while Valencia embraces the architecture of a seemingly simple Valencia orange. Music by Sarah Kirkland Snider, Christopher Theofanidis, and Sarah Gibson weave a thread between Shaw’s music and a string quartet by Jonny Greenwood, whose music to the 2007 film There Will Be Blood received widespread acclaim.

Tuesday, April 13, 7:30pm CDT
Wednesday, April 14, 7:30pm CDT

Fred Onovwerosuoke “Rooster” from 24 Studies in African Rhythms(First SLSO performance)
György Ligeti “Arc-en-ciel” from Etudes for Piano
Fred Onovwerosuoke “Sanza” from 24 Studies in African Rhythms(First SLSO performance)
György Ligeti “Fém” from Etudes for Piano
Fred Onovwerosuoke “Jali” from 24 Studies in African Rhythms(First SLSO performance)
Fred Onovwerosuoke “Mother Earth” from 24 Studies in African Rhythms(First SLSO performance)
György Ligeti  Six Bagatelles
Olly Wilson Piano Piece (First SLSO performance)
Shawn Okpebholo Rise (First SLSO performance)

Artists to be announced.

The final Live at the Pulitzer program of the 2026/27 season celebrates the influence of Africa on contemporary classical music with piano works by two composers with St. Louis roots—Fred Onovwerosuoke and Olly Wilson—alongside a duo of woodwind quintets from György Ligeti and Shawn Okpebholo. Onovwerosuoke, who founded the St. Louis African Chorus in 1994, explores the musical identity of his native west Africa for solo piano, paired with piano works by György Ligeti that evokes images of rainbows and metal. The examination of Afrodiasporic music continues with Piano Piece by Olly Wilson, a St. Louis native whose body of work emphasizes African culture. Shawn Okpebholo’s Rise for wind quintet unfolds as a journey through the ongoing struggle for racial justice.

Colombian artist Olga de Amaral (b. 1932) is one of the most groundbreaking figures in fiber art. Amaral was trained in architectural drafting in Bogotá and weaving at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. Upon her return to Colombia in 1955, she began to develop experimental woven forms that would eventually blur the boundaries between weaving, sculpture, and painting. She simultaneously established the commercial design studio Telas Amaral to produce clothing and fabrics for interiors. For five decades she has pursued a fiber arts practice marked by material exploration, technical innovation, and an architectural scale.

This exhibition traces Amaral’s evolution from her early weavings of the 1950s to her monumental textiles of the 2000s, bringing together celebrated and rarely seen works. The first presentation to include fabric and samples from her design studio Telas Amaral, Olga de Amaral: Weaving the Infinite also features works on paper and historic and contemporary weavings collected by Amaral. These reflect her deep engagement with global and local textile traditions.
 
This exhibition is co-organized by the Pulitzer Arts Foundation and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. The exhibition is co-curated by Stephanie Weissberg, Senior Curator, with Molly Moog, Curatorial Associate, Pulitzer Arts Foundation; and Christina L. De León, Associate Curator of Latino Design, with Sophia Gebara, Curatorial Assistant of Latino Design, Cooper Hewitt; with support from Jillian Lepek and Maria Magdalena Ugarte Montero.

Renowned artist Fred Wilson (b. 1954) explores how models of collecting and display shape our understanding of identity, memory, and power. This exhibition examines the intertwined histories of the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition (World’s Fair) held in St. Louis and Wilson’s own familial history, which spans several generations in the city during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Wilson’s engagement with the World’s Fair dates to a 2008 bronze bust he created of Ota Benga—a Mbuti man who was captured from the Congo and exhibited at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and later the Bronx Zoo. Wilson cast the sculpture from a plaster bust produced by The American Museum of Natural History, which commissioned life masks of Benga and dozens of people from around the world who were displayed at the 1904 World’s Fair. At the Pulitzer, Wilson extends this exploration of Benga’s legacy, drawing connections across observation, perception, self-fashioning, and nationhood.

The exhibition brings together sculptures, paintings, and works on paper produced by Wilson over the past three decades. Alongside his own work, Wilson presents historic artworks from local collections related to the 1904 World’s Fair and its legacy, as well as personal objects belonging to his paternal grandmother, Irma Dixon, who was born and raised less than a mile from the Pulitzer. Through these juxtapositions, Wilson’s iconic flag paintings, Murano glass chandeliers, and mirrors enter into dialogue with historic objects, interrogating the construction of national and racial identity while inviting reflection on the African diaspora in a global context.

This exhibitionis organized by Stephanie Weissberg, Senior Curator, Pulitzer Arts Foundation. Fred Wilson is represented by Pace Gallery.

Can a photographic portrait inspire political imagination? Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination examines how photographers and their sitters contributed to the proliferation of Pan-African solidarity during the mid-20th century. Embracing the international spirit of the time, the exhibition gathers striking pictures by photographers working in Central and West African cities. They created images of everyday citizens, dazzling music scenes, and potent manifestations of youth culture that reflected emerging political realities.

Photographs by Jean Depara, Seydou Keïta, Malick Sidibé, and Sanlé Sory portray residents across Bamako, Bobo-Dioulasso, and Kinshasa at a time when the winds of decolonial change swept the African continent in tandem with the burgeoning US Civil Rights movement. The exhibition also spotlights James Barnor and Kwame Brathwaite—photographers living in Europe and North America who contributed to the construction of Africa as a political idea. Contemporary works by artists such as Samuel Fosso, Silvia Rosi, and Njideka Akunyili Crosby show the enduring relevance of these themes. Brimming with possibility, Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination embraces the creative potential of the photographic portrait and its political resonance across the globe.

The exhibition was originally presented at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, where it was on view from December 14, 2025, through July 25, 2026.

This exhibition is organized by Oluremi C. Onabanjo, formerly the Peter Schub Curator, with the assistance of Chiara M. Mannarino, Curatorial Assistant, The Robert B. Menschel Department of Photography at MoMA. Onabanjo is currently Curator in the Department of Photographs at The Met. The Pulitzer Arts Foundation presentation is facilitated by Heather Alexis Smith, Assistant Curator.

Celebrated as one of today’s most exciting, innovative, and enduring orchestras, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra is the nation’s second oldest, marking its 147th year with the 2026/27 season. The visionary and heartfelt approach of Stéphane Denève, The Joseph and Emily Rauh Pulitzer Music Director, anchors more than 400 extraordinary artists across four ensembles.  

A leading American orchestra, the Grammy Award–winning SLSO is dedicated to its mission of enriching lives through the power of music, fostering a vibrant and connected community. The SLSO is committed to making music more accessible to all, furthered by the September 2025 reopening of its expanded and renovated home, the Jack C. Taylor Music Center, with historic Powell Hall at its heart. A cornerstone of the St. Louis region, the SLSO partners with more than 150 community organizations to deepen music access.  

The SLSO shapes the orchestra of the future through its commitment to integrity, innovation, collaboration, inclusion, and responsiveness, elevating St. Louis as a global destination.  

Located in the Grand Center Arts District, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation is dedicated to bringing world-class art and exhibitions to the St. Louis region. Exhibitions include both contemporary and historical art and are complemented by a wide range of free public programs, including music, literary arts, dance, and cultural discussions. Open and free to all, the Pulitzer is a cultural and civic asset to the St. Louis community and a popular destination for visitors from around the world. Since its founding, the Pulitzer has played a pivotal role in the resurgence of the Grand Center Arts District. The museum is open Thursday through Sunday, 10am–5pm, until 9pm on First Fridays. For more information, visit pulitzerarts.org.

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