Schwartz Center’s 2025-26 season: Itzhak Perlman, Harlem Quartet, Cameron Carpenter and more

The Schwartz’s upcoming season promises a mix of boundary-pushing music from organist Cameron Carpenter and the Grammy-winning Harlem Quartet, along with superstar violinist Itzhak Perlman and emerging star cellist Sterling Elliott.

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Emory University’s Schwartz Center for Performing Arts is aiming high with its 2025-2026 season. While the Schwartz is known for hosting outstanding musicians, it has set the bar particularly high this time, with Itzhak Perlman as its most notable guest artist.

Famed for his interpretations of Niccolò Paganini, among others, the violin superstar will perform March 26, 2026, in a multimedia concert full of insight into his background and career. Perlman turns 80 this August, and that alone should galvanize would-be attendees into action. Accompanying Perlman will be pianist Rohan de Silva, a longtime collaborator and friend.

Grammy winning mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges will appear April 10, 2026, with the Catalyst Quartet and pianist Terrence Wilson for an evening built around Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Fantasiestucke, op. 5. Where Perlman’s performance will be an opportunity to pay homage to the classical, this promises to be an exploration of a lesser known, late 19th-century composer born to an English mother and West African father. Coleridge-Taylor enjoyed acclaim in his day and was noted for combining mainstay classical influences such as Dvořák and Tchaikovsky with elements of African folk music. 

In a similar culturally expansive vein is Murmurs in Time, a new work by the late Zakir Hussain that combines Hindustani classical music with the unique stylings of Third Coast Percussion and tabla virtuoso/Hussain protege Salar Nader on October 17. A recording of Third Coast Percussion performing the work with Hussain was released in February of this year through Cedille Records, showcasing rhythmically intricate arrangements that are captivating and hypnotic.

The Harlem Quartet will  present a diverse evening of classical works and Cuban musical traditions with pianist Aldo López-Gavilán. The ensemble’s mission is to elevate minority voices, which the Sphinx Virtuosi will also do in its performance on February 19, 2026. That concert will feature cellist Sterling Elliott, who recently performed with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

Organist Cameron Carpenter has raised eyebrows with his renderings of Bach played on his custom touring organ. He will perform his unique renditions of Bach’s Goldberg Variations and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition on November 7.

Grammy-winning pianist Víkingur Ólafsson performs Beethoven, Bach and Brahms January 29, 2026, but it’s the boundary pushers and hybrid ensembles in the Schwartz’s upcoming season that command the most attention. And at a time when groups like Challenge the Stats are making concerted efforts in Atlanta to highlight composers from diverse backgrounds, it’s encouraging to see that composers like Coleridge-Taylor are being given the spotlight. 

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Jordan Owen began writing about music professionally at the age of 16 in Oxford, Mississippi. A 2006 graduate of the Berklee College of Music, he is a professional guitarist, bandleader and composer. He is currently the lead guitarist for the jazz group Other Strangers, the power metal band Axis of Empires and the melodic death/thrash metal band Century Spawn.