The Department of Music in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis will host five regular-season performances by internationally renowned musicians as part of its 2026-27 Great Artists Series. In addition, the series will feature a special sixth concert, a 10th anniversary celebration with star pianist Yuja Wang.
“For ten years, the Great Artists Series has hosted dozens of performances by both world-renowned artists and rising talents,” said Patrick Burke, a professor and chair of music. “We look forward to this special anniversary season and to many more seasons to come.”
Launched in 2017, the Great Artists Series presents intimate recitals featuring some of the brightest stars of the contemporary concert stage. All concerts take place in WashU’s historic E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall, located in the 560 Music Center in University City.
The season will open Nov. 9 with acclaimed pianist Igor Levit, followed Jan. 31 by Grammy Award-winning ensemble Imani Winds. The Viano Quartet, currently serving as quartet-in-residence at Lincoln Center, will perform Feb. 21.
Mezzo-soprano and St. Louis native Jennifer Johnson Cano will join violist Beth Guterman Chu and pianist Christopher Cano March 7. Benedicte Maurseth, a celebrated fiddler from Norway’s Hardanger region, will join cross-cultural ensemble Constantinople for “Northern Lights in a Persian Sky” April 2.
The 10th anniversary celebration will take place April 6. Wang, one of the most acclaimed soloists of her generation, is a five-time Grammy nominee and, in 2024, won for Best Classical Instrumental Solo.
“Yuja Wang is a transcendent musician,” said Jennifer Gartley, director of programming for the Department of Music. “She is a dazzling virtuoso and charismatic stage presence who plays with precision and artistry. We are thrilled to welcome her to St. Louis.”
Tickets
Subscriptions are available in two packages. Subscriptions to the five regular-season concerts are $150 (a 25% savings on single ticket prices). Subscriptions to the full concert series — the five regular concerts and the 10th anniversary celebration — are $200 (a 33% savings).
Both subscription packages include premier reserved seating, pre-concert talks with faculty experts, post-concert receptions with the artists (when available) and all ticketing fees. Subscription renewals are available now. New subscriptions go on sale May 18.
Single tickets to the 10th anniversary celebration are $65-$95. Single tickets for all other concerts are $35-$40, or $32-$37 for WashU faculty and staff, and $15 for students and children. Single tickets go on sale Aug. 10.
The 560 Music Center is located at 560 Trinity Ave., at the intersection with Delmar Boulevard. Tickets are available through the WashU Box Office, 314-935-6543.
Igor Levit
Igor Levit is one of the “most important artists of his generation” (The New York Times), a pianist “like no other” (The New Yorker), who places his art in the context of social events and understands it as inseparably linked to them.
Born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, in 1987, Levit moved to Germany with his family at age 8. He completed piano studies at the Hannover University of Music, Drama and Media and in 2005 was the youngest participant in the International Arthur Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv, Israel — winning silver, the audience prize and two special prizes. He has presented recitals on many of the world’s foremost stages, including the Musikverein Vienna, Philharmonie Berlin, La Scala Milan, Carnegie Hall in New York and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.
In 2019, Levit became a professor of piano at his alma mater, released his acclaimed recording of the 32 Beethoven sonatas and was named Gramophone’s Artist of the Year. Other honors include the 5th International Beethoven Prize (2019); the Opus Klassik, Germany’s most prestigious classical music award (2020); the Statue B of the International Auschwitz Committee (also 2020); and the BBC Music Magazine’s Recording of the Year Award for his album “On DSCH” (2022).
He is co-artistic director of the Heidelberger Frühling Musikfestival and initiated Piano Fest at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland.
Imani Winds
Celebrating nearly three decades of transformative music-making, the Grammy-winning ensemble Imani Winds is “a quintet of skilled and spirited musicians” (Washington Post) who have “stretched the genre into an entirely different universe of sound possibilities” (Philadelphia Inquirer).
Founded in 1997, Imani Winds has led both a revolution and an evolution of the wind quintet. Known for dynamic playing, adventurous programming, imaginative collaborations and impactful outreach, the group bridges traditional and the contemporary repertoire, featuring core chamber works, reimagined arrangements and newly commissioned pieces by both renowned and rising composers.
Now in their 29th touring season, Imani Winds regularly appears on major chamber music series and at leading performing arts centers and summer festivals, including Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Chamber Music Northwest, Banff Centre and Chautauqua Institution.
Their many recordings include the Grammy-winning “For Bach and Coltrane” (2023) and the Grammy-nominated “The Classical Underground” (2005), “Bruits (Bright Shiny Things)” (2021) and “Belonging” (2024).
Viano Quartet
Praised for their “virtuosity, visceral expression and rare unity of intention” (Boston Globe), the Viano Quartet has quickly soared to international acclaim as one of the most dynamic and in-demand string quartets of its generation.
Formed in 2015 at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, Viano Quartet comprises Hao Zhou, Lucy Wang, Aiden Kane and Tate Zawadiuk. The group is celebrated for its emotive and technically superb performances and has appeared at Berlin’s Konzerthaus, Toronto’s Koerner Hall, Hong Kong’s City Hall and London’s Wigmore Hall, among many others. They currently serve as Bowers Program Artists at The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York. Other honors include the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant (2025) and first prize at the 13th Banff International String Quartet Competition (2023).
Equally committed to beloved masterworks and contemporary repertoire, the Viano Quartet actively collaborates with today’s leading composers, including Sir Stephen Hough, Kevin Lau, Chris Rogerson and Caroline Shaw. They are set to premiere a newly written string quartet by Indian-American composer Reena Esmail in the summer of 2026. Their discography includes the EP “Portraits” (2023) and their first full-length album, “Voyager” (2025).
Jennifer Johnson Cano, with Beth Guterman Chu and Christopher Cano
Jennifer Johnson Cano is a “riveting” mezzo-soprano (Wall Street Journal), a “matchless interpreter of contemporary opera” (Opera News) who sings with “honesty and assurance” (The New York Times).
In 2024, Cano created the role of Michele in the Santa Fe Opera’s production of “The Righteous,” by Gregory Spears and Tracy K. Smith. Opera Today praised her arias as “flawless combinations of radiant, poised, attractive singing invested with heartfelt delivery.” In 2025, she returned to Sante Fe to sing the role of Mrs. Grose in Britten’s “The Turn of the Screw” as well as Schwertleite in Wagner’s “Die Walküre.”
Cano’s 2025-26 season includes engagements with the Chicago Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, the Colorado Symphony, the Seattle Symphony and The Apollo Orchestra. Tours include a project with Simone Dinnerstein, and her ensemble Baroklyn, and a week with the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan. In March, she returned to New York’s Metropolitan Opera in her role debut as Suzuki in Madama Butterfly — marking her 150th performance at The Met.
A native of St. Louis, Cano earned degrees from Rice University and Webster University, where she was honored as a distinguished alumna and commencement speaker in May 2017. “Unaffected: Live from the Savannah Voice Festival,” her debut recital recording, with her husband, pianist Christopher Cano, was released in 2014. In April, the couple will premiere a new song cycle by Spears at the Tucson Desert Song Festival.
Benedicte Maurseth with Constantinople
Benedicte Maurseth is a “neo-folk luminary” (BBC Music Magazine) whose “intricate compositions” explore “traditional music, nature and landscape” (The Guardian). Veteran Montreal-based ensemble Constantinople has “an intriguing east-meets-west quality” (New York Times) that “bridges cultures with virtuosity” (San Francisco Classical Voice).
Maurseth, a Hardanger fiddler, composer and author, apprenticed for decades under master fiddler Knut Hamre. She has completed commissions for Kronos Quartet, Prague Music Ensemble, Ensemble neoN and other prestigious groups, and toured extensively as a soloist both within Norway and internationally. Her album “Hárr” (2022) received the Nordic Music Prize and was recognized by The Guardian as one of the year’s 10 best folk music albums globally. She also is author of “Fiddlesisters” (2022), a nonfiction account of female fiddlers from the 18th century to the present.
Constantinople was founded in 2001 by setar virtuoso and acclaimed composer Kiya Tabassian. Inspired by the ancient city, the meeting point of east and west, Constantinople fosters cross-cultural exchanges and music-making with artists from around the world. The group regularly performs at prestigious festivals and concert halls, from the Salle Pleyel in Paris and the Berliner Philharmonie to Morocco’s Fes Festival of World Sacred Music, Mexico’s Cervantino Festival and Tunisia’s Festival de Carthage. To date, they have released 23 albums.
Yuja Wang
A pianist of “dazzling virtuosity” (Bachtrack), Wang is a “ferocious” performer (The Guardian) capable of “pouncing on a rare concerto like a lioness on a baby gazelle” (The Times of London).
Born into a musical family, Wang began studying piano at age 6, later training at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Her international breakthrough came in 2007, when she replaced Martha Argerich as soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Two years later, she signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon and has since established her place among the world’s leading artists, with a succession of critically acclaimed performances and albums.
Wang has performed with many of the world’s most venerated conductors, musicians and ensembles, and is renowned not only for her virtuosity, but her spontaneous and lively performances. “I firmly believe every program should have its own life,” she famously told The New York Times, “and be a representation of how I feel at the moment.”
Wang’s recordings have garnered multiple awards, including five Grammy nominations and her first Grammy win for Best Classical Instrumental Solo for “The American Project” (2023). For this, she also won an Opus Klassik award in the concerto category.
