The Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra opens its 2026–27 season on September 25 in Makati. It closes in April on the home stage it hasn’t played since 2023.
For three years, the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO) has been a touring orchestra in its own city. Its home, the main building of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), closed in 2023 for rehabilitation, and the orchestra has performed at venues around Metro Manila since. Its new season, Modulatio, ends on April 16, 2027 with a return to the Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo, the CCP Main Theater.
The PPO is the CCP’s resident symphony orchestra, founded in 1973, and this is its forty-second concert season in its fifty-third year. It runs eight concerts from September 25 to April 16 under music director and principal conductor Grzegorz Nowak. CCP president Kaye Tinga described the season’s aim as bringing “the world to Manila and Filipino artistry to the forefront” of the international stage.
The title borrows the Latin word for modulation, the musical term for moving from one key to another. The CCP frames the season the same way, with the orchestra shifting across several centuries of repertoire over eight nights.
A Season Threaded With Filipino Composers
The opening concert, Da Capo, pairs Filipino composer Jeffrey Ching’s playfully titled “What Happens in Every Classical Piece Explained in 15 Minutes,” which the CCP is billing as a world premiere, with the Asian premiere of Austrian composer Carl Czerny’s Symphony No. 6. Spanish pianist Martín García García plays Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, the “Emperor.”
Ching returns twice more over the season, and he isn’t the only local composer on the bill. October’s Elegance features Redentor Romero’s Philippine Portraits. January’s Genesis premieres Jerry Dadap’s Symphony No. 5 alongside excerpts from Ching’s opera Frankenstein, with Russian-American pianist Natasha Paremski playing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3. The April finale brings in soloists and a chorus for Ching’s completion of the Lacrimosa, Sanctus, Benedictus and Osanna fragments from Mozart’s unfinished Requiem.
The Soloists
Filipino soloists share the season with visiting ones. Harpist Vien Ignacio plays Handel in October, violinist Kaycee Galano plays Saint-Saëns in November, and violinist Diomedes Saraza Jr. takes on Shostakovich’s first violin concerto in February. Italian pianist Mario Galeani plays Beethoven in December, Korean violinist Ju-Young Baek plays Szymanowski in March, and Ukrainian violinist Dmytro Udovychenko closes the season with Elgar’s Violin Concerto, on a program that also includes Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique.
The Big Orchestral Nights
Around the concertos, most programs are built on a large orchestral work. Elegance pairs the Romero with Polish composer Zygmunt Noskowski’s The Steppe. November’s Bolero runs Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso into the Ravel piece that gives the concert its name. December’s Destiny is an all-Beethoven night, with the Egmont Overture and the “Eroica” Symphony around Galeani’s Piano Concerto No. 4.
February’s Resilience stays with Shostakovich for the whole evening, adding his Festive Overture and Symphony No. 5 to Saraza’s concerto. March’s Visions pairs Schumann’s Manfred Overture with César Franck’s Symphony in D minor.
Two Stages, Then Home
Until the finale, the season splits between two venues. Concerts I, III, IV and V are at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater in Circuit Makati. Concerts II, VI and VII are at the Metropolitan Theater in Manila, the 1931 Art Deco landmark that reopened in 2021 after its restoration. Only the April finale, Al Fine, returns to the CCP Main Theater, closing both the season and the orchestra’s years away from its home stage.
The Schedule
- September 25, 2026: Concert I, Da Capo, Samsung Performing Arts Theater
- October 16: Concert II, Elegance, Metropolitan Theater
- November 6: Concert III, Bolero, Samsung Performing Arts Theater
- December 4: Concert IV, Destiny, Samsung Performing Arts Theater
- January 15, 2027: Concert V, Genesis, Samsung Performing Arts Theater
- February 12: Concert VI, Resilience, Metropolitan Theater
- March 12: Concert VII, Visions, Metropolitan Theater
- April 16: Concert VIII, Al Fine, CCP Main Theater (Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo)
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Updates and tickets: through the CCP’s official website (culturalcenter.gov.ph) and social media pages.