Holiday Gift Guide
Find the perfect gift this season with our Holiday Gift Guide!
This selection of upcoming events make great gifts for your loved ones.
Experience the magic of special concerts!
From holiday favorites like Elf in Concert or Handel’s Messiah, to film performances of the classics like Harry Potter or Star Wars, or even to an evening of musical generosity with American singer, songwriter, and composer Ben Folds, the experience of live music makes the perfect gift for the entire family.
Handel’s Messiah
New Jersey Symphony Holiday Tradition
Anthony Parnther conductor
Caitlin Gotimer soprano
Maria Dominique Lopez mezzo-soprano
Orson Van Gay II tenor
Shyheim Selvan Hinnant bass-baritone
Montclair State University Singers | Heather J. Buchanan, director
New Jersey Symphony
Handel’s Messiah embraces every emotion, from the first voice singing “Comfort ye,” inviting you to step aside from the season’s frenzy, to the riveting Amen Chorus at the end. In between are moments of transcendence, loss, and deeply-felt awe—what makes a classic a classic.
2026 Lunar New Year Celebration
Celebration of the Year of the Horse
Sunny Xia conductor
Haochen Zhang piano
Peking University Alumni Chorus
Starry Arts Children’s Chorus | Rebecca Shen, director
Edison Chinese School Lion Dance Team
New Jersey Symphony
Enjoy an evening of community and cultural exchange that is wonderful for families and children, as we celebrate the Year of the Horse. Seattle Symphony Associate Conductor Sunny Xia and Van Cliburn International Piano Competition Winner Haochen Zhang make their New Jersey Symphony debuts in this festive concert that celebrates music from East and West.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone™ in Concert
New Jersey Symphony at the Movies
Constantine Kitsopoulos conductor
New Jersey Symphony
Relive the film that started it all. Watch the wand choose the wizard, a troll run amok and magic mirrors in high-definition while a live orchestra performs John Williams’ iconic score. Don’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime event as Harry, Ron, Hermione and all your favorite characters return to the screen and enchant the world all over again.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi in Concert
New Jersey Symphony at the Movies
Constantine Kitsopoulos conductor
New Jersey Symphony
Don’t miss this big-screen battle with the score performed live by the New Jersey Symphony. The Resistance is in desperate need of help when they find themselves impossibly pursued by the First Order. While Rey travels to a remote planet called Ahch-To to recruit Luke Skywalker to the Resistance, Finn and Rose, a mechanic, go on their own mission in the hopes of helping the Resistance finally escape the First Order. But everyone finds themselves on the salt-planet of Crait for a last stand.
Ben Folds with New Jersey Symphony
Ben Folds Performs his Greatest Hits
Ben Folds guest artist
Edwin Outwater conductor
New Jersey Symphony
Emmy-nominated singer-songwriter-composer Ben Folds joins the New Jersey Symphony for a unique and unforgettable performance of music from across his career. Widely regarded as one of the major musical influences of our generation, Folds’ enormous body of genre-bending music includes pop albums with Ben Folds Five, multiple solo albums, and numerous collaborative records. His latest album, 2023’s What Matters Most, is a blend of piano-driven pop rock songs, while his 2015 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra soared to #1 on both the Billboard classical and classical crossover charts. He released his first Christmas album in 2024 and last Fall recorded a live album slated for release in 2025 with the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where he served for eight years as the first artistic advisor to the NSO.
Gift certificates that make shopping easier!
New Jersey Symphony gift certificates allow the music lovers in your life to select from their favorite performances across our entire season. Take the guesswork out of choosing a concert they’ll love and order a gift certificate. Plus, they never expire!
Upcoming classical favorites!
From all-star appearances from Randall Goosby and Time For Three, to fan-favorite works like Romeo and Juliet and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, these upcoming winter concerts are the classiest gifts money can buy.
Randall Goosby Returns
New Jersey Symphony Classical
Xian Zhang conductor
Randall Goosby violin
New Jersey Symphony
-
Jean Sibelius Finlandia
Eight minutes that saved a nation. When Finland wrestled itself free from the Russian bear, Sibelius’ music was the Finns’ call to courage.
-
Samuel Barber Violin Concerto
The most gorgeous violin concerto of the 20th century: the first two movements exquisitely touching, and the third a wild sprint for only the bravest of soloists.
-
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 2, “Ukrainian”
Three Ukrainian folksongs were all Tchaikovsky needed for inspiration. From them, he spun his most joyful symphony.
Romeo & Juliet
Featuring The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey
Xian Zhang conductor
The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey | Brian B. Crowe, director
Isaac Hickox-Young Romeo
Billie Wyatt Juliet
Jason Flamos lighting designer
New Jersey Symphony
-
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture
Tchaikovsky gives you all the passion and drama of Shakespeare’s two young lovers, as the New Jersey Symphony becomes a storyteller in real time.
-
Sergei Prokofiev Selections from Romeo and Juliet
Considered too difficult, even undanceable at its unveiling, Prokofiev’s ballet with scene after scene of strikingly original music soon became the treasure of every ballet house the world over.
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
Time For Three Performs Contact
Markus Stenz conductor
Time For Three
Ranaan Meyer double bass | Nick Kendall violin | Charles Yang violin
New Jersey Symphony
-
Richard Wagner Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin
It begins with the strings alone playing a whisperquiet passage of holy serenity. Soon the whole orchestra joins and builds in a full-throated cry. Wagner’s operatic stage is set for the arrival of the knight Lohengrin sent on a mission from God.
-
Kevin Puts Contact
Time for Three, a self-described “classically trained garage band,” brings you the GRAMMY Award-winning concerto written for them by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts. Created during the isolation of the early pandemic, Contact is “an expression of yearning for the fundamental need” of human connection.
-
Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 5
Four notes—dah, dah, dah, DAH—launched Beethoven’s Fifth in 1808 and have stamped all of western classical music since.
Bartók’s Concerto
for Orchestra
New Jersey Symphony Classical
Ruth Reinhardt conductor
Eva Gevorgyan piano
New Jersey Symphony
-
Béla Bartók Romanian Folk Dances
Informed by his numerous research trips across Hungary, this short and spry set of folk dances bursts with Transylvanian flavor and energy.
-
Frédéric Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2
There are moments here that make time, and your breath, stand still. If ever you need evidence of the human spirit’s capacity for beauty, look to this remarkable creation of 20-year-old Chopin.
-
Béla Bartók Concerto for Orchestra
Every section of the orchestra gets the spotlight to dazzling effect, and the Concerto’s last moments are some of the most thrilling in all classical music.