The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra announced a star-studded 2025–26 music season on June 20, running from Sept 5 to July 3 and featuring 46 guest artist performances, 22 orchestra concerts, and seven chamber music events.

The season will feature internationally recognized conductors including Grammy Award-winning JoAnn Falletta, Sir András Schiff, Charles Dutoit, Daniel Harding, and Jaap van Zweden. SSO Artistic Director Yu Long will also take the podium for 10 concerts.

Pipa virtuoso Wu Man will become the first Chinese instrumentalist to serve as SSO's resident artist. She will collaborate with the orchestra on three distinctively styled compositions.

SSO will collaborate with Deutsche Grammophon China on an ambitious project to perform and record the complete 15 symphonies of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–75) under the baton of Maestro Yu Long. The project will span four seasons, with the full collection set for release by DG in 2029.

The orchestra will perform Shostakovichs Symphony No 5 and No 7 at the two opening concerts in September, followed by Shostakovich Symphony No 8 and No 9 later in the season.