The National Symphony Orchestra has announced a revised 2020-21 season.

In the fall, the National Symphony Orchestra will return to the Kennedy Center Concert Hall with three Friday concerts in December 2020. On Dec. 4 and 11, the orchestra will play two concerts with surprise programs to be announced from the stage.

On Dec. 18, Principal Pops Conductor Steven Reineke will lead the orchestra in a Holiday Pops program. The programs will be live streamed and will be performed in front of a live, ticketed, limited capacity, physically distanced audience, should D.C. be in phase three of reopening.

The NSO’s “In Your Neighborhood” program will focus on the DMV medical community, first responders, and other frontline heroes, with an expanded series of chamber concerts across the region.

Celebrating its 90th season, the NSO’s revised 2020-21 season, led by Music Director Gianandrea Noseda and Executive Director Gary Ginstling will showcase Beethoven and “Pivotal Moments, Powerful Voices,” a series of new works by living composers in addition to previously announced subscription performances.

The “Pivotal Moments, Powerful Voices” will feature world premiere commissions by Peter Boyer, Michael Daugherty, and Jessie Montgomery, and the D.C. premiere of a co-commissioned piece by Julia Wolfe—works in which composers have responded to pivotal moments and iconic figures in American history.

In January 2021, the NSO will perform a new work by acclaimed composer Jessie Montgomery celebrating the 90th birthday of Nobel and Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Toni Morrison.

In March 2021, Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Julia Wolfe honors the suffragette women who fought for the 19th Amendment in Her Story, a large-scale work for orchestra and the all-female vocal group, Lorelei Ensemble. These performances will be led by Music Director Gianandrea Noseda.

The NSO will also perform the world premiere of Grammy Award–winning composer Michael Daugherty’s “Blue Electra,” a concerto for violin and orchestra written for Anne Akiko Meyers, who is the featured soloist. Finally, in May 2021 the NSO performs the world premiere commission of Peter Boyer’s “Balance of Power,” written to honor the 95th birthday of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

The NSO’s season concludes with a four-week Beethoven at 250 Festival in celebration of the composer’s 250th birthday. Originally scheduled for the 2019–2020 season and postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this festival marks the Orchestra and Noseda’s first Beethoven Symphony Cycle together.

All previously announced NSO subscription performances from January 14–May 15 will continue as planned. They include:

January 22–24: Hilary Hahn plays Prokofiev
Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmila Overture will replace Kilar’s Krzesany
Stravinsky’s The Firebird – Suite (1945) will replace Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring
February 18–20: Gianandrea Noseda & Emanuel Ax
Wagner’s Dawn and Siegfried’s Rhine Journey (from Götterdämmerung) will no longer be part of the program
April 15–17: Benjamin Grosvenor plays Mozart / Sir Mark Elder conducts Elgar
Elgar’s Enigma Variations will replace Elgar’s Symphony No. 2
Kennedy Center Chamber Players March 7 concert has been moved to February 21