The 2026-27 season of the Harker Concert Series is set to showcase some of the highest-caliber acts in modern music, featuring both rising and veteran talents.
Known around the globe as one of the longest-running chamber music ensembles, the Dorian Wind Quintet, which appears Fri., Sept. 25, was founded in 1961 at the storied Tanglewood Music Festival in Tennessee. They have since performed in 48 states, toured Europe 18 times and performed in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, in the process becoming the first wind quintet to perform at Carnegie Hall, in 1981. In that time they have also collaborated with many of the 20th and 21st centuries’ most notable composers. Their many other accomplishments include commissioning nearly 40 pieces from major composers, one of which – George Perle’s Wind Quintet No. 4 – won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1986.
Grammy-winning jazz phenom Taylor Eigsti returns for his fifth appearance at the Harker Concert Series on Fri., Nov. 20, as one of its first-ever and consistently most popular acts. His nine albums as a bandleader include last year’s “Plot Armor,” which earned the Grammy for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album, and 2022’s “Tree Falls, a Grammy winner in the same category. A prolific composer, he co-wrote a piece with actor Don Cheadle for the soundtrack to the 2017 film “Miles Ahead,” which also won a Grammy for Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media. His many notable collaborations have included Dave Brubeck, Sting, Chick Corea and Snarky Puppy.
Performing Fri., Feb. 19, Palo Alto-born Alexi Kenney has been praised by The New York Times for “his architect’s eye for structure and space and a tone that ranges from the achingly fragile to full-bodied robustness.” A founding member of the inverted quartet Owls, hailed by the Times as a “dream group,” he has received an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award and in the spring of 2026 curated the San Francisco Symphony’s SoundBox. His current season sees him performing with symphonies in Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Houston and Dallas, as well as with the Slovak Philharmonic and Orchestra Della Svizzer Italiana.
Tickets are $25 and available from the Harker Concert Series website. All concerts start at 7 p.m. and include a reception with complimentary hors d’oeuvres and soft drinks one hour prior to the performance.
