NEW YORK, NY.- The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced its 2026–27 fall/winter season of Met Live Arts, which will feature world premieres as well as new commissions envisioned specifically for galleries at The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters as well as concerts in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium.

This also marks the inaugural season of programming by Sarah Jones, Lulu C. and Anthony W. Wang Head of Live Arts, who joined the Museum in 2025. Highlights of the upcoming season include performances by Lykke Li, St. Vincent, Jason Isbell, Kingfish, Ayodele Casel, and Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener, along with a series of holiday concerts at both The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters in December.

The 2026–27 season will feature programs that take place throughout the Museum’s most iconic spaces, including the Temple of Dendur, the Charles Engelhard Court, the Arms and Armor Court, and the Fuentidueña Chapel at The Met Cloisters. The season will also feature select performances created in dialogue with major exhibitions, including Musical Bodies (on view through September 27), which explores the relationship between musical instruments and the body, and Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous (on view October 4, 2026, through January 31, 2027), a milestone exhibition tracing the parallel lives and practices of Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock.

"The 2026–27 Met Live Arts season reflects an exciting evolution in how performance animates the Museum experience," said Max Hollein, The Met's Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “By bringing exceptional artists to The Met, these collaborations invite audiences to experience art spanning disciplines, cultures, and centuries in ways that are both innovative and deeply engaging. Like all our programming, the latest performance season reflects our commitment to fostering artistic exchange while building on the Museum’s longstanding legacy as a place where creative ideas continue to inspire new perspectives.”

"Met Live Arts exists to create encounters that can only happen at The Met," said Sarah Jones, The Met's Lulu C. and Anthony W. Wang Head of Live Arts. "Performance is the connective tissue of the Museum, bringing audiences into conversation with contemporary artistic voices in ways that spark curiosity, discovery, and shared experience. This season embraces artists whose work challenges expectations while transforming the Museum into a place of active exchange. Whether intimate or monumental, each performance is presented within the unique context of The Met, making the Museum itself an essential part of the artistic experience."

Met Live Arts opens the season with two performances that highlight the breadth of contemporary musical expression. On September 16, Swedish artist Lykke Li brings her newly released album, The Afterparty, to life in a one-of-a-kind performance. Later in the season on November 17, Pow Wow singer Joe Rainey and singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Black Belt Eagle Scout will share a double bill exploring contemporary takes on Indigenous musical traditions in celebration of Native American and Indigenous Heritage Month.





In advance of the spring 2027 opening of the Museum's new gallery celebrating the American guitar, Met Live Arts and the Department of Musical Instruments will introduce a new series, Guitar Icons, exploring the artistic, cultural, and historical significance of the guitar across musical traditions. The series begins on October 2 and 3, with acclaimed Mississippi blues guitarist Kingfish and several special guests whose performances will trace the instrument's role in the evolution of the blues. On February 2, Jason Isbell, one of today's greatest country songwriters, will take the stage alone for a rare and intimate solo performance. And later, on February 20, Grammy Award–winning musician and songwriter St. Vincent will be joined by keyboardist Rachel Eckroth for a powerful performance showcasing their genre-defying approach and collaborative artistry.

The season will also include two major dance premieres, both of which are planned in conjunction with special exhibitions. The award-winning tap artist and choreographer Ayodele Casel will offer the world premiere of a new work conceived in dialogue with the Musical Bodies exhibition. Featuring a slate of dynamic collaborators, including 2025 USA Solo Beatbox Champion Alex Sanchez, tap artist and sand dancer Qyunn Johnson, body percussionist Ryan Johnson, and others, the work uses rhythm, movement, and live performance to explore the body as a musical instrument. In January, experimental dancer-choreographers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener bring their physical and conceptual dance language to one of the Museum's most iconic spaces, the Temple of Dendur, with a new work titled Rooms Within Rooms. Including live music by Charmaine Lee and media design by Jesse Stiles, the performance explores the roles that memory, description, and interpretation play in shaping our experience of movement.

Also in January, Sandbox Percussion and pianist Conor Hanick take over the Charles Engelhard Court in the American Wing to perform Christopher Cerrone’s Don’t Look Down, a concerto for prepared piano and percussion quartet. Mezzo-soprano Elspeth Davies joins for other works by Cerrone that expand the season’s dialogue between contemporary music, experimentation, and artistic innovation.

In December, Met Live Arts will celebrate the holiday season with several signature concerts, including a performance by New Orleans’s legendary Rebirth Brass Band, who will bring their city’s funky musical traditions to the Museum. Met Live Arts will also produce a series of choral concerts at The Met Cloisters with such ensembles as New York Polyphony and the Norwegian choral ensemble Trio Mediæval.

Met Live Arts encompasses both ticketed and free-with-Museum-admission performances that take place at The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters.