Isabella Stewart Gardner opened her Museum with a performance of Mozart’s Magic Flute by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Ever since, music has been integral to the creative fabric of this institution. Our Sunday concert series dates to 1927, and it remains the longest running museum music program in America, now with two seasons per year. In honoring Isabella Stewart Gardner’s musical legacy, we have broadened the repertoire of music to encompass previously overlooked and marginalized composers as well as the diversity of performers hired to play it, elevating women and people of color.
Weekend Concert Series
The Weekend Concert Series features classical masterpieces, performed by celebrated icons and rising stars on Sunday afternoons. Experience the music you know and love, as if for the first time!
2026 Winter/Spring Weekend Concert Series
Thursday Night Music
Featuring edgier, more experimental work, Thursday Night Music brings a different energy to the Museum’s concert hall. With no intermissions, open seating, and a relaxed atmosphere, these single-set performances offer immersive and adventurous listening experiences.
Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians
February 26, 2026
The Gardner’s new series, Thursday Night Music, launches with a bang. Making their Gardner debut, Ensemble Signal performs Steve Reich’s seminal minimalist work, Music for 18 Musicians. Celebrate the 50th anniversary of this masterpiece in Calderwood Hall one night only—tickets are extremely limited!
Listen From Home
The Museum’s rich musical program is also available to listeners across the globe through concert videos and audio recordings. Click below to access to our concert videos and audio recordings.
Concert Videos Audio Recordings
Music Series
Witness: Spirituals and the Classical Music Tradition
This series of free, digital programs explores the ways some Black American composers have found inspiration in the rich tradition of spirituals.
Music at the Gardner is supported by Manitou Fund. The Museum thanks its generous concert donors: The Coogan Concert in memory of Peter Weston Coogan; Fitzpatrick Family Concert; James Lawrence Memorial Concert; Alford P. Rudnick Memorial Concert; David Scudder in memory of his wife, Marie Louise Scudder; Wendy Shattuck Young Artist Concert; and Willona Sinclair Memorial Concert. The piano is dedicated as the Alex d’Arbeloff Steinway. The harpsichord was generously donated by Dr. Robert Barstow in memory of Marion Huse, and its care is endowed in memory of Dr. Barstow by The Barstow Fund. Music at the Gardner is also supported in part by Barbara and Amos Hostetter, Joseph Mari, Sallie and Jim McGregor, Nicie and Jay Panetta, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc., and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which is supported by the state of Massachusetts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
