Friday Favorites: Beethoven Symphony No. 7

The North Carolina Symphony brings Beethoven Symphony No. 7 to the Meymandi Concert Hall at the Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Raleigh on Friday, March 5, 2027. It's a matinee performance starting at 12 PM, and the symphony is led by Music Director Carlos Miguel Prieto, with pianist Gabriela Montero joining the lineup.

The concert is part of the symphony's 2026/27 Friday Favorites season, a series of matinees curated by Prieto that also features Gershwin, Tchaikovsky, and Rodgers & Hammerstein. It's also one of five Beethoven concerts Prieto is leading throughout the season—a festival arriving two centuries after the composer's death.

For a bit of context on the orchestra itself, the North Carolina Symphony was founded in 1932 and is the first state-supported symphony in the country. It operates under the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources and puts on more than 300 concerts and education programs across all 100 North Carolina counties every year. They're known for a high volume of new work, too, with more than 50 U.S. or world premieres annually, and one of the most extensive education programs of any American symphony, reaching over 100,000 students each year.

If you're planning to go, keep in mind that the matinee is on Friday, March 5, at 12 PM, but there's also an evening performance the next day, Saturday, March 6, at 8 PM. For that evening show, there's a free 30-minute pre-concert experience called Concert Insights that runs before the music starts.