Dame Evelyn Glennie, speaking at the National Association for Music Education at the Rhode Island Convention Center in March, will perform Jan. 23 with the Rhode Island Philharmonic.

The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and the return of percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie are among the highlights of the upcoming Rhode Island Philharmonic season. The orchestra will also be welcoming back the brilliant Russian-born, German-based pianist Lilya Zilberstein, who will open the season in late September, and the fabulous German cellist Alban Gerhardt for a performance of the Elgar concerto.

Guest conductor Michael Stern, son of famed violinist Isaac Stern, will take over for Philharmonic music director Larry Rachleff in April of next year.

Details of the pops series held at the Providence Performing Arts Center are yet to be announced.

Eight classical concerts are scheduled, along with a series of open rehearsals and “rush hour” concerts, informal programs held after work on Thursday evenings.

Rachleff, who will be beginning his 14th season with the orchestra, will open the season Sept. 26 with music of Beethoven, Brahms, the composer’s Second Symphony, and Barber.

Violinist Soovin Kim joins the orchestra Oct. 17 for the first Bruch concerto. And Rachleff rounds out the evening with a composer he has become known for, Shostakovich. This time it’s the composer’s popular Fifth Symphony.

Garhardt, the German cellist who made his debut with the orchestra this past season, returns Nov. 21 for the heart-rending Elgar Concerto, one of the sweetest pieces in the repertoire.

Percussionist Glennie is back Jan. 23, 2010, and if her performance is anything like last year’s, when she had the Veterans Auditorium stage littered with marimbas, snare drums and gongs, it will be among the highlights of the season. Glennie, of course, is a world-renowned performer. But what makes her most remarkable is that she is deaf, and has learned to feel the music through sensations. She performs barefooted, so she can sense vibrations through the floor.

North Smithfield native Jason Hardink joins the orchestra Feb. 27, 2010 for Olivier Messiaen’s Exotic Birds. Hardink has become something of a Messiaen (who died in 1992 at the age of 83) specialist since earning his doctorate from Rice University in Houston, where he worked with faculty member Rachleff in the orchestra. Last year, he toured the country playing Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jesus, a complex and challenging score that takes the better part of an afternoon to perform.

The February program is especially colorful, with performances of Sibelius’ Night Ride and Sunrise, Rachmaninoff’s haunting Isle of the Dead and the Richard Strauss tone poem Til Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks.

An all-orchestral program featuring Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony is slated for March 27, 2010. And guest conductor Stern will be leading the orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony April 27, 2010. Violinist Philippe Quint will solo in the Korngold concerto for that concert

Two performances of Beethoven’s Ninth are scheduled May 7 and 8, 2010. As always, the orchestra will be joined by the Providence Singers for the popular finale. Listed among the soloists is Rachleff’s wife, soprano Susan Lorette Dunn.

Subscription packages, which are now on sale, are available from $230 to $490, with discounts for students and groups. Single tickets go on sale Sept. 2 and range from $30 to $70. Call (401) 248-7000.