The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra christens its new performance hall at Ordway Center next season. The 1,100-seat auditorium — built in place of the former Mc­Knight Theatre — will open with special concerts March 5-6, 2015.

The new home of the SPCO is modeled on traditional halls of the 19th century, with a circular design that includes seats behind the musicians.

The season, which begins Sept. 13, also brings two new artistic partners to the SPCO: Violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and pianist Jeremy Denk.

Kopatchinskaja will have her debut Nov. 20-23 at three of the SPCO's neighborhood venues in a program featuring Mozart, Bartok, Mansurian and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in D minor. Denk is scheduled to play Bach, including the First and Fifth piano concertos, Feb. 26-27, 2015.

The SPCO will play all nine Beethoven symphonies during the 2014-15 season, in the Ordway's larger Music Theater, to mark 30 years of SPCO performances there.

New music is represented in three world premieres, all SPCO commissions or co-commissions, by Nicola Campogrande, Charles Wuorinen and Fred Lerdahl.

Patricia Kopatchinskaja

Highlights of the season:

Opening weekend, Sept. 13-14, will feature Beethoven's Seventh and Eighth symphonies with Roberto Abbado conducting. The Beethoven Fifth will be Oct. 3-4 followed by the First on Oct. 9-12.

Artistic partner Christian Zacharias will perform and conduct Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 17 on Oct. 16-18. Two Haydn symphonies are also on the program.

Denk will perform music of Charles Ives Oct. 24-26 in a program that features Beethoven's Eroica. The Pastoral Symphony (No. 6) is slated for Nov. 14-15.

December is all Baroque, with Bach's Brandenburg Concertos Dec. 11-14 and Handel's Messiah with the SPCO Chorale at St. Mary's Basilica in St. Paul (Dec. 18-20).

Beethoven's Fourth is on the bill for Jan 9-11. A week later, it is the Second, in a program that includes concertmaster Steven Copes playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor.

Andrew Manze will conduct Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the chorale and orchestra together, Feb. 12-14.

The hall opening on March 5-6 has Rossini's Overture to "The Thieving Magpie," Vaughn Williams' "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" and Mozart's Jupiter Symphony.

Mahler's Fourth will be featured March 13-15 and Kopatchinskaja returns March 27-28 to play Bach, Shubert and Ligeti.

Artistic partner Thomas Zehetmair is in town for three weekends next May, with programs involving Mozart, Chopin and Schubert. Zacharias returns May 28-31 (Mozart's Gran partita) and June 5-6 (Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor).

Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299