Musicians of the New York Philharmonic, members of the American Federation of Musicians Local 802, will perform today (Sunday, July 19, 2026) at the FIFA World Cup Final’s first-ever Halftime Show at New York New Jersey Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. They are taking the field alongside members of Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra for what is expected to be the single largest audience in the history of orchestral music.
Local 802 musicians and their Venezuelan colleagues will perform together as part of a star-studded show curated by Coldplay’s Chris Martin, marking the first time the two orchestras that shaped Dudamel’s artistic life have shared a single stage.
Local 802 AFM President Dan Point said: “Our members spend their whole lives mastering this craft, and on Sunday the entire world is finally going to hear what that kind of mastery actually sounds like. These are working musicians who have given everything to their art, so to watch them earn a place on a stage this enormous, and to see them share it with colleagues who traveled all the way from Venezuela to be there, is about as proud as this union ever gets. When a stadium filled with tens of thousands of people and a television audience in the billions all feel the same thing at the same moment because of what these musicians do together, that is the entire reason live music still matters.”
For the thousands of professional musicians Local 802 represents, from the orchestral stages of the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera to the Broadway pits and recording studios spread across the region, a performance in front of the largest audience the art form has ever reached is one more reminder that the unforgettable moments audiences carry home with them are built, note by note, by skilled union musicians who spent years learning their craft.
PRESS CONTACT: press@local802afm.org , (415) 608-6445
AFM Local 802 represents thousands of highly skilled musicians who drive New York City’s thriving cultural and tourism economy. Its members — who perform on Broadway, at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and Radio City, in recording studios, as teaching artists, on late-night TV shows and in other televised bands, in hotels, clubs, festivals and venues across NYC — are protected by collective bargaining agreements ensuring proper classification, fair treatment and a living wage. For more background on Local 802, click here.