The San Diego Symphony is an American symphony orchestra, based in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. The orchestra is resident at

Copley Symphony Hall Copley Symphony Hall (originally the Fox Theatre) in San Diego, California, designed by Weeks and Day, opened in 1929 as the Fox Theatre (a Gothic-revival luxury movie theater). The hall was conferred to the San Diego Symphony in 1984. It is ...

. The orchestra also serves as the orchestra for the San Diego Opera.

History

On December 6th 1910, the orchestra gave its first concert as the San Diego Civic Orchestra. The orchestra encountered several periods of fiscal trouble over its history which forced it to cease operations. The first such period was from 1921 to 1926. The

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

resumed limited summer concerts in 1927, but disbanded again in 1936. In 1949, the symphony began to play concerts again.

was built in 1929 as a

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

Rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

style luxury

movie theater A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall ( Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...

, the Fox Theater. The venue was conferred to the Symphony in 1984. From 1996 to 1998, the fiscal troubles of the orchestra led it to file for bankruptcy in May 1996''Senza Sordino'', October 1998, p. 8.
/ref> and to cease operations. With a bankruptcy plan centered on a $2 million gift from Larry Robinson and through the

pro bono ( en, 'for the public good'), usually shortened to , is a Latin phrase for professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment. In the United States, the term typically refers to provision of legal services by legal professionals for pe ...

efforts of prominent bankruptcy attorneys Ted Graham and Jeff Garfinkle of

Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison LLP was a large law firm based in San Francisco, California. In 2003, the firm was liquidated under Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, after it had lost a substantial amount of money in the dot-com bubble and mer ...

, and receiver, Thomas F. Lennon, who managed the finances, the orchestra reorganized and restarted in 1998, with

Jung-Ho Pak Jung-Ho Pak (born February 4, 1962 in Burlingame, California) is an American symphony conductor. He was Artistic Director of the San Diego Symphony and of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, of which he is now Conductor Emeritus. He was Music Dir ...

serving as artistic director. He had become the symphony's assistant conductor in 1994. Several years after the orchestra's reorganization, on January 14, 2002, the San Diego Symphony announced the single largest donation ever made to a symphony orchestra – US$120 million by Joan and Irwin Jacobs. One report stated that the arrangement is for $50 million to be donated over a period of 10 years, at $5 million a year. The remainder would then be left to the orchestra as a bequest. In 2001, the orchestra had ratified an agreement which would increase the musicians' annual base

salary A salary is a form of periodic payment from an employer to an employee, which may be specified in an employment contract. It is contrasted with piece wages, where each job, hour or other unit is paid separately, rather than on a periodic basis. F ...

from $25,920 to $45,750, with an expansion of the concert season from 26 weeks to 41 weeks. In 2006, the orchestra ratified a new 5-year contract that raised the annual minimum salary from $45,750 to $57,776 over five years. The 41-week season will also expand to 42 weeks. As of 2006, the annual budget of the orchestra was $14 million. In September 2016, the San Diego Symphony announced a new 5-year contract which will increase base musician salaries from just under $70,000 to $80,000 per year. In January 2016, the San Diego Symphony won approval to construct a new outdoor pavilion to host its Summer Pops programs.

Jahja Ling Jahja Ling () is a conductor, music director and pianist. From 2004 to 2017, he was the music director and conductor at the San Diego Symphony. Following his retirement in 2017, he plans to do guest conducting, as well as teaching and voluntee ...

was music director from 2004 to 2017, and now has the title of conductor laureate of the orchestra. From 2006 until his death in 2012, the principal pops conductor of the orchestra was

Marvin Hamlisch Marvin Frederick Hamlisch (June 2, 1944 – August 6, 2012) was an American composer and conductor. Hamlisch was one of only seventeen people to win Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards. This collection of all four is referred to as an " E ...

. The current chief executive officer of the orchestra is Martha Gilmer, since October 2014. In January 2018,

Rafael Payare Rafael Payare (born 23 February 1980) is a Venezuelan conductor. Background Born in Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela, Payare's parents were Trina Torres de Payare, an elementary school teacher, and Juan R. Payare, a cartographer for the city. He began ...

first guest-conducted the orchestra. On the basis of this concert, in February 2018, the orchestra named Payare its next music director, effective 1 July 2019. His initial contract is for 4 years, and he assumed the title of music director-designate with immediate effect. In October 2020, the orchestra announced an extension of Payare's contract as music director through the 2025-2026 season. In January 2015, Edo de Waart first guest-conducted the orchestra. In January 2019, the orchestra announced the appointment of de Waart as its first-ever principal guest conductor, effective with the 2019-2020 season. Melvin G. Goldzband, the San Diego Symphony's archivist, has published a book about the orchestra, ''San Diego Symphony From Overture to Encore''.

Music Directors

* B. Roscoe Schryock (1912–1920) *

Nino Marcelli Nino Marcelli (about 1890 – August 4, 1967) was an Italian composer and conductor who revived the San Diego Symphony orchestra.Sand Diego History. San Diego Biographies''Nino Marcelli (1890–1967)'' Retrieved July 1, 2009. Marcelli wrote co ...

(1936–1937) *

Nikolai Sokoloff Nikolai Grigoryevich Sokoloff (28 May 1886 – 25 September 1965) was a Russian-American conductor and violinist. Biography He was born in Kiev, and studied music at Yale. From 1916 to 1917 he was musical director of the San Francisco ...

(1938–1941) * Fabien Sevitzky (1949–1952) * Robert Shaw (1953–1958) * Earl Bernard Murray (1959–1966) * Zoltán Rozsnyai (1967–1971) * Peter Erős (1972–1979) *

David Atherton David Atherton (born 3 January 1944) is an English conductor and founder of the London Sinfonietta. Background Atherton was born in Blackpool, Lancashire into a musical family. He was educated at Blackpool Grammar School. His father, Robert ...

(1980–1987) * Yoav Talmi (1989–1996) *

(1998–2002, artistic director) *

(2004–2017) *

(2019-present)

References

External links

Official website of the San Diego Symphony
{{Authority control Musical groups established in 1910 Musical groups from San Diego Orchestras based in California