The MSO’s full-time professional musicians perform more than 135 classics, pops, family, education, and community concerts each season in venues throughout the state. A pioneer among American orchestras, the MSO has performed world and American premieres of works by John Adams, Roberto Sierra, Phillip Glass, Geoffrey Gordon, Marc Neikrug, and Matthias Pintscher, as well as garnered national recognition as the first American orchestra to offer live recordings on iTunes. Now in its 45th season, the orchestra’s nationally syndicated radio broadcast series, the longest consecutive-running series of any U.S. orchestra, is heard annually by 3.8 million listeners on 183 subscriber stations in 38 of the top 100 markets.

The MSO’s standard of excellence extends beyond the concert hall and into the community, reaching more than 40,000 children and their families through its Arts in Community Education (ACE) program, Youth and Teen concerts, Meet the Music pre-concert talks, and Friday Evening Post-Concert Talkbacks. Celebrating its 27th year, the nationally-recognized ACE program integrates arts education across all subjects and disciplines, providing opportunities for students when budget cuts may eliminate arts programming. The program provides lesson plans and supporting materials, classroom visits from MSO musician ensembles and artists from local organizations, and an MSO concert tailored to each grade level. This season, more than 7,200 students and 500 teachers and faculty in 24 Southeastern Wisconsin schools will participate in ACE.

MSO partnership in the
North American Competition

MSO violinists and cellists partner with semifinalists to rehearse and perform duos. Ensembles of MSO musicians rehearse with finalists prior to the full orchestra rehearsal. Finalists perform all movements of a concerto with the complete orchestra in the Finals and Award Concert, open to the public. All activities are under the direction
on PianoArts Music Director Andrews Sills.

Finalists perform the first movement of a concerto with an ensemble of MSO musicians. The winner of this round performs the first movement of the concerto for a Youth Concert scheduled during the following season. The MSO Assistant Director and MSO pianist serve as panelists on the jury.