The Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra continues to affirm its place as one of the leading performing arts organizations in the Southeast and a vital part of cultural life on the First Coast. Widely recognized for its high artistic quality, the JSO ranks among the nation’s top 40 orchestras in terms of budget size and population served.
  
As one of a handful of American orchestras with its own dedicated concert hall, the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra performs the majority of its programs in the acoustically superb Robert E. Jacoby Symphony Hall at the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts, the only true orchestra concert hall in Florida.

Founded in 1949, Jacksonville’s symphony is one of Florida’s most long-standing orchestras. Its success has been defined by the Palm Beach Post as “the standard to which all other Florida orchestras should strive.” Led by Music Director and Principal Conductor Fabio Mechetti since 1999, past music directors of the JSO include Roger Nierenberg, Willis Page, John Canarina, James Christian Pfohl and founding director Van Lier Lanning. The JSO has played host to some of the most renowned artists of the past century, including Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Arthur Fiedler, Victor Borge, Luciano Pavarotti, Kathleen Battle, Marilyn Horne and Mstislav Rostropovich. The Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra has performed twice at Carnegie Hall, most recently in 1998.

The Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra also reaches audiences in venues that vary from schools and senior citizen centers to stages throughout Florida and the Southeast. In recent seasons, the JSO has reached a national audience with appearances on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today.”

With a budget of approximately $7.9 million, the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra reaches nearly ¼ million residents on the First Coast and throughout Florida. Nearly half of these residents are children, who benefit from the Symphony’s extensive education programs, including concerts, ensemble performances and master classes, a school partnership program – Symphony Schools – and the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestra. In addition to a season schedule of approximately 130 concerts, Symphony musicians give nearly 200 educational ensemble performances in schools and senior centers.

Beyond the stage, the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra is an outstanding community partner, serving four county school districts, offering student internships and collaborating with a wide range of organizations, from arts, community and cultural groups to media and corporate partners.  And over 1,700 music-lovers in the community are Symphony volunteers, from members of BRASS, ARIAS and The Guild, to Youth Orchestra parents to concert ushers.

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