Association Of California Symphony Orchestras

Vision
The Association of California Symphony Orchestras envisions thriving, inclusive orchestras that serve and uplift their communities.

Mission
The Association of California Symphony Orchestras provides leadership, knowledge-building, advocacy, and connection to expand the vitality and impact of the orchestra and broader music community.

The Association of California Symphony Orchestras (ACSO) was founded in 1969 as an advocacy organization to help champion the creation of the California Arts Council and to build networking and collaboration between orchestra leaders. The organization then evolved into a full-service professional membership association for California symphony orchestras in the 1980s, hiring its first executive director in 1985. Today, ACSO is the largest state orchestra association in the U.S. and serves orchestras (professional, university, youth, and community), choruses, classical music presenters of all sizes, symphony leagues and guilds, festivals, artist management firms, and individuals associated with orchestras or wishing to access our services.

ACSO offers a variety of services, programs, resources, and advocacy tools to its members in order to grow their professional capacity, as well as to keep the statewide community and lawmakers connected and informed. ACSO delivers advocacy and gives voice to orchestras and choruses in California and the West at the state and national levels. It provides professional development through its Annual Conference, regional workshops, and online learning programs, which offer unparalleled opportunities to learn from top professionals and network with peers. ACSO also provides capacity building for orchestras through our digital reference library, on-demand training resources, digital communication with timely information about the field, and customized research produced by ACSO staff. Finally, ACSO provides a network for orchestra professionals to be part of a community with colleagues who understand their needs and are passionate about sustaining classical music as an art form.

ACSO currently has nearly 130 organizational members and their 3,000 board and staff who derive benefits from their organizations’ memberships. Organizational members include professional, academic, youth and community-based orchestras, choruses, and classical music festivals. Additionally, ACSO has over 100 individual members composed of orchestra board members or senior level administrative staff, musicians, conductors, and volunteers.

ACSO is especially proud of the following accomplishments in 2024:
1) Organizing a successful Annual Conference in San Francisco, hosted by the San Francisco Symphony. The event attracted over 250 attendees from over 100 orchestras.
2) Presenting more than 30 virtual peer forums, four webinars, and a youth orchestra summit.
3) Advocating against the proposed 58% reduction in California arts funding. Our Executive Director spoke in Sacramento on Arts Advocacy Day, with representatives from Riverside Symphony, San Diego Youth Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Redlands Symphony, Auburn Symphony, and San Francisco Symphony and Sacramento Youth Symphony joining her to advocate against such a drastic reduction in funding. The final cut budget was fortunately greatly reduced.

ACSO's goals for 2025 include:
1) Expand the reach of ACSO's online learning community, including virtual education, professional development, and networking opportunities for both members and not-yet-members.
2) Organizing an Annual Conference in Costa Mesa, hosted by the Pacific Symphony.
3) Holding a retreat for Orchestra CEOs, to take place in January 2025.

ACSO's top 5 needs in 2025 are related to financial support of our Annual Conference which will be held in Costa Mesa:
1. Opening Plenary, where Carl St.Clair will be honored for his long tenure as music director of Pacific Symphony ($5,000)
2. Session: Orchestra CEO Roundtable ($2,000)
3. Youth Orchestra Peer Forums ($1,000)
4. Session: Volunteers are the Heart of Pacific Symphony ($1,000)
5. Session: Best Practices in Board Governance for Symphony Orchestras ($1,000)

While ACSO serves orchestras throughout the state of California, in Orange County alone we provide support, training, and resources to thirteen orchestras and music ensembles:

Baroque Music Festival, Corona Del Mar
Cal State Fullerton Symphony Orchestra
Sea Coast Symphony
Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music (Chapman University)
The Hutchins Consort
Orange County Women’s Chorus
Orchestra Collective of Orange County
Pacific Symphony & Youth Orchestra
Philharmonic Society's OC Youth Symphony
Prelude Strings
South Coast Symphony
Southern California Philharmonic
Symphony Irvine

Sarah Weber, ACSO Executive Director: "ACSO is a resource built to advance the California orchestra community by connecting and empowering those within it, and never has that been more needed than now as orchestras continue to recover from the pandemic, navigate a volatile funding landscape, and redefine their relevance and community impact. Our field has weathered some difficult years recently, but we discovered together that we already have so much of what we already need to face any challenges - adaptability, innovation, and cooperation."