Tucson Symphony Orchestra

The Tucson Symphony Orchestra (TSO) is the only professional symphony orchestra providing live symphonic music and quality music education to southern Arizona and its outlying areas. Guest artists are a mix of well-known virtuosos, younger talents and performances include works of historic and contemporary significance.

The first symphony orchestra in the southwest, the Tucson Symphony Orchestra has been performing continuously since 1928, longer than any other professional arts organization in the state.

Each season, more than 100,000 children and adults throughout Tucson and southern Arizona enjoy exquisite concert performances, engaging family concerts, and nationally recognized music education programs.

Concert Programs Include: Classic, MasterWorks Chamber Orchestra and TSO Pops! Series; Classic, MasterWorks and TSO Pops! Specials; Moveable Musical Feasts, Just for Kids, TSO Pops! and MasterWorks Series run out and multiple ensemble recitals. 

Music Education

The TSO offers comprehensive school-based music education programming for Kindergarten children through 8th grade. Programs include KinderKonzerts! (K-2nd grade students) and Music in the Schools (3rd -5th grade students). The capstone Music in the Schools event for participating students and teachers is the annual Young People’s Concert (3rd- 8th grade students) at the Tucson Music Hall. These concerts feature the full orchestra performing the music the students have been listening to in the classroom lessons and activities.

The TSO also offers a unique intensive program in orchestral composition, the Young Composers Project, (ages elementary through high school), and clinics for middle and high school bands and orchestra programs, as well as the annual Young Artists Competition (ages 8-22 years old) that provides performance opportunities for the youth of Tucson. Family programming is also an integral part of the TSO’s season.

This programming includes Just for Kids concert series, which introduces young children and their families to the magic of classical music and provides opportunities for children and their family members to begin a lifelong involvement with music. Just for Kids concerts are free of charge, allowing everyone to participate, regardless of economic limitations. 

In addition, the Tucson Symphony Orchestra’s Southern Arizona Residency (SAR) collaborates with rural communities to bring music education and live orchestra concerts to southern Arizona’s outlying areas. SAR reaches more than 4,500 children and adults each year in the seven rural communities of Ajo, Bisbee, Green Valley, Oracle, Sahuarita, Sells, Tubac, and drawing from other surrounding communities. Travel time and distance factors, age, financial capacity, and high gas prices limit leisure travel into Tucson. The TSO is committed to addressing these access issues through collaboration by bringing the orchestra into the rural communities. 

Public Value/Impact

The TSO works with school districts across Southern Arizona to ensure music education remains a part of a child's educational experience.

With a series of inquiry-based education programs for children from kindergarten through high school, the TSO is encouraging increased diversity in the field and opening the doors of possibility for many children who would not otherwise experience orchestral music.