Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra is among the finest orchestras in the nation. Since its inception in 1959, the MSO has found innovative ways to give music a home in the region, develop music appreciation and talent among area youth, and raise the national reputation of Milwaukee.

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. Beginning in 1971, the orchestra’s nationally syndicated radio broadcast series, the longest consecutive-running series of any U.S. orchestra, is heard annually by more than two million listeners on 147 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 30,000 children and their families through its Arts in Community Education (ACE) program, Youth and Teen concerts, Family Series, Adult Lecture Series, and Meet the Music pre-concert talks. Celebrating its 30th 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. In the 2019-20 season, more than 5,700 students and 400 teachers and faculty at 16 Southeastern Wisconsin schools will participate in ACE.