New Mexico Symphony Orchestra

Today, the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra enriches the lives of over 130,000 people each year. But that success has come by way of many people and events over our 74-year history.
Grace Thompson Edmister

It all started when nearly 2,000 people gathered at the University of New Mexico's Carlisle Gymnasium on November 13, 1932, to hear the debut performance of the 61-member Albuquerque Civic Symphony, led by founding conductor Grace Thompson Edmister, and comprised primarily of teachers, students, housewives and businesspeople.

Today, the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra is the largest year-round performing arts organization in the state of New Mexico, with an annual expense budget of $5.3 Million, and has taken its place among the great cultural institutions of our state.

That institution serves one of the largest states in America, with one of the smallest populations. Deeply committed to educational activities and to serving its multi-cultural environment the NMSO performs each year for an audience of more than 130,000 - over half of them attending free NMSO Family Concerts. In fact, over half of the NMSO's performances every year take place in Albuquerque area neighborhoods, schools, and in the various New Mexico communities served by the NMSO's touring program.
Guillermo Figueroa

The NMSO was honored by its inclusion in June 2000 in one of the largest and most far reaching philanthropic programs ever created for American orchestras. The NMSO was named by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as one of only fourteen orchestras nationwide in a nine-year program to recognize orchestras on the cutting edge of the field. The smallest orchestra to participate in this program, the NMSO enjoys the company of the Cleveland Orchestra and the orchestras of San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Baltimore and others.��Grant funds to the NMSO, totaling $600,000 for the first three years of the program, are being used to pursue educational and multi-cultural initiatives, artistic advances, and institutional self-examination.

Employing over 100 full and part-time musicians and staff, the NMSO's annual expense budget exceeds $3.8 million, placing it in the top two percent of American orchestras. It is the largest year-round performing arts organization in the state of New Mexico.

The NMSO Chorus, currently led by Roger Melone, is recognized nationally as one of the finest symphony choruses in the United States, most notably at their July 2006 appearance with the Rochester (N.Y.) Philharmonic at the Vail Valley Music Festival in Vail, Colo.

Governed by a Board of Trustees, the organization is also served by more than 200 members of the New Mexico Symphony Guild. Each year, the Albuquerque area's premier fundraising event, Vintage Albuquerque Fine Wine and Art Auction happens each summer and has raised over $1,000,000 since 1992.

The NMSO's educational programs rank it as the largest non-governmental provider of music education in the state of New Mexico. More than 50,000 young people around the state are served each year. In February 2001 a long anticipated dream was fulfilled with the establishment of the Symphony School program which provides for weekly individual lessons from members of the NMSO for economically disadvantaged middle and high school students for $1 per lesson.

Important community activities include a series of five to nine concerts each year in neighborhood and community centers as well as major collaborations with the National Hispanic Cultural Center of New Mexico and several of the New Mexico pueblos.