Orchestras

University Symphony Orchestra

University Symphony Orchestra presents approximately seven concerts on the ASU campus each year in the internationally acclaimed ASU Gammage, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as at other venues in Phoenix and Arizona.

Recent performances include a gala concert last fall with pianistic giant Andre Watts, a performance of Mahler’s monumental Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection), as well as a musical tribute to the legendary Hollywood director, producer and writer Blake Edwards, a concert that featured the music of Henry Mancini with his daughter Monica performing as the guest soloist. This year’s season concludes with a performance of the Verdi Requiem.

In February 2005, the ASU Symphony Orchestra performed the featured concluding concert at the American String Teachers Association's National Conference in Reno, Nevada. They offered An Evening of Jazz with the acclaimed jazz violinist Regina Carter, her quintet and members of our own ASU string faculty.

In April 1998, the Symphony Orchestra, along with the ASU Chamber Orchestra, performed one of the featured evening concerts for the Biennial Convention of the Music Educators National Conference, a program entitled Sounds and Sights of the Desert, which included collaborations with photo-choreographer James Westwater, Alliance West and Native American flutist R. Carlos Nakai.

During the 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2003 school years, the symphony and chamber orchestras recorded commercially released compact discs (Perception, Lilacs: The Music of George Walker, A Brassy Night at the Opera and The Hoover Clarinet Concerto, respectively). The ASU Symphony Orchestra has offered such programs as The Classics Meet Jazz with clarinetist Eddie Daniels and Doc Severinsen as well as a tribute to filmmaker Blake Edwards with Monica Mancini and a tribute to Rafael Méndez with trumpeters Jens Lindemann and Allen Vizzutti.

In 2002, the ASU Symphony Orchestra collaborated with the world-renowned Bolshoi Ballet in full-length performances of La Bayadere as well as with Ballet Arizona in presenting four performances of Tchaikovsky’s full-length Swan Lake Ballet.

Soloists with the orchestra have included renowned faculty performers, as well as such visiting guest artists as violinists Glenn Dicterow, Szymon Goldberg, Dylana Jenson, Ani Kavafian and Edvard Melkus; cellists Colin Carr, Stephen Kates and Lazlo-Varga; pianists André Watts, Ursula Oppens and Jeffrey Siegel; guitarist Manuel Lopez Ramos; sopranos Faye Robinson and Anna Christy; mezzo-soprano Isola Jones; the Roger Wagner Chorale; guest conductors Lukas Foss and Vincent Persichetti; and the hilarious PDQ Bach and the late Victor Borge. The orchestra combines annually with the Herberger College School of Music’s Choral Union to present a Holiday Concert to sold-out houses. This performance features such works as Handel's Messiah, the Vaughan Williams Hodie and Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, as well as other great choral works. They also collaborated on such giant masterworks as Brahms Requiem and Orff's Carmina Burana.

Outstanding student soloists, chosen through a rigorous competition on campus, are presented in a Concert of Soloists each February. This concert also features the world premiere performance of the work that has won the annual ASU Student Composition Contest. The orchestra is committed to the performance of contemporary music and has premiered pieces by Michael Conway Baker, Randall Shinn and Chinary Ung, and performed concerts with visiting composers Joan Tower, Phillip Glass and Gunther Schuller.

Much of the world's greatest symphonic literature has been performed by the ASU Symphony Orchestra, including Richard Strauss' Don Quixote, Death and Transfiguration, Four Last Songs and Til Eulenspiegel, as well as symphonies by Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky. The orchestra also performs such virtuoso showpieces as Respighi's Pines of Rome and Roman Festivals, Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol, Scheherazade and Russian Easter; Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis and Mathis der Maler, Holst's The Planets, and Stravinsky's Firebird, Petrouschka and Rite of Spring. Performances by the University Symphony Orchestra are recorded for future radio broadcast.

The personnel of the orchestra, which is an all-student ensemble numbering approximately 100 performers, are chosen from the entire ASU student body. The majority of the musicians are music majors and scholarship recipients. Former members of the University Symphony Orchestra are now performing in many of this country's finest symphony orchestras including those in Phoenix, Detroit, Indianapolis, Rochester, Minnesota and Cleveland, as well as the Metropolitan Opera.

University Symphony Orchestra has had a long tradition of distinguished conductors beginning with Miles Dresskell, for whom a memorial award is presented yearly to outstanding members of the Orchestra. From 1959 to 1989, the University Symphony Orchestra was led by Eugene Lombardi. Henry Charles Smith was the orchestra conductor from 1989 to 1993. Presently, the director of orchestras is Timothy Russell, professor of music. In addition to conducting, Dr. Russell directs a doctoral program in orchestral conducting.

"The Arizona State University Symphony Orchestra is very impressive."
- American Record Guide  Review of performance of Perceptions.

"An excellent performance with Timothy Russell conducting the Arizona State University Symphony Orchestra."
-The Washington Post  

"The performance is by the student orchestra at Arizona State University under the direction of Timothy Russell…is better than honorable." - The Boston Globe