With support from the California Arts Council, Santa Rosa Symphony’s Simply Strings program will continue to break down barriers to opportunity and cultivate young leaders in an economically disadvantaged community, improving access to music education for underserved children through free after-school instruction and sparking positive social change. With a seven-year commitment to each child, grades 2–8, Simply Strings uses music to foster academic success, emotional health and prosocial skills.
Since 1928, the Santa Rosa Symphony has presented high-quality, engaging performances to audiences in the North Bay. Now in its 97th season—and 13th year as resident orchestra at the Weill Hall of the Green Music Center in Rohnert Park—the Santa Rosa Symphony is among the largest regional symphonies in California. As a past winner of the coveted Adventurous Programming Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), the Symphony is celebrated for its artistic innovation and excellence. Under Music Director Francesco Lecce-Chong, a recipient of a Solti Foundation Award, the Symphony commissions and premieres new works by women composers and composers of color, expanding the orchestral repertoire and inviting new audiences to experience live symphonic music.
The Santa Rosa Symphony has a historic commitment to music education, dating to the first Young People’s Concerts in 1947. The Junior Symphony—now the Santa Rosa Symphony Youth Orchestra—was formed in 1959 and was named Youth Orchestra of the Year by the Classics Alive Foundation in 2013. The Preparatory Orchestra String Institute—now the Summer Music Academy—was founded in 1977. The Symphony’s Institute of Music Education, inaugurated in 2018, supports 14 different instrumental training and music education programs. Simply Strings, launched in 2013, provides free music education to the underserved youth of the Roseland Public Schools, and received a Merit Award for Cultural Enrichment from the City of Santa Rosa in 2016.

