The San Diego Symphony is an American symphony orchestra, based in San Diego, California. On 6 December 1910, it gave its first concert as the San Diego Civic Orchestra.
Currently, the Symphony performs over 100 concerts each season. The symphony performs subscription series concert at Copley Symphony Hall, which was built in 1929 as a French Rococo style luxury movie theater, the Fox Theater. It was conferred to the Symphony in 1984. The Symphony Towers (the second tallest building in San Diego County) building was built around Copley Hall in 1989. The San Diego Symphony performances include the Masterworks series, the Winter Pops series, annual holiday programs, a Family Festival series, and the Light Bulb Series. From July through September, the Symphony presents an outdoor Summer Pops season. Recently, a "Thursday Night Lite" series was initiated.[1] Since 2005, symphony musicians have also performed as the pit orchestra for San Diego Opera.[2]
The orchestra encountered several periods of fiscal trouble over its history which forced it to cease operations. The first such period was from 1921 to 1926. The orchestra resumed limited summer concerts in 1927, but disbanded again in 1936. In 1949, the symphony began to play concerts again. From 1996-1998, the fiscal troubles of the orchestra led it to file for bankruptcy in May 1996 [3] and to cease operations.[4] With a bankruptcy plan centered around a $2 million gift from Larry Robinson [3] and through the pro bono efforts of prominent bankruptcy attorneys Ted Graham and Jeff Garfinkle of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, the orchestra reorganized and restarted in 1998, with Jung-Ho Pak serving as artistic director. He had become the symphony's assistant conductor in 1994.[5]
Several years after the orchestra's reorganization, on January 14, 2002, the San Diego Symphony announced the single largest donation ever made to a symphony orchestra, US$120 million by Joan and Irwin Jacobs. One report stated that the arrangement is for $50 million to be donated over a period of 10 years, at $5 million a year. The remainder would then be left to the orchestra as a bequest.[6] [7]
In 2001, the orchestra had ratified an agreement which would increase the musicians' annual base salary from $25,920 to $45,750, with an expansion of the concert season from 26 weeks to 41 weeks. In 2006, the orchestra ratified a new 5-year contract that raised the annual minimum salary from $45,750 to $57,776 over five years. The 41-week season will also enlarge to 42 weeks. As of 2006, the annual budget of the orchestra was $14 million.[8]
Since 2004, the musical director is Jahja Ling. In October 2007, Ling extended his contract with the orchestra to 2012.[9] Since 2003, the executive director of the orchestra is Edward Gill. Since 2006, the principal pops conductor of the orchestra is Marvin Hamlisch.[10] [11]
Melvin G. Goldzband, the San Diego Symphony's archivist, has published a book about the orchestra, San Diego Symphony From Overture to Encore.[12]