Mission
The Cascade Symphony Orchestra exists to nourish its musicians and the community by providing inspiring performances of outstanding music.
History – A Ferry Tale
Once upon a time there lived in the land of South Snohomish County a group of musicians who had no orchestra. Each week the conductor of the Bremerton Symphony, Robert Anderson, took them across Puget Sound to play their music in the land of the Navy Shipyard. But there came a day when Conductor Anderson resigned, and now the musicians were returning from their last Bremerton concert, wondering where they could find another orchestra.
As the ferry rumbled along through the choppy Sound on this Sunday evening in March, 1962, they said to each other, “Why not a new symphony orchestra in South Snohomish County?”
In April, 1962, Cascade Symphony was incorporated under Washington State charter, and played its opening concert June 4 with a 60-member orchestra under Mr. Anderson’s baton.
The years flew by, and the orchestra grew and prospered. The quiet suburban area that saw the founding of Cascade Symphony seems now an imagined landscape… not even a freeway then. Today the Symphony serves a bustling area of over 150,000 people. Through the years, the Symphony has maintained its high musical standards. From its very beginning it became known for outstanding quality. During its first season, a picture of the orchestra appeared in a book by the president of Columbia Broadcasting System, distributed worldwide through the State Department, as an example of a growing community symphony movement. “Several musicians in that picture were still with the orchestra in 2011-12, its 50th-anniversary season.”
Since its beginning, orchestra members have been energized by rehearsals each Monday evening of the concert season.
