Lansing Symphony Orchestra

The Lansing Symphony Orchestra is Michigan's capital-city orchestra, presenting a mix of classical, chamber, and holiday concerts each season. Full orchestral programs are held at the Wharton Center, a large performing arts venue on Michigan State University's campus, while more intimate chamber concerts take place at Molly Grove Chapel at First Presbyterian Church in Lansing. This season's programs are led by a rotating slate of guest conductors, including Scott Seaton, Yue Bao, Joshua Gersen, and Sara Aldana. A first-time visitor can expect a program that pairs familiar orchestral repertoire with newer or lesser-known works, performed by a regional ensemble that draws players from around the state.

The Lansing Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1944, when local musicians and civic supporters in Michigan's capital set out to give the city an orchestra of its own. Like many American community orchestras born in the 1940s, it began with a mix of skilled amateurs and professional players and grew steadily in size and ambition through the postwar decades, adding a professional core, a full subscription season and education work in area schools.

For much of its early life the orchestra performed in school auditoriums and civic halls around Lansing. Its home changed decisively after the Wharton Center for Performing Arts opened on the Michigan State University campus in East Lansing in 1982, giving the orchestra a purpose built concert hall with room for a large audience. The orchestra also performs in smaller venues around the region, including chamber concerts in churches and community spaces where listeners sit close enough to see the players' bows move together.

Timothy Muffitt became music director in 2006 and led the orchestra for many seasons, expanding the chamber series and the range of repertoire, from standard symphonies to works by living American composers. The orchestra's season typically pairs familiar cornerstones, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, with newer pieces and concertos featuring visiting soloists, alongside holiday and pops programs aimed at families.

Today the Lansing Symphony remains the region's principal professional orchestra, presenting full orchestra classical concerts at the Wharton Center, a chamber music series in the more intimate Molly Grove Chapel at First Presbyterian Church, and holiday programming, with guest conductors appearing across the season.