Orchestra
FALL 2025 AUDITION— AUGUST 19, 2025
Sign up here
Are you interested in learning more about and/or playing with the SJSU Symphony Orchestras? If you'd like to join us:
- Click this link: Ensembles Interest Form
- Tell us about yourself in the form.
- We will keep you in the loop about rehearsal times, audition dates, and we'll also include videos of recent performances.
Visit the Ensembles Interest Form for more information and we look forward to telling you about our performing ensembles.
The mission of the orchestra is to deliver an outstanding music education for our students, and to perform at the highest level with passion, energy, and commitment.
The ensemble is open to non-music majors; auditions take place immediately before classes begin each semester. Sign up here.
Music majors focusing on string performance must participate in Symphony Orchestra as their major ensemble.
The core repertoire of the Orchestra spans a broad range of eras, styles, and genres. Performance venues in 2024-25 included the Hammer Theater, the California Theatre, Sofia Theater (Sacramento), Music Concert Hall. Repertoire included Voices of Light (music to accompany the 1928 silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc), Dvorak's Symphony from the New World, the premiere of Fred Cohen's Nizkor—A Journey of Remembrance (an oratorio for choirs, vocal soloists, orchestra), Rachmaninoff's PIano Concerto No. 2, and works by composers ranging from Jake Heggie to L. van Beethoven.
Previous performances include Joseph Bologne "Chavalier de Saint George" opera, L'Amant Anonyme (The Anonymous Lover), Philip Glass's "Low" Symphony, Beethoven Piano Concertos, Sondheim's "Into the Woods," and much much more!
The conductor of the SJSU Symphony Orchestra is Dr. Fred Cohen.
Dr. Fred Cohen
Director, School of Music
fred.cohen@sjsu.edu
