On behalf of the entire Yakima Symphony Orchestra organization and, in fact, the entire city of Yakima, I would like to express my sincere thanks to maestro Brooke Creswell, who created, built, and nurtured the YSO for over four decades! He gave this community the gift of music, and for that he shall always be remembered. Thanks to the firm foundation that maestro Creswell has laid, the Yakima Symphony Orchestra is poised for an era of expansion and growth and indeed has a very bright future ahead of it. I am honored to have been chosen as the one to help lead it into that future.

Some of the ways you will see growth manifest itself will include more concerts, different types of concerts, and events that are aimed at appealing to many different segments of the community. While maintaining the traditional Mainstage Classical series, we will be adding a Pops series, a Family series, and a Community Outreach series. I would also like to see us presenting fully-staged opera productions as well as fully-staged Broadway productions. Our goal is to provide wonderful music of all different types to everyone in the Yakima community.

You can also look forward to a great deal of variety within the programming of the Mainstage Classical series. Most concerts will feature a combination of music you already know and love along with some music that you have probably never heard before. My sincere hope is that you will thoroughly enjoy ALL of the music we play!

We are about to embark upon a wonderful journey together and for my part, I do so with the greatest enthusiasm!

Sincerely,

Lawrence Golan
The Helen N. Jewett Music Director
Yakima Symphony Orchestra