I’m going to hail Marin Symphony’s 75th anniversary season — even if pesky copy editors will bring up some questions of history and arithmetic.
History speaks of a fellow immigrant from Hungary, Sandor Salgo (born Salgó Sándor, who studied under Zoltán Kodály), conducting a concert in Marin County Catholic High School on Dec. 14, 1952. That will be 74 years in December — and, yes, 75 next year.
However, the program was a holiday presentation of Handel’s Messiah, performed by the ad hoc “Marin Art and Music Festival Chorus and Orchestra,” consisting of San Francisco orchestra members who lived in Marin and local musicians and singers.
It was only in 1956, after the new organization was officially incorporated, that Salgo was named music director of what by then was known as the Marin Symphony. That’s 70 years, says arithmetic.
No matter, let's call it Marin’s diamond jubilee — and remember that Salgo led the orchestra for 33 years, even as he also took over leadership of the Carmel Bach Festival in 1956, remaining its music director for 35 years. He died in 2007, at age 97.
Marin Symphony Executive Director Tod Brody is focusing on the present and future, having just shepherded the ensemble through a few homeless years, while the 1,960-seat Veterans Memorial Auditorium at the Marin Civic Center was renovated. That meant, in Brody’s words, “performing smaller-scale concerts in the College of Marin's 580-seat James Dunn Theater.” Brody is excited for the coming season, which promises a fresh start.
“As the VMA was being repaired, the orchestra concluded an international search by hiring Music Director Fawzi Haimor, who has just completed a very successful inaugural season,” Brody said.
“With the return to the VMA, larger-scale programming will once again be possible: the first Masterworks concert of the 2026-27 season, on Jan. 23–24, 2027, will feature Mahler’s monumental Second Symphony (“Resurrection”), with an orchestra of 101 musicians and the Marin Symphony Chorus filling the stage.”
During the years of being away from the VMA, Marin Symphony developed a popular chamber-music series and expanded the activities of the chorus. “These ventures will continue into the future,” says Brody, “as will the building out of the orchestra's Pops series.”
The orchestra’s other Masterworks concerts in the next season will feature Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, and Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.
Among soloists next season are pianist Jon Nakamatsu, playing Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto, Los Angeles Philharmonic Principal Trumpet Thomas Hooten in John Williams’s Trumpet Concerto, and Rachel Barton Pine, slated to be the soloist in Florence Price’s Second Violin Concerto.
Marin Symphony today has 79 union musicians on the roster, with per-service contracts negotiated by the American Federation of Musicians Local 6. The Symphony’s chorus of 100 volunteers is directed by Eric Choate.
The organization’s budget for the 2026-2027 season is $2.9 million, an increase over 2023’s $2.59 million. No wonder Brody is beaming.
