Gulf Coast Symphony Orchestra

The Gulf Coast Symphony encourages the growth of symphonic music in the greater community by performing a variety of concerts each year including classical pops and family education concerts. The Gulf Coast Symphony provides an opportunity for area musicians to participate in the orchestral experience at the very highest levels. The Gulf Coast Symphony helps promote the careers of emerging artists by featuring them as soloists at our concerts and in recital. These same artists participate in the Symphony's education programs. This season was heavily impacted by the arrival of Hurricane Ian at our shores which resulted in the cancelation of several of our Fall shows and the symphony closing down for a month. This season we presented 12 concerts at the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall including Nutcracker with the Gulfshore Ballet and Deck the Halls with the Fort Myers Symphonic Mastersingers and a full production of Gypsy. In addition to these concerts at Barbara B. Mann this season was the third year of programming at our Music & Art Community Center MACC which opened in January 2021. At the MACC we still presented 6 orchestra concerts 4 musicals for 67 performances a Jazz Series 7 shows and a chamber music series 4 shows. We also did a Latin Night. In all the Gulf Coast Symphony presented 98 performances this season. We played the opening night of ArtFest in downtown Fort Myers in the new outdoor Caloosa Sound Shell. Our education programs during the year included MusicWorks afterschool and a High School Jazz Ensemble. We also ran our second summer camps with programs for beginning strings Jazz orchestra and musical theater this year for six weeks.