Yosemite Orchestra's 25th Anniversary 

October 10, 2026 – Mariposa Yosemite Symphony Orchestra announces 25^th Anniversary season. 

It began inauspiciously in 2002 - but within only a brief time, a symphony orchestra was born.  In a sparsely populated area.  At first, that wild idea prompted reactions of "a symphony WHAT?" and "is he CRAZY - HERE?" but by its first performance, locals had changed their literal tune, proudly recognizing that Mariposa now did, in fact: have its very own symphony orchestra.  A fact many proclaimed almost like a boast - an attainment so many larger areas lacked; and what's more, Mariposa has been recognized as the smallest town in all America with its very own symphony orchestra.

On Saturday, October 24th the Mariposa Yosemite Symphony Orchestra will usher in its 25th Anniversary Year with a Fantasy Concert at 7:00 P.M. in the Fiester Auditorium of Mariposa High School.  The concert will be repeated as a 2:00 P.M. Matinee a week later, on Sunday, November 1st in the orchestra's second home: Yosemite National Park.

25 years of serving the entire Yosemite region with live symphonic classical music.  Though the COVID epidemic cut into the orchestra's numbered seasons (requiring the cancellation of 2020-2022's concerts) the orchestra continues to thrive.  What began as a mere musing in the spring of 2002 on the possibility of creating a small chamber ensemble erupted over the following few months into a full symphony orchestra, prompting its founding creator Les Marsden to initially name it the Mariposa Symphony Orchestra.  The name was later changed by Marsden to its present title: the Mariposa Yosemite Symphony Orchestra (MYSO,) following its post-COVID reformation under the 501(C)(#) aegis of the Collaborative Arts and Culture Foundation (CACF,) a Mariposa-based Arts non-profit.

The orchestra's history is both colorful and impressive, with concerts regularly offered in Yosemite since 2007 (the MYSO is the only orchestra honored to perform in the park in Yosemite's 136-year history) and was named Yosemite's "Official" Symphony Orchestra in the National Park Service's 2016 Anniversary Year.  In that same year, a grant from the state of California afforded the orchestra a five-county tour, sharing music with Merced, Madera, Mono, Mariposa and Tuolumne audiences.  That concert included such high-elevation locations as Mammoth Lake (7,800 feet) and the now-famous concert on Yosemite's 7,200-foot Glacier Point.  What originally began with a handful of musicians in Mariposa has now expanded to include musicians from Fresno, Mariposa, Merced, Stanislaus, Kings, Madera - and even more counties, as well as some who rehearse remotely via Facetime from their home in Fort Collins, Colorado - flying to Mariposa for final in-person rehearsals and concerts.  A stage full of musicians who dedicate their time, talent - and especially transportation expense to make sure great live symphonic music is heard in these great hills and mountains.

The orchestra has welcomed renowned guest soloists from all over America including Cellist Ira Lehn, Violinists Ann Miller and Lewis Wong, Trombonist Dr. Thomas Ashworth, Harpist Laura Porter, Saxophonist Dr. Laurence Gwozdz and many more.  The orchestra's rich, bottomless repertoire includes many symphonies by Beethoven, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Franck, Mozart, Haydn, Sibelius, Kalinnikov and Schubert as well as much-beloved classics by Grieg, Bizet, Massenet, Vaughan-Williams, Brahms, Liszt, Bach, and a literal who's-who and what's-what of classical repertoire including Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade," Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite," Ravel's "Valses Nobles et Sentimentales," Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique," Dvorak's "From the New World (9th) Symphony," Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" and "Lieutenant Kije Suite."  Much of the music of American master Aaron Copland has been featured, as well as innumerable famous (and rare) overtures, orchestral suites, symphonic poems, concerti reflecting the works of composers from across the planet and more than three centuries.  In addition to the well-known, Marsden has always believed in sharing great but lesser-known symphonic compositions; pieces which may not be familiar to the ear but which, in Marsden's opinion, should be.

The orchestra gained international acclaim when famed London-based author and critic Norman Lebrecht cited the famous photograph by Al Golub of the MYSO performing at Glacier Point in 2016 as "The (World) Orchestral Portrait of the Year."
 
The orchestra's 25th-Anniversary Year inaugural concerts in October and November will begin with the "Scherzo Fantastique" by Czech composer Joseph Suk, a master in his own right who was also the son-in-law of the great Antonin Dvorak.  The concert will then feature the eerie, Halloween-appropriate "Isle of the Dead" by the great Russian Sergei Rachmaninoff before concluding with the colorful suite from Rimsky-Korsakov's final opera "Le Coq d'Or" ("The Golden Cockerel.")

Advance-sale tickets for the 7:00 P.M. Saturday, October 24th Concert in the Fiester Auditorium of Mariposa County High School are still only priced at $10 for Adults and $8 for Students and are available on the orchestra's website (http://MYSO.live) or by directly visiting: https://tinyurl.com/MYSO25th10-24-26.  Those ticket prices increase substantially at the door on the night of the concert so audience members are urged to purchase in advance.   

Little more than a week later on Sunday, November 1, the same concert will be performed for free as a 2:00 P.M. Matinee in the Great Lounge of Yosemite's landmark Ahwahnee Hotel, a return to its second home seven years in the making.  That concert is offered free, with no tickets - but on a first-come-first-seated basis.  A modest $10 donation at the door is suggested to help defray the orchestra's substantial costs.  The orchestra last performed in the Ahwahnee in October 2019, with the COVID shutdown and then a years-long restoration project at the hotel requiring the orchestra to play elsewhere in Yosemite.  This "homecoming" concert will be a very special event after so many years away; the sound of great symphonic music in that stately location, with the incredible visions of nature just outside the Lounge's doors - brings home Marsden's earliest intentions of combining orchestral beauty with the incomparable majesty of Yosemite.

Full concert details, tickets and Marsden's extensive program notes on the composers and their music, the orchestra's history and much more may be found on their website - http://MYSO.live. The orchestra's 25th year begins by continuing Marsden's initial reason for founding this venerable ensemble: that no person, from the very young to the not-so-young - should be denied the soul-fulfilling and life-changing experience of hearing live symphonic music simply by dint of geography.  And for the past 25 years, the MYSO has honored Marsden's pledge by bringing such music to thousands of pleased concert attendees.

THAT Photo - the "Orchestral Portrait of the Year" - the MYSO atop Glacier Point, August 21, 2016
(NPS Photo by Al Golub) 

The MYSO in concert at Merced College - May, 2016 (Photo Ruthie Fruehauf)

The early days: the orchestra in concert with Guest Soloist Dr. Thomas Ashworth of the University of Minnesota
in the Performing Arts Center at Yosemite High School, Oakhurst in 2005 (Photo Anonymous) 

The very first concert, December 21, 2002 - the sold-out crowd in the Fiester Auditorium at Mariposa High School
(Photo Jim Thompson)

The very first concert, December 21, 2002 - the orchestra itself, playing for that audience for the very first time
(Photo Jim Thompson)

Closing the Mariposa County Fair, September 2007 (Photo Brent Gilstrap)

Standing Ovation in the Ahwahnee's Great Lounge - April 26, 2015 (Photo Michael McLane)

The Ahwahnee Hotel's Great Lounge, the MYSO's Second Home - April 14, 2019 (Photo Miguel Maldonado)