Histoire
Founded in 1982 by R. Crosby Kemper Jr. and a group of passionate music lovers, the Kansas City Symphony has rocketed to become one of the top 25 orchestras in the United States. During our 42-week season, we perform a huge range of orchestral and chamber music in our performance home, Helzberg Hall, at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. The musicians of the Symphony also perform throughout the Kansas City metro region on our portable stage, the Mobile Music Box, and we serve as the orchestra for the Kansas City Ballet and Lyric Opera of Kansas City.
Michael Stern, the Symphony’s music director, is finishing a 19-year tenure marked by artistic ascent, critical acclaim, and national recognition for the orchestra. Starting in July 2024, we will welcome conductor and composer Matthias Pintscher as his successor. Matthias regularly conducts many of the world’s best orchestras and opera companies and ranks as one of the world’s foremost composers of orchestral music.
Your Symphony includes 80 full-time musicians from around the world who call Kansas City home. Frequently joining them onstage is the 160-voice Symphony Chorus led by Charles Bruffy. Every season, dozens of soloists perform with us — instrumentalists, singer/songwriters, tribute rock bands, even aerial artists. We also accompany your favorite films, playing the soundtrack live as the movie is projected on Helzberg Hall’s giant screen.
Between our concerts at the Kauffman Center, performances on the Mobile Music Box, and community events like Celebration at the Station, the Symphony aspires to serve all Kansas City through music. We belong to you, and to your neighbors, and to all the people you see throughout the community.
Music connects us: it has the unique ability to draw us closer to our inner selves and also closer to one another, transcending our differences. Every Symphony concert will take you on an emotional journey — a journey that’s deeply personal but also a journey that we all experience together as one.