Live performance experience is essential to the education and career path of all professional musicians. Manhattan School of Music offers students orchestral-based performance experience that is indispensable for orchestral instrumentalists.

All of the students who play orchestral instruments have the opportunity to perform in public with the orchestras, which appear regularly in the School’s main venue, John C. Borden Auditorium. The Chamber Sinfonia, Symphony, and Philharmonia orchestras perform standard repertoire as well as 20th and 21st century symphonic and chamber orchestral literature. In addition, there are performance opportunities with the Jazz Philharmonic, Opera Orchestra, Composers’ Orchestra and Chamber Winds, which members of the three main orchestras also comprise.

Maestro George Manahan, Director of Orchestral Activities at Manhattan School of Music, conducts many of the concerts each year. MSM has also welcomed such dynamic guest conductors in recent years as:

Pierre Boulez
Joana Carneiro
Mei-Ann Chen
Philippe Entremont
JoAnn Falletta
Kenneth Kiesler
Zdenek Macal
Kurt Masur
Jean-Bernard Pommier
David Robertson
Julius Rudel
Gerard Schwarz
Jerzy Semkow
Gunther Schuller
Yoav Talmi