Your donations are leveraged to help us serve the community!

Clearly, and especially because of the human and financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, this next phase in the Symphony’s journey creates an unprecedented opportunity to explore new and innovative ways to deliver our mission, capitalize on the Symphony’s reputation for artistic excellence, and leverage our experience partnering with schools and youth throughout the region in music education programs.

The support from the community was moving, as we all worked from our virtual offices to find a new path forward. With your generous and heartfelt donations, we were able to pay our small and mighty staff, pay our vendors, support our music education faculty and collaborate with our professional musicians to help compensate them at a time when they could not do what they are trained and love to do.

The Santa Barbara Symphony is a great investment:

• For 70 years, the Symphony has been here when our community needed us most—in times of community celebration and in times of tragedy.
• Led by Board Chair, Janet Garufis, Music & Artistic Director, Nir Kabaretti, and President and CEO Kathryn R Martin, the new leadership team is building unprecedented fiscal strength, community partnerships, transparent communication and exciting momentum.
• The Symphony is an economic driver and part of the fabric of our community; employing local instructors, coaches and musicians, generating business for local restaurants and businesses, and attracting cultural tourists and shining a spotlight on the extraordinary creative community choosing to call Santa Barbara home.
• The Symphony’s award-winning music education programs are unique in our region. We are the only organization that provides students with arts enrichment and consistent, hands-on music education to over 7,000 students throughout the academic year, providing equitable access through scholarships and underwritten programs to more hands-on, high-quality music education than most other orchestras of similar size in comparable markets, and more than some in much larger communities.