Alhambra Orchestra

The Alhambra Orchestra is Miami's community orchestra.  It provides exciting live performances of orchestral masterpieces to over 5,500 people annually in Miami-Dade County.  Performances are free or very low-cost, convenient and accessible to all, because we believe everyone needs and deserves the experience of a live orchestra presenting great music. We offer symphony concerts, children's programming, pops concerts, chamber music, musical theatre, and opera.   We partner with an elementary school music program, and we make outreach visits to other schools, hospitals and community centers.  We also sponsor a concerto competition to showcase talented young local performers. This will be the 22nd year for our competition, and also the 22nd year for our unique weekend chamber music workshop for local student and amateur musicians, taught by Frost School of Music faculty.  The Alhambra Orchestra's core of skilled musicians includes renowned local performers as well as community musicians who have "day jobs" as business executives, teachers, nurses, lawyers, physicians, marketers, and many other careers, the majority of whom donate their time and talent. Our inspiring Artistic Director, Dr. Daniel Andai, has molded the orchestra into an excellent ensemble that often collaborates with top local soloists. We particularly try to reach seniors, families with young children, and other residents who are usually not able to attend "headline" classical music events in expensive downtown venues; they need and want to hear great music in their own neighborhoods. We perform at local universities,  Pinecrest Gardens, the Moss Center, Coral Gables Congregational Church, and elsewhere around the county, in addition to our visits to schools, hospitals and community centers. 

This will be our 36th season. We plan to start with a lively Hispanic Heritage concert in September at FIU's Wertheim Performing Arts Center, followed by our beloved Spooky Symphony for local families at the Moss Center in October.   Next, there's a multi-ethnic holiday concert in December in lovely Pinecrest Gardens, followed by "South Florida's Got Talent" at FIU in January featuring our young concerto competition winners. In March we'll have a unique chamber music concert in Coral Gables, with several small ensembles up close and personal in a lovely historic church. In April, we're thrilled to feature vioinist Misha Vitenson of the FIU faculty performing a lovely Mozart violin concerto, after which we'll conclude the concert with the fabulous Fifth Symphony by Beethoven, at FIU.    And for an extra summer bonus family concert in June, again at FIU,  we'll invite the Frost Museum of Science to show amazing slides of Earth's bodies of water and sea life while we play classical and movie music written about oceans and rivers.  

 Because of the work of our many volunteers, including the majority of our wonderful musicians, the Alhambra Orchestra is extremely cost-effective;  it presents outstanding action-filled concert seasons for a fraction of the dollars needed by other orchestras.  Nevertheless, all performing groups need cash for insurance, copyright fees, performance space, rehearsal space, advertising, personnel, and the general expense of running a nonprofit business. We are among the organizations harmed by the cutoff of arts grants from state, local and national government programs.  We'll be very grateful for your assistance this season, and with our can-do attitude, we promise to make efficient use of every dollar that will help us bring live classical music to the Miami-Dade community.  

See the season schedule, and more information about us, on our webpage www.alhambraorchestra.org