Since infancy, sound has bridged what we are with who we become. Our parents’ voices and the emergence of our own voice, laughter with friends, that special song or the music that leads us down a path of spiritual growth. These are instances where sound bridges our personality and our soul. This season the Hastings Symphony Orchestra welcomes you to six concerts destined to leave a similar and memorable impression upon you.

Dean Haist returns to Hastings with The Nebraska Brass for our season opener in September. In October, we contrast Dvořák’s New World Symphony with the power of Karlowicz’s Rivial Sysmphony.  Our Holiday Concert shares the stage with the Hastings College Symphonic Band, and in February we welcome Young Artist winners from Hastings College. Our Afterglow Fundraising Dinner in April is preceded with a concert featuring Stefano and Nina Tanchietti singing opera vignettes plus selections from Rodgers and Hammerstein. The season concludes by bridging the physical and emotional concepts of sound in our Educational Outreach Concerts with a focus on the 4C’s: Creativity, Collaboration, Communication and Critical Thinking.

Our 86th Season, Sound Bridges, connects and directs us toward our 100th Anniversary in just fourteen years. The figurative girders, beams, and trusses placed by such HSO conductors as Frank Noyes, Matthew Shoemaker, and James Johnson have certainly paved the way to this momentous event. As always, I thank you for your continued patronage, but I also ask that you encourage others to attend and become involved with one of south central Nebraska’s finest treasures. Together, we can assure the Hastings Symphony’s vitality in the years to come.

I look forward to welcoming you to Sound Bridges...An Odyssey in Music.

Musically Yours,

Dr. Byron Jensen

Conductor/Artistic Director

with support of the Nebraska Arts Council and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment