Name of your business.
Pioneer Valley Symphony
Your name and position.
Susanne Dunlap, Managing Director
What inspired you to start your business? How did your business get started?
The Pioneer Valley Symphony has been an integral part of the Pioneer Valley for 76 years! It was started in 1939 by a few passionate amateurs who wanted to perform symphonic music. This same group founded the Springfield Symphony Orchestra five years later.
Tell us a little bit about your business.
We are a 90% volunteer nonprofit organization, with one full-time staff member (me!) and one part-time bookkeeper. Nonetheless, we present a season of six concerts by our orchestra and/or chorus every year, plus two concerts performed by our new Youth Orchestra (inaugurated last year in honor of our 75th anniversary), and four casual “Summer Sings,” where community members can come and read through great choral works.
Under the spirited direction of Paul Phillips, music director and conductor, we have won three ASCAP awards for adventurous programming of contemporary music. We were also recipients of the NEPR Arts and Humanities Award in 2013.
In addition, we have an annual education program for about 1,000 third- and fourth-graders in Franklin County that consists of a six-week classroom unit with workbooks and CDs provided by us, culminating in a symphony orchestra concert for the participants during a school day in April.
Over the years, we have brought many eminent soloists to the valley to perform with us, and this season is no exception: In February we welcome violin wunderkind Ilana Zaks to perform Mozart and Sarasate, in March we will have pianist Jeffrey Biegel performing Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto, and in May we are doing a semi-staged performance of a gorgeous one-act opera, Cavalleria rusticana, at the Academy of Music in Northampton.
We don’t have a concert hall of our own, but we perform throughout the Pioneer Valley in the few places that have stages large enough to accommodate our 70-member orchestra—and sometimes our 70-member chorus as well. Last May, we collaborated with the Hampshire Choral Society to present Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony at the UMass Fine Arts Center, where we had over 200 people on stage.
This season we will have been at the Fine Arts Center; Second Congregational Church, Greenfield; The Hess Center for the Arts at Deerfield Academy; Greenfield Middle School; and the Academy of Music in Northampton.
We also produce a beautiful program book that is the cornerstone of our advertising and sponsorship program. We’re very thrilled this season to have Greenfield Co-operative Bank, Greenfield Savings Bank, Baystate Health Systems, and the Lathrop Communities as our lead sponsors.
What is your favorite thing to do in your business?
Hmmm. Since I have to do just about everything…I love producing videos of our wonderful performances, managing social media (our reach has trebled since I started in April, 2013—pun intended!), I love planning the next season with the artistic staff and the board of directors—I pretty much love everything I do.
If nothing else, what is the one piece of information you want someone to know about your business?
The Pioneer Valley Symphony is superb, locally sourced symphonic music, performed by passionate musicians who are your friends, neighbors, and colleagues.
What is the one piece of business advice you would like to share?
Don’t be afraid to try new things!