Marquette Symphony Orchestra

Mission: To create, provide, and promote professional performances of orchestral music through collaboration with residents and music educators of the central Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

In the mid-1990s, during a music conference, Dr. Donald Grant, chair of the music department at Northern Michigan University, posed a pivotal question to Marquette violinist and music teacher Janis Shier (Norton) Peterson: “Why doesn’t Marquette have a symphony orchestra?” This question sparked an idea that quickly gained momentum. It inspired a passionate group of community members to take action, leading to the formation of the Marquette Symphony Orchestra. By late 1996, they had incorporated and elected their first board of directors, which included over two dozen civic benefactors such as Edward Quinnell (president), Richard Klahn (vice president), Yvonne Lee (treasurer), and Reatha Tweedie (secretary). The orchestra’s initial goals were to raise funds, engage youth with symphonic music, and create an inclusive, community-centered identity for the orchestra.

Five times a year, we offer exciting concerts—classical, pops, newly-commissioned works, old favorites, concerti, symphonies, and tone poems, and everything in between—to Upper Peninsula residents who come from as far as a hundred miles away. We also offer outreach concerts through the Besse Center in Escanaba. Each year we employ dozens of area musicians, engage the interest of hundreds of area youth, and provide high-quality music to thousands of area patrons. We are a keystone of Marquette’s vibrant cultural life that makes it a mecca for area art-lovers and helps fuel the area’s tourist industry.