Orchestra
Notre Dame Symphony Orchestra
Daniel Stowe, Director
The Notre Dame Symphony Orchestra is an ensemble of 80–90 players devoted to the orchestral music of the 18th through 21st centuries. The orchestra is open to all members of the Notre Dame and greater South Bend community; non-music majors who wish to continue instrumental performance during their college careers are particularly encouraged to participate. The orchestra currently rehearses on Tuesday evenings and presents three campus concerts in the Marie DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts. The NDSO tours every two years; recent tour destinations have included Florida, Central America, and California, and a tour of the Pacific Northwest.
Each year a concerto competition for instrumental performers is held in the fall semester with the winner or winners appearing with the NDSO in concert in the spring. General auditions for new and returning members of the orchestra are held during the first week of fall classes, but individual auditions can be arranged by appointment throughout the year.
Notre Dame Chamber Orchestra
Alexander Blachly, Director
The Notre Dame Chamber Orchestra is a select ensemble that performs with the Notre Dame Chorale in its on-campus concerts. With only one to three players per part, the Chamber Orchestra requires advanced skills. About half the players are professionals, the rest being drawn from the ranks of the Notre Dame Symphony Orchestra. Works with chorus performed in recent years, in addition to Handel’s Messiah, which is performed annually in December, have included Haydn’s Creation and Stabat mater, Bach’s cantata Aus der Tiefen, BWV 131, and Magnificat, BWV 243, Mozart’s Coronation Mass, K. 317, and Vesperae solennes de Confessore, K. 339, and the “Hallelujah” from Beethoven’s Christ on the Mount of Olives, Op, 85.