To our past and present Symphony musicians, sponsors, subscribers, and audiences:

Beginning with the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020, many organizations inside and outside of the arts have been negatively impacted for an extended period of time.  Although we have had the capability to present our concert series both online and in person since then, it has not been without many difficulties.

At this time, due to a variety of issues, including finances and challenges in securing musicians to match our schedule of planned programming, we are announcing that the Southern Tier Symphony, in lieu of our typical three concert series season, will be in a sabbatical period.   During this time of restructuring, we are cancelling the October 5th & 6th concert series along with the February 15th and 16th concerts.  

While in this sabbatical block prior to the April 2025, we will be working to:

• Fine tune the programming for April 26 & 27 concerts.  This series will be presented at Olean High School (Saturday evening) and Blaisdell Hall at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford (Sunday afternoon).
• Streamline the process of securing our high-quality professional musicians in a timely fashion to ensure that instrumentation aligns with chosen program offerings.
• Remain in contact with our amazing corporate and business sponsors whose donations solidify the financial base of our operation
• Communicate with you, our subscribers, donors (personal and corporate) and concert attendees, the progress toward returning to a full concert series beginning in Fall 2025.  

  The Symphony will be able to perform the April 26 & 27 concert series at Olean High School and Blaisdell Hall at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.  We are acutely aware of current financial challenges that are closely related to our ability to secure the high-quality professional musicians we require for our performances.  If we are not able to raise sufficient funds to sustain our operational costs on an ongoing basis, our continued operation is endangered.

     The Board of Directors would like to thank our regular venues, the Quick Center for the Arts at St. Bonaventure University and Blaisdell Hall at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, for allowing us to perform in their beautiful concert halls.  The difficulties we face with our concert season are solely related to the Symphony, not our venue partners.  We encourage audiences to attend either venue for wonderful concerts planned by each University during their academic year performance season.

      The Symphony will be on sabbatical until this coming April 2025. At that time we plan to once again present symphonic concert music to a region of New York and Pennsylvania that is at the heart of our organizational foundation. If you have any further questions, or if you wish to contribute to the Symphony, we ask you to please contact us at [email protected] for further information and/or conversation.