The University Symphony Orchestra is a sixty member student ensemble performing the symphonic repertoire of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Under the direction of Nobuyoshi Yasuda, the ensemble presents an on-campus concert each semester, performs annually in a tour to high schools in Wisconsin and Minnesota, accompanies one fully-staged opera or musical play each year, and each spring is one of the featured ensembles at UW-Eau Claire’s nationally-acclaimed Viennese Ball.
Repertoire
Concert repertoire has included Mahler's First Symphony, Brahms' First Symphony and Haydn Variations, Shostakovitch's Fifth Symphony, Beethoven's Third Symphony and Fifth Piano Concerto, Wagner's Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde and Prelude to Die Meistersinger, Respighi's Pines of Rome, and Ravel's Bolero.
Recognition
Under Yasuda’s direction, the University Symphony Orchestra has been recognized by two invitations--in 1992 and again in 1995--to perform at the annual conference of the Wisconsin Music Education Association. In April, 1996, Maestro Ejii Oue, conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra, directed the Symphony in an open rehearsal of Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony.
