MUSIC MATTERS

A Campaign for Charleston’s Symphony

For 86 years, the Charleston Symphony has served as one of South Carolina’s most celebrated and vibrant performing arts institutions. 

Today, the Charleston Symphony is poised, ready, and determined to lead the way and demonstrate how a modern symphony can serve its community.

Our aspirations are far grander than sustaining our current impact.   

We believe classical music is for everyone. Our vision is to be “Charleston’s Symphony,” a force that connects the whole of our community, tells their stories, and expresses their joys and sorrows as only music can. 

Achieving our vision means unleashing the full creative spirit of our team to nurture the traditions that have inspired us for centuries, while developing innovative programming that attracts younger and more diverse audiences. 

We will be a modern orchestra that serves and reflects our community.

Charleston Symphony’s first-ever endowment campaign—Music Matters: A Campaign for Charleston’s Symphony.  

Through this campaign we will build the financial resources we need to become the Symphony of the future: bold, modern, sustainable, community-focused, inclusive, and artistically brilliant.  We invite you to join us on this journey.

The goal of this campaign is simple:

Build the long-term resources we need to take care of our people and our programming so we can continue serving our community  with one of the world’s greatest art forms. 

Most successful symphonies draw 20% of operating support from endowment earnings. Growing our endowment to that level through Music Matters will allow us to: 

• Invest in our musicians and staff providing competitive wages and benefits including a 401k match to attract and retain the best people
• Present bold artistic programming that brings together our core musicians, world-renowned guest artists and conductors, and the country’s most sought after guest musicians
• Increase our reach and impact with our Music in Schools program
• Grow our Youth Symphony programs and remove any barriers for participation
• Bring the Symphony into the community with free public performances
• Launch family-friendly initiatives
• Offer year-round programming
• Bolster our financial strength to ensure we can continue to serve our community during times of uncertainty 

Through this campaign we will become an even more vibrant Symphony. We will inspire audiences and strengthen the ties that bind our community through the power of music for decades to come. 

Through the generosity of our patrons and the community, more than $13 million has already been raised in support of Music Matters. It is our goal to reach $14.5 million before the end of 2022. 

When you make a gift to Music Matters, you provide the resources essential to maintain our excellent community and education programs today, launch the initiatives to achieve our vision tomorrow, and sustain our efforts long into the future.

We invite you to join us on our journey to become Charleston’s Symphony by contributing to Music Matters today.