Symphony History

Founded under the leadership of conductor Henry Cox, the Omaha Symphony has served the Omaha area for more than a century. We pride ourselves on bringing live orchestral music to everyone throughout Nebraska, western Iowa, and the region. From 1966 to 1968, Music Director Joseph Levine led the implementation of a Ford Foundation grant enabling the symphony to tour outside Omaha and create a music program designed for children, known as the Omaha Symphony’s Concerts for Youth, which continues to be a community treasure today. In 1971, Maestro Yuri Krasnapolsky began the beloved Pops series and oversaw the establishment of in-school ensemble concerts. Soon after, in 1975, Music Director Thomas Briccetti developed the Omaha Symphony into a true professional orchestra with a “core” of 30 full-time musicians, which has since expanded to its current size of 44 full-time players augmented with 26 part-time contracted musicians.

The Omaha Symphony moved to its official home, the Holland Performing Arts Center, in 2005, under the baton of new Music Director Thomas Wilkins, who, after a remarkable 16-year tenure, was named the Omaha Symphony’s Music Director Laureate. In 2015, Ernest Richardson was named the Omaha Symphony’s principal pops conductor. Richardson, who first joined the symphony in 1993 as assistant conductor and later rose to the role of resident conductor, has been instrumental in guiding the organization’s educational mission. He also built the orchestra’s annual Christmas program into a major Broadway-caliber production, the popular Physicians Mutual Omaha Symphony Christmas Celebration.

With a strong, ongoing commitment to meeting the needs of its community and its concertgoers, the Omaha Symphony looks forward to bringing the power and beauty of live orchestral music to audiences for generations to come.

The Omaha Symphony is proud to be a cornerstone not only of Omaha, but the broader Nebraska community. The Omaha Symphony annually serves over 400,000 people through more than 250 culturally enriching and entertaining mainstage concerts, music education programs, community engagement activities, and digital initiatives. We are deeply invested in education and community engagement programs, through which more than 140,000 people’s lives and 300 schools are touched each year. Whether in the concert hall, in neighborhoods throughout Omaha, or in towns across Nebraska, we are focused on creating welcoming spaces and nurturing connections to ensure that our community experiences and participates in music in a way that serves, reflects, uplifts, and entertains.

The Omaha Symphony, conducted by Thomas Briccetti, recorded an album featuring The Happy Prince by Jan Bach in 1980, and in 1995 recorded and produced its first CD, Take Flight, under the baton of Victor Yampolsky. In 2017 and 2018, the Omaha Symphony recorded live performances with Maestro Thomas Wilkins of Rimsky- Korsakov’s Scheherazade and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. In 2020, the alternative rock group Guster released OMAGAH! Guster with the Omaha Symphony, a live recording of the band and the orchestra performing together at the Holland Center.

On March 17, 2023, the Omaha Symphony performed the world premiere of GRAMMY Award-nominated composer Andy Akiho’s Sculptures, a piece written to honor visual artist and Omaha icon Jun Kaneko. Commissioned by the Omaha Symphony, the work incorporated Kaneko’s sculptures on stage, which Akiho played as percussive instruments.

The world premiere performance was recorded and released as an album in September 2023. The album received three GRAMMY nominations in 2024: Best Classical Instrumental Solo, Best Classical Compendium, and Best Contemporary Classical Composition.

Today, the Omaha Symphony performs a 38-week season from September through June, as well as several free outdoor park concerts in the summer that draws thousands. Our robust and ever-growing digital initiative has allowed us to expand our presence on television, radio, and online, reaching nearly 280,000 viewers and listeners in 2025/26 alone.

The Omaha Symphony provides a varied array of programs in different concert packages each year. From Masterworks to Symphony Joslyn, to Family concerts and LIVE with the Omaha Symphony, there are exciting orchestral performances to please music lovers of all sorts, whether classical music aficionados, film enthusiasts, or fans of pops headliners or rock ‘n’ roll.

The Omaha Symphony is always online. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Our blog also presents exclusive behind the scenes stories and insights about our orchestra and the guest artists who share our stage.