Symphony Orchestra

The Ensemble

The UNC Symphony Orchestra is a 100-member ensemble which rehearses Monday and Wednesday evenings throughout the academic year and performs two major concerts each semester. Enrollment is open by audition to anyone -- music majors, non-majors and community members. Led by its Music Director and Conductor, Tonu Kalam, the orchestra often presents faculty and student musicians as concerto soloists and has also collaborated with UNC opera and choral ensembles, including a full semi-staged production of Mozart's Così fan tutte. Major standard orchestral works performed in recent years have included Mahler's Symphony No. 1, Stravinsky's Petrushka, Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. 5, 6, 7 and 9, Brahms' Symphonies Nos. 1, 2 and 4, Tchaikovsky's Symphonies Nos. 2, 3 and 5, Rimsky Korsakov's Sheherazade, Dvorák's Symphonies Nos. 8 and 9, Shostakovich's Symphonies Nos. 5 and 6, Saint-Saëns' "Organ" Symphony, Berlioz' Harold in Italy, Gershwin's An American in Paris and Strauss' Death and Transfiguration. The orchestra has also performed works by significant twentieth- and twenty-first-century composers, including Barber, Copland, Bernstein, Hindemith, Prokofiev, Milhaud, Britten, Walton, Christopher Rouse, Michael Torke, Arvo Pärt, Jennifer Higdon, John Harbison, Christopher Theofanidis, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Lowell Liebermann, Robert Moran and John Corigliano.

Audition Information

Auditions for the UNC Symphony Orchestra will be held immediately prior to and during the first week of classes in August. Detailed information and sign-up sheets for audition times will be posted on the Orchestra bulletin board outside Prof. Kalam's office, Hill Hall Room 214. The ten-minute audition will consist of: two prepared brief solos of your choice -- one slow and melodic, one fast and technical; sight-reading of a short orchestral excerpt; and a scale. Musicians interested in joining the Orchestra for the Spring Semester must contact Prof. Kalam to set up an audition prior to the end of December.


If you have any questions or desire more information about the orchestra program, please feel free to call Prof. Kalam at (919)966-1330 (office) or email him at kalam@mindspring.com.