Monday, February 17, 2025

Lewisville Lake Symphony hits cultural note in Denton County

People say if you want to know everything there is to know about the Lewisville Lake Symphony, talk to Nancy Wright. After all, she’s been involved with Denton County’s best-kept cultural secret for so long that she was likely there when the doors opened, and the first violin string was plucked nearly 40 years ago.

OK, so that last part isn’t true. But Wright got involved as quickly as she could.

“I wasn’t there on the first day. But I started very early on as someone who wanted a way to play beautiful music,” said Wright, who played the flute in the orchestra for four years. She’s currently a member of the symphony’s board of directors and has been leading the volunteer effort in everything from writing grants and putting together programs to overseeing the budget and steering the organization through the pandemic. “My full-time job kept getting in the way of my volunteer work, though, so I often joke that I needed to retire in order to do my real job — my symphony stuff.

“I call this my unpaid part-time job. I knew the quality they were working toward, and I wanted to be a part of making that happen.”

Despite the Lewisville Lake Symphony having been around for as long as it has — they’re starting their 39th season this month — many local classical music lovers are shocked to hear there is a professional orchestra in their community. As Wright will tell you, the symphony started innocently enough with a group of volunteers who felt there weren’t enough cultural events in the Lewisville Lake area and held concerts at nearby churches. Fast forward to today, and that once-fledgling idea is now rated as one of the top regional symphonies in Texas.

There are still plenty of volunteers steering the ship behind the scenes, but the all-professional Lewisville Lake Symphony is home to some of the top classical music players in the Metroplex. They present an annual symphony series at the Grand Theater in Lewisville and a free international chamber series in Flower Mound.

The chamber series is presented in cooperation with the College of Music at the University of North Texas, a partnership that started 19 years ago. The upcoming series includes the Bancroft String Quartet on October 7, Junyoung Hwang, piano, on December 27, and Ran Feng, piano, on January 27.

The next installment in their symphony series is called Opera and features the International Competition for Voice winners Jonathan Patton and Adia Evans. That show is slated for 7:30 p.m. on September 16.

The organization’s mission is twofold: to enrich the community through live, quality classical music and to expose, educate, and encourage young people to appreciate and get involved in music. Over the years, they’ve added roughly nine youth programs, including competitions, intern programs, a Lewisville ISD concert, and opportunities to earn scout merit badges.

Their ongoing collaboration with the Lake Cities Ballet helps them put on quality programs such as “Peter and the Wolf,” which introduces their youngest listeners to the wonders of live orchestral music.

“It’s exciting to see how much everything has changed for the better,” Wright said. “The Grand gave us a professional venue, and we’ve always had so many people with lots of great ideas. It is a great partnership between our outstanding musicians and conductor on the stage and a terrific group of volunteers. This has always been a congenial, hardworking group dedicated to making sure ideas are brought to life and work gets done behind the scenes. When you’re here long enough, you discover lots of ways to enhance the impact of what we do. Our volunteers are passionate about that and make things happen.

She added, “People still say, ‘I had no idea we had a symphony of such high quality right here in town.’ It’s the best-kept cultural secret, but we’ve kept it going for a long time, and our goal is to fill the concert hall for a long time to come.”

To learn more about the Lewisville Lake Symphony, visit lewisvillesymphony.org.

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