Monterey County Symphony

The Monterey County Symphony (MCS), is a 72 member professional orchestra performing a diverse array of classical music for audiences in Carmel and Salinas under the baton of Maestro Max Bragado-Darman. Founded in 1946 the organization reaches 13,000 patrons annually through their seven-date triple-concert performances and a further 1,000 school children who attend youth concerts. As one of only three current Performing Arts grantees in the Bay Area’s southernmost county, MCS contributes to the delivery of high-quality classical music to an audience that would otherwise only be served by fellow grantees including the Carmel Bach Festival and the Santa Cruz Symphony (an hour’s drive north). Though the two-million dollar organization has suffered steep declines in endowment related income, the organization has over 700 individual donors and under the leadership of Joe Truskott is in good fiscal health. An ongoing challenge for the 65 year old symphony has been to diversify its audience, especially to engage audiences from the inland parts of the county and it has recently secured project funding from the Irvine foundation to focus on this issue.