Lake Forest Civic Orchestra

Formed in 1987, the Lake Forest Civic Orchestra is an integral part of the North Shore community. Our mission is to inspire communities by sharing high quality musical experiences that provide lifelong learning and that reinvigorate the human spirit.

The 55-person orchestra is composed primarily of accomplished amateur musicians and supported by paid professional string, timpani, and trumpet prin

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Formed in 1987, the Lake Forest Civic Orchestra is an integral part of the North Shore community. Our mission is to inspire communities by sharing high quality musical experiences that provide lifelong learning and that reinvigorate the human spirit.

The 55-person orchestra is composed primarily of accomplished amateur musicians and supported by paid professional string, timpani, and trumpet principals and concertmaster. We regularly feature young concerto competition winners, and we hold occasional joint performances with the Lake Forest High School and other area ensembles. The orchestra rehearses on Thursday evenings, with an added dress rehearsal on the Friday evening before the Sunday afternoon concert. Rehearsals and concerts are held at Gorton Center in Lake Forest, Illinois.

The orchestra performs four subscription concerts a year and two holiday concerts. Small ensembles from the orchestra perform at community functions throughout the year to raise awareness of the orchestra and foster meaningful community relationships. While over 30% of revenue comes from ticket sales, our performance venue limits the size of our audience and scope of our concerts, and a strategic challenge for the next music director will be to help determine how we navigate those limitations, as we did with our recent Beethoven 9 performance.

The LFCO offers free and reduced-price tickets to students, seniors, and veterans, and frequently donates tickets to area non-profits for their own fundraising initiatives. The orchestra receives over half of its funding from individual and local business donations, and roughly 70% of those funds come from orchestra members themselves. As with all orchestras, fundraising is a constant and we need our new music director to help create and nurture relationships to help increase funding.

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