eNotes :: Giving Thanks! 🙏

Dear Friend,

I love writing our e-newsletter at this time of year because the Auburn Symphony has many reasons to be grateful. As the weather slowly turns to autumn, we nostalgically think about what it was like to perform at our historic Placer High School auditorium and deck it out for concerts. Those days will come again, but in the meantime we’ll remember and count our blessings.

I hope you have been enjoying the video gifts we have been sending your way such as our wonderfully crafted Young Artists Recital. You can watch the entire performance here and you can also now see individual performances in our YouTube playlist if you like to spread out the joy in smaller bites. Last week’s Halloween Musical Treat warmed our hearts as we looked back on archived performances of our iconic Pops concerts from the recent past—complete with costume parade clips! We have a few other such “gifts” on the drawing board you can look forward to soon.

On the business side, a HUGE shout-out is due to the Placer Shares grant program, administered by the Placer Community Foundation on behalf of Placer County. This generous lifeline grant from the CARES Act assists local nonprofits with critical financial support in this crucial year. We are also fortunate to have received grants from First Five Placer and the Sierra Pacific Foundation that are being targeted to help deliver our mission with preschool and elementary school children in creative ways that will supplement the work of our hardworking teachers.

When we think about all the people we want to thank, the core of our list is YOU, our faithful supporters who give so generously of your time, talents, and treasures. Our season subscribers are a small army of patrons who buy season tickets and are especially important for our long-term sustainability. You might be wondering what this means in a year when there are no tickets to sell? Keeping pace with our Symphony Family philosophy, we want you to be assured that we’re “holding your place in line” until we can start to gather and sell tickets again. Did you also know that season subscribers are members of the Auburn Civic Symphony Association? That’s our official name and the heart of our public benefit nonprofit organization. Every spring, Association members are sent ballots to elect directors to the Board. Stay tuned as we share a deeper look in the coming months into the Association and the important role of its members.

In the same spirit of thankfulness, it is most appropriate this month to turn the Board of Directors spotlight on Treasurer Leslie Rogers who joined us in the 2018/2019 season and is serving her second year as an officer. She has been an Auburn resident for several decades and works as a financial executive at a Roseville-based investment advisory firm. Around town, her long-standing philanthropic passion has been grounded in youth music education and Placer High School’s music program. Leslie is inspired by seeing first-hand how music connects teens from a wide range of backgrounds and abilities and loves nurturing a “greater sense of belonging and family” that has a positive impact on their character development. A favorite music memory of hers is landing a private workshop with the Wynton Marsalis’ famous Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra for Placer and Davis High School jazz band students at the Mondavi Center in 2016; a life-changing experience for these students.

With this background, it is no surprise that the unique youth outreach program at the core of the Auburn Symphony’s mission is what inspired Leslie to dedicate her time and talent to the Symphony. In addition to her officer position on the Board, she serves as Chair of the Symphony’s Young Artists Competition and Recital. To add to our Thanksgiving blessings, Leslie is laser-focused on the long-term viability and financial success of the Auburn Symphony and our community legacy. During this tumultuous financial time for all nonprofits, we are grateful to have Leslie as a teammate in guarding our collective investment in the Auburn Symphony.

Finally, a quintessential part of thanking you for being here for the Auburn Symphony is letting you know what your gifts are doing. There are the video products we are thoughtfully creating to educate children, preserve Auburn Symphony history, and share the joy of making music. Our staff and volunteers are continuing to actively focus on what mission-centric projects can be funded and completed this year that would “move the dial.” And I would be remiss if I didn’t explain how your generosity keeps our office functioning at an appropriate pace to match the projects—not always an exciting thing to fund but absolutely essential for the healthy continuity of the Auburn Symphony as an organization. You will have an opportunity to continue to help us on Giving Tuesday, December 1st. It’s a “global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world.”