[gentle orchestral music] - Robert Reed: When someone turns 100 years old, that's huge.

As an organization, to turn 100 is also just as large.

Many nonprofits in particular never make it this long.

My name is Robert Reed.

I'm the executive director of the Madison Symphony Orchestra.

We're celebrating 100 years.

An amazing thing is we've only had four music directors, so that means that they usually have had an average tenure of 25 years apiece.

- John DeMain: One, two, three, four.

[bright orchestral music] - Robert: Our current music director, John DeMain, is gonna be stepping down after 32 years.

We have 91 musicians under contract.

One of the things I love about being an orchestra of our size, our musicians, they are here because they want to be here.

They want to play, they want to have fun doing that.

It's not just a job.

And you come here, and all of a sudden, you've developed a sense of family.

Many venues across the country and world, you can't fully hear the orchestra.

I'm not making an exaggeration.

I think our hall is one of the top 20 halls in the United States of America.

When you come here, it is served to you on a silver platter, and so you hear everything, and you hear this lush string sound, and you hear all these things, and it becomes exciting, and you know, lifts your spirit when you're sitting in your seat.

The symphony is for the community.

And so, when we were thinking about what are we gonna do to celebrate the 100th anniversary season, we thought, we have to have something that is as blatantly obvious a community event as possible.

We are involving 40-plus different arts groups.

[operatic singing] So, five performance spaces in the Overture Center, it's gonna have a revolving door of performances.

- ♪ Somewhere up in Laventille, many years ago ♪ - Robert: The symphony should be the anchor of the festival weekend.

We want to make sure that we perform music that everybody's going to know, and then so, doing some of the best-known selections of a symphonic repertoire.

[Symphony No.

9 in D Minor, Op.

125 by Ludwig van Beethoven] From the final movement, "Ode to Joy," Beethoven's Symphony No.

9, to doing American in Paris, to movements of The Planets.

[ The Planets, Op.

32 by Gustav Holst] If they've heard nothing else, if they've heard movies and soundtracks, they will know this music.

[ An American in Paris by George Gershwin] So, we want people to walk away feeling like, "You know, the symphony is for me too."

Any nonprofit could fail if it doesn't have the support of the community.

We're getting enough affirmation from people buying tickets to our concerts, for people who make their donations to the symphony on the annual basis.

So, the community is saying to us, "We want you here."

You know, we're not begging people to please let us survive.

People want us here, and that feels great, that we're wanted and that we're needed, and that we're serving a purpose.

[energetic orchestral music] [cheers and applause]