The Plano Symphony Orchestra to be one of the key professional community arts organizations to partner with the Plano Independent School District.
PLANO, TX: Plano Symphony Orchestra (PSO), Music Director Héctor Guzmán, and Executive Director Gregory Patterson announced today that the PSO will officially move its performance season to the Plano Independent School District’s (PISD) Robbie and Lynore Robinson Fine Arts Center beginning with the 2024/2025 Season. The inaugural performance will occur on Saturday, September 28, 2024. This opening night concert will be sponsored by Mrs. Margot Perot/The Perot Foundation in honor of Robbie and Lynore Robinson.
Music Director Héctor Guzmán has curated a spectacular season for the PSO’s inaugural season at the Robinson Fine Arts Center. The season, themed “New Beginnings,” will feature three world premieres commissioned by Dallas-based composers Robert Xavier Rodríguez, Quinn Mason, and Xi Wang. Maestro Guzmán announced the entire 2024/2025 PSO season at the Robinson Fine Arts Center, including dates and repertoire, on February 12, 2024.
Season highlights include:
- Ballet and Bolero! An Opening Night celebration featuring the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and a world premiere by Robert Xavier Rodríguez.
- An incredible evening of music from Elvis, Gershwin, and more during A Tribute to Elvis Presley, featuring “the Paganini of the harmonica” Robert Bonfiglio.
- A multi-media presentation of Video Games Live! featuring the Plano Symphony Orchestra with PISD choirs.
- The annual tradition Home for the Holidays with the Plano West Chorale.
- The Beat Goes On! with theinnovative percussionists Tambuco and the world premiere of Shine Time by Quinn Mason.
- A Broadway Valentine will offer classics like “Begin the Beguine” (Porter), “I Could Have Danced All Night” (My Fair Lady), “The Impossible Dream” (Man of La Mancha/Leigh), “Defying Gravity” (Wicked), and “All I Ask of You” (The Phantom of the Opera)—just to name a few—and Broadway stars Alli Mauzey, LaKisha Jones, and Jason Forbach.
- Shira Samuels-Shragg conducting Debussy’s innovative La Mer (The Sea)in An Oceanic Adventure, which alsoincludes the winners of our Collin County Young Artist Competition.
- Grand Finale! with returning favorite, the world-renowned pianist Alessio Bax and a world premiere by Xi Wang.
“The Robinson Fine Arts Center is named after longtime PSO supporters and Board members Lynore and Robbie Robinson whose dream was for Plano to be home to a state-of-the-art theatre/concert hall that would rival anything in the country,” said PSO Executive Director Greg Patterson. “When the Plano Independent School District opened the Center this year, the PSO was one of the first professional arts organizations approached to become a key community partner. This is a seminal moment for the PSO and our community. We are finally home, and it feels good!”
“We are so grateful to have performed for two decades at the beautiful Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts,” said Maestro Guzmán. “Having a concert hall to call our home has been a dream of mine since we began this musical journey 40 years ago. The Robinson has excellent acoustics and will help the PSO solidify its sound. Our orchestra has grown to the point where a permanent home is the natural progression of our growth and future aspirations.”
“The Board of Directors of the PSO sees this move to the Robinson Fine Arts Center as part of our long-term strategic plan,” said Brenda Mills, PSO Board President. “The Robinson will help solidify our musical reputation as one of the leading orchestras in the region.”
Dr. Theresa Williams, PISD Superintendent stated, “Plano ISD is thrilled to partner with the Plano Symphony Orchestra as the primary concert site of the 2024/2025 Season. Our investment in the community includes an important and culturally rich partnership in the arts. To welcome the PSO and its supporters into arts partnership with PISD fulfills a prudent and community-focused commitment to patrons and their families who have championed the organization for decades.”
Dr. Phillip Morgan, Director of Fine Arts and Special Academic Programs for Plano ISD reinforced this alliance and highlighted the unique benefit of the collaborative arts partnership. “The collaboration of the professional orchestra alongside our school district will have an exceptional impact on our learners in the fine arts, both in performance and hands-on engagement. Additionally, the partnership will deepen the cultural impact of the City of Plano, the greater collective of arts patrons, and to those citizens who have not experienced the brilliance of the Plano Symphony Orchestra. Season supporters and patrons in our area love the PSO and PISD. And this partnership reinforces our continuing efforts in fine arts excellence as a nationally recognized ‘Best Community for Music Education’.”
About the Robinson Fine Arts Center:
The Robbie & Lynore Robinson Fine Arts Center (RFAC) was designed and built based on a shared passion and the belief that self-expression and creative thinking are essential to a healthy community. The purpose of the RFAC is to provide a top-notch facility for the display of the exceptional work of the performing and visual art students of the Plano ISD, be a location for artistic events presented by local arts organizations and serve as a gathering place for the local community.
In the fall of 2020, the Plano ISD Board of Trustees announced that this unique facility, dedicated to the visual and performing arts in the heart of the Plano community, would be named in honor and memory of Dr. George “Robbie” S Robinson, Jr., and his wife Lynore. The Robinsons were active members of the business and arts community of Plano for nearly 40 years. He served as Chairman of the Collin County Cultural Arts District Committee, Board Member of Plano Arts and Cultural Endowment, Inc., and President of the Arts of Collin County Commission. Dr. & Mrs. Robinson were champions and patrons of local organizations such as the Plano Symphony Orchestra, the Art Centre of Plano, and avid collectors of a wide range of visual art from their travels around the world. A state-of-the-art venue in the heart of Plano was a dream the Robinsons shared with the district. Sadly, Lynore passed away in 2018 and Robbie in October 2020. Neither of them lived to see this dream become a reality.
During their distinguished lives, Robbie and Lynore Robinson’s names were synonymous with the arts in the Plano community and throughout Collin County. Plano ISD is honored to have them as the namesakes of our new fine arts center.
Their legacy of giving back will continue for future generations through their generous $500,000 founding donation to the Robbie and Lynore Robinson Fine Arts Center (RFAC), helping to ensure our Plano students, staff, families, and the community have access to a state-of-the-art facility for showcasing all facets of the fine arts.
About the Plano Symphony Orchestra:
Founded in 1983, the Plano Symphony Orchestra (PSO) is widely acknowledged as one of the leading professional symphony orchestras in the region. Under the artistic and musical direction of Maestro Héctor Guzmán, the PSO produces eight subscription concerts annually as well as myriad music education and community outreach programs that serve nearly 50,000 children annually.
The PSO’s education vision is to ensure that music is available to as many people as possible regardless of age, race, ethnicity, or socio-economic status. Of the 17,000 who participate in its School Concert Program, over 37% attend various Title I schools in Dallas or Collin counties. The Title I federal program provides funding and resources to help schools with a high concentration of students from low-to-moderate income families. Title I Schools typically do not have the funds to develop their own arts and music programs or are able to pay for outside groups, like the PSO, to offer quality music learning experiences. That’s why the PSO is so dedicated to ensuring no child is excluded from these experiences due to their socio-economic circumstances.
The Plano Symphony is a non-profit symphony organization dedicated to providing the citizens of North Texas with rich and varied programming of orchestral music and to educating the youth and adults of the community about the joy of classical and popular music through live performance.
The Plano Symphony Orchestra is supported, in part, by the City of Plano, Tammy and Charles Miller, The Andrea-Mennen Family Foundation, H-E-B/Central Market, TACA, The National Endowment for the Arts, Texas Commission on the Arts, Rea Charitable Trust, Atmos Energy, AWARE Foundation, Baylor, Scott and White, The Burnham Foundation, The Dallas Morning News, Dianne and Marion Brockette, City of McKinney, City of Richardson, Frisco Association for the Arts, Frost Bank, Medical City Plano, Sandy Nachman, NYLO Plano, Wanda and Cliff Parker, Plano Rotary, The Plano Symphony Orchestra Guild, The Plano Symphony Virtuoso Society, Signs By Tomorrow, Carol and William Tempest, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Plano, Veritex Community Bank, and hundreds of individual donors, foundations, and corporations who make transformative gifts to the PSO.