The Binghamton Philharmonic, officially named the Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestra, is an American

symphony orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, ce ...

located in

Binghamton, New York Binghamton () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, and serves as the county seat of Broome County. Surrounded by rolling hills, it lies in the state's Southern Tier region near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the conflue ...

. Its primary performing venue is the Broome County Forum Theatre. Its regular season consists of a

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

concert series and a pops concert series. The BPO's mission is "building community through the power of live music." The orchestra traces its roots to 1949, when Fritz and Marie Wallenberg started a chamber orchestra in Binghamton. By 1955, the Wallenbergs founded the Binghamton Symphony. The Binghamton Symphony merged with the BC Pops orchestra in 1996 to form the Binghamton Philharmonic. Starting in 1980, the BC Pops held a free annual summer concert known as ''Pops on the River'', where the orchestra would play on a raft floating on the

Chenango River The Chenango River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed August 8, 2011 tributary of the Susquehanna River in central New York in the United States. It drains a dissecte ...

in Downtown Binghamton. The concert was popular, drawing tens of thousands of attendees each year, but was canceled due to a lack of funding after the 1994 concert. The Binghamton Philharmonic revived the tradition in 2018, again attracting thousands of concert goers. The Philharmonic also takes part in the annual

LUMA Projection Arts Festival The LUMA Projection Arts Festival is an annual event, typically held in early September, in Binghamton, NY focused on the art of projection mapping. LUMA'a first show was in 2015 with three installations and an audience estimated to be 20,000. Th ...

, playing pieces that are coordinated to a

projection mapping Projection mapping, similar to video mapping and spatial augmented reality, is a projection technique used to turn objects, often irregularly shaped, into display surfaces for video projection. The objects may be complex industrial landscapes, s ...

show. The current musical director of the Philharmonic is

Daniel Hege Daniel Hege is an American orchestral conductor. He is currently the music director of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra and the Binghamton Philharmonic, and is the principal guest conductor of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra. Hege previously served ...

, who has held the position since May 2018. Prior conductors and music directors include Fritz Wallenberg, David Loebel, John Covelli, and José-Luis Novo.

References

{{authority control Orchestras based in New York (state) Symphony orchestras Musical groups established in 1955 Organizations based in Binghamton, New York