Bay Atlantic Symphony is a performance and an education organization with its artistic vision driven by the philosophy that music is essential to life. The Symphony provides access to excellence in performance, music training and teaching that enhances the musicians, presenters, and the participants.
Led by Music Director, Jed Gaylin, the Bay Atlantic Symphony is a per-service orchestra comprised of union musicians. The orchestra performs over 15 full symphonic concerts per year in venues throughout southern New Jersey.
The Symphony is the Orchestra in Residence for Stockton University, Galloway; the Landis Theater, Vineland; the Free Public Library of Avalon in its Symphony by the Sea series; and the Cape May Music Festival. In order to make its music more accessible to a diverse population, BAS has expanded into other performance areas, particularly performing classical and pops music concerts at the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa, Dominick A. Potena Performing Arts Center, Margate, and Dante Hall Theater in Atlantic City, as well as with free “pop-up” concerts at such unusual places as the Atlantic City Airport and the Farley Service Plaza on the Atlantic City Expressway, exposing great music to those who might not yet know that they enjoy it.
BAS has performed with world-renowned soloists, including pianist Yuja Wang, violinists Hilary Hahn and Stefan Jackiw, flutist Eugenia Zuckerman, and the Eroica Trio. Composer and National Medal of Arts recipient Morten Lauridsen performed his composition “Sure on This Shining Night” with the Symphony and the Choral Arts of Southern New Jersey in January 2015. Oscar Andy Hammerstein III was the host of the 2015 BAS Pops Gala Rodgers and Hammerstein Celebration at the Borgata.
The Symphony performs and reinterprets a wide range of the traditional classical canon: Beethoven, Mozart, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mahler, Bach, Copland, Schubert, and Stravinsky. Diversity of program, however, is an important factor in the successful pursuit of the mission. Most recently, BAS has performed premier works of “Algonquin Dreamcatcher,” by Steve Mento, “Cosmic Dust” by Russell Steinberg and Daniel McCarter’s Symphony No. 1, “A Memorial to Kristallnacht.”
BAS is committed to education and musical training for all ages. The Symphony coordinates a school-based music education program called the Music/Mentorship Program. BAS musicians team with Stockton University students, and teach string, woodwind, and brass to students at Sovereign Avenue School in Atlantic City, Atlantic City High School, and Vineland High School . This initiative has been funded by the NJSCA Artists in Education Residency Grant Program, the Frank and Lydia Bergen Foundation, and The Friends of Music in Atlantic City.
The BAS has been very active in other outreach educational projects. Every May, the Symphony performs three to four fully-symphonic Young Peoples’ Concerts in Atlantic and Cumberland Counties which are free for middle-school and high elementary school students to attend, attracting about 1,500- to 2,000 attendees yearly. Free adult education lectures are offered by our Music Director Jed Gaylin prior to each Subscription Series concert..Every summer BAS offers specialized outreach programs for blind and visually-impaired students at the Helen L. Diller Vacation Home for Blind Children in Avalon.
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