A Story of Celebration | For Your Ears Only

Augusta Symphony’s third annual Gala is a wonderful opportunity to enjoy a fabulous performance and support the Symphony in its outreach endeavors.


The theme is Bond, James Bond! Celebrating its 65th season, Augusta Symphony hosts its third annual Gala Saturday, January 11, 2020. Austria’s foremost James Bond performance group, The Music of Bond, will join the Symphony’s Maestro Dirk Meyer and the Augusta Symphony on stage at the Miller theater to entertain the audience with scores from favorite James Bond films while movie clips roll on the screens above the orchestra.

Your mission is to enjoy an elegant evening of sophisticated fun. The Miller Theater is the perfect setting for Augusta Symphony’s major fundraising event. This tribute to the nearly 60 years of Ian Fleming’s iconic British secret agent opens with a reception of light hors-d’oeuvres and James Bond’s signature martini, the Vesper. This year’s committee, chaired by Mrs. James L. Jones, has planned a spectacular celebration complete with elegant décor and movie memorabilia. There may even be a Bond car or two… or three! This promises to be an evening of great food and friends celebrating the Symphony’s three years at the Miller Theater.

The Augusta Symphony is the primary professional orchestra for the Central Savannah River Area and pursues its mission, “to share the joy of great musical performance with our community –
together we are music,” through annual symphonic, Pops, and family concerts that reach approximately 20,000 people each year. Proceeds from Augusta Symphony’s Gala support its artistic operations and community education and outreach endeavors, assisting the Symphony in reaching its mission and extending beyond the concert hall to perform for those who might not otherwise have opportunities to experience symphonic music.

Community Chords is the umbrella for the Symphony’s 3-part outreach and education programming: Student Education & Outreach, Veterans Outreach, and the Symphony’s own free music therapy program hosted in the Knox Music Institute at the Miller Theater.

Through its Student Education & Outreach the Symphony performs at schools throughout the CSRA, hosts a Discovery Concert at the Miller Theater for students of the CSRA, and takes its Symphony on the Road. These programs are offered free of charge by the Symphony thanks to many generous sponsors.

The music therapy collaboration with the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center continues to be a tremendous success. Augusta Symphony musicians perform frequently at both VA hospitals to assist in music therapy sessions. These collaborations serve to benefit not only the patients and staff of the VA, but the Symphony musicians as well.

In October 2019, Augusta Symphony opened the doors of the Knox Music Institute (KMI) at the Miller Theater. A licensed board-certified music therapist was hired to offer private music therapy sessions free to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This program has seen much success and is destined for growth thanks to the generous support of University Health Care System.

The Miller Theater is the home of all Symphony Series and Pops! performances and features a multitude of varied programming throughout the year. It was built in downtown Augusta in 1940 as an Art Moderne movie theater and vaudeville house and operated until 1984. In 2008, Peter S. Knox IV donated the Miller Theater to the Augusta Symphony to be revitalized as a performance venue. The restoration was the result of a $23 million capital campaign, made possible by the generosity of individuals, corporations, foundation, SPLOST funding, and state and federal historic tax incentives. Construction took place in 2016-2018, and the Miller Theater reopened with a grand Opening Night Gala on January 6, 2018.

A Story of Celebration | For Your Ears Only | Aiken Bella Magazine

Picture of Ladonna Armstrong

Ladonna Armstrong

Publisher of Aiken Bella Magazine.
Picture of Ladonna Armstrong

Ladonna Armstrong

Publisher of Aiken Bella Magazine.

In the know

Related Stories

The Beginnings of a New County | Cabinet of Curiosities | Palmetto Bella

The Beginnings of a New County | Cabinet of Curiosities

2021 is a special year for the residents of Aiken County — not only is it a new year of hope after a year of chaos, but it’s also the 150th anniversary of Aiken County’s founding. In January of 1871, state legislator Charles D. Hayne (Barnwell District) proposed an act to create a new county with Aiken as its seat. On March 10, 1871, the act was formally enacted by the South Carolina state legislature. While Hayne was not the first person to promote the idea of a new county, he was the one to get the bill through the state legislature successfully. Names for the new county included the

Read More »
To Keep Christmas Well | Palmetto Bella

To Keep Christmas Well

“…and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well …” It is among the closing lines from Charles Dickens’ classic story, “A Christmas Carol.” It may be one of the best remembered and most cherished sentences in the book. “To keep Christmas well,” I suspect, implies different things to each of us. But in the language of the day when this book was written, it meant to observe, or to honor, or to celebrate something. To actively remember. Perhaps in this year of rather lopsided “celebrations” — with their often double-edged experiences and wobbly sense of imbalance — I have found myself searching for

Read More »
Story of Hanukkah | Palmetto Bella

Story of Hanukkah

Hanukkah is the Jewish Festival of Lights, celebrated to commemorate the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem after Judah Maccabee’s victory over the occupying Greek army in 165 BC. In the land of Judah, ruling Syrian King Antiochus ordered the Jewish population to reject all their religious beliefs and practices and worship Greek gods. For fear of the occupying Greek military that enforced King Antiochus’ decree, some Jews obeyed that command, but the majority chose to rebel against it. Thus were sown the seeds of what would ultimately become the celebration of Hanukkah. Fights broke out in a village near Jerusalem when Greek soldiers demanded that the Jewish villagers

Read More »
Rocking Around the (Metal? Holly?) Christmas Tree | Cabinet of Curiosities | Palmetto Bella

Rocking Around the (Metal? Holly?) Christmas Tree | Cabinet of Curiosities

Have you ever watched A Charlie Brown Christmas television special and wondered about the metal Christmas tree lot that Charlie Brown visits? Did you know that cutting down a holly tree almost became illegal in our area? Let’s explore this curious affinity for metal Christmas trees and an early effort to save the holly tree in the latest episode of the Cabinet of Curiosities! The History of Christmas Trees When imagining our ancestors and how they may have spent Christmases a few hundred years in the past, many of us picture a happy family around a large, decorated tree, with a blazing fire in the hearth and children playing at

Read More »