The Long Beach Symphony recently received a pledge of $540,000 from the RuMBa Foundation, allowing the organization to offer two RuMBa Foundation family concerts each year through 2027.

The RuMBa Foundation has supported the Long Beach Symphony in the past, explained Long Beach Symphony president Kelly Ruggirello—the first gift was back in 2019 to produce a family concert that was originally scheduled for March 2020.

Although the pandemic prevented the concert from happening at that time, the RuMBa Foundation supported the Long Beach Symphony with two additional gifts to help sustain the organization throughout the crisis and streamline its education programs, Ruggirello said.

In October, the Long Beach Symphony was able to finally produce the long-awaited family concert, featuring both Disney sing-alongs as well as classical music by Tchaikovsky, Handel, and Rossini, which proved to be “such an extraordinary success,” Ruggirello said.

In fact, over 2,000 people attended, including 1,500 children who all enjoyed the concert for free, Ruggirello said.

“It’s a really wonderful sort of entry point experience for families who may have not been to the Terrace Theater, or maybe they’ve never been to a concert of orchestral music,” Ruggirello said. “It’s just a wonderful opportunity for families to come and do something that’s affordable, and where they can actually create memories together doing something fun and interactive.”

The event, called “Symphony Under the Sea,” included various free interactive activities and entertainment apart from the concert, including hula dancing lessons, an acting group, an instrument petting zoo, arts and crafts and more.

“It’s a way to unite the community and inspire a lifelong love of music for children and their parents and their grandparents,” Ruggirello said.

Ruggirello envisioned producing these types of events a couple of times a year, with hopes of better reaching the more underserved demographics in Long Beach, and RuMBa agreed to make that commitment, she said.

The funds will support nine family concerts total—eight more apart from the recent October performance.

To date, it marks the largest gift the Long Beach Symphony has received in its 88-year history.

“It’s a wonderful commitment to serving families, to ensuring that kids will be able to come for free,” Ruggirello said.  “We’re just so excited about this gift and that the RuMBa Foundation shares our vision of expanding access to the arts, and we’re just eternally grateful to them for helping us serve our community in this way.”

The Long Beach Symphony is composed of a set of world-class musicians, Ruggirello said. The organization produces both classical and pop concerts, as well as a series of education concerts.

“It’s one of the reasons why 10 years ago, I chose to join this organization,” Ruggirello said. “Long Beach Symphony is known for its excellence in music and education programs.”

Each year, about 12,000 fourth and fifth-graders are bused into the Terrace Theater for a live Long Beach Symphony performance, also featuring Long Beach Unified School District’s All-District High School Honor Orchestra or Honor Choir students (the choir and orchestra alternate each year performing with the professional musicians)—“an extraordinary and rare opportunity to have that professional role modeling and that sort of career development opportunity and training,” Ruggirello said.

Ensembles also visit each Long Beach Unified School District school, as well as four Wilmington schools, and perform for the second and third graders, Ruggirello said.

“We’re here to support (Long Beach Unified) in strengthening their programs and inspiring kids, to provide them some opportunities to look to the future to see if they want to pursue studying music,” Ruggirello said.

The education programs have served nearly 1 million children since beginning almost 40 years ago.

Additionally, the organization hosts a series of community engagement programs, known as the Musical Bridges Program, which stemmed from the pandemic, seeking to unite the community through musical collaborations.

As an 88-year-old organization, the Long Beach Symphony always has its eyes on the future, whether it’s looking to expand its various programming, or even creating a professional amphitheater similar to a mini-Hollywood Bowl ahead of the upcoming Olympics—a project initially approved by the City Council a few years ago but was then put on hold due to the pandemic, Ruggirello said.

“I think that we also have an obligation to help lift up other arts organizations and other groups that are doing good work in our city, and so thinking creatively about how we can do that is something I’m excited about as well,” Ruggirello said. “Our goal is to sort of clear away the barriers that are perhaps inhibiting people from enjoying quality orchestral music.”

The next RuMBA Foundation family concerts will be on October 22 and June 2, 2024.

“One of my greatest personal joys, and one of my greatest professional achievements, is being able to produce this kind of series,” Ruggirello said. “Being able to do it twice a year is just a dream come true, where we have potentially 6,000 families from all over Long Beach coming to experience this kind of interactive, fun, educational, inspiring afternoon. This really is something that’s incredibly special and unique to Long Beach.”