Symphony Silicon Valley is the professional symphony orchestra of San Jose and the South Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Founded in 2002 following the demise of the San Jose Symphony, the orchestra debuted to rave reviews and standing ovations on November 23, 2002 at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts. Started initially by Ballet San Jose as a way to keep their core musicians employed and in town after the closure of the San Jose Symphony, the orchestra was so successful that it was spun off as its own separate nonprofit organization after the first year. Background San Jose has a long history of symphonic music, beginning in 1877 when the town was nothing more than a small collection of homes in a dusty agricultural valley. A group calling itself the San Jose Symphony first performed two years later, and concerts continued to appear irregularly over the years, so, although a continuous history did not begin until 1937, the city has a long history of symphonic music. (Claims that the orchestra had been continuously operating since 1879 are municipal puffery and not accurate.) In October 2001, the San Jose Symphony closed its doors in a bid to restructure. But when, more than a year later, the organization was unable to recover San Jose Symphony declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy and was dissolved. Symphony Silicon Valley built on the rich musical heritage of the San Jose Symphony by hiring some 75 of the former orchestra's nationally recruited union musicians and regularly employing them to allow them to remain in the area. Growth What started as a four performance season in 2002 has today grown into 20 classical performances per year. With the addition of the orchestra's Broadway In Concert season of lighter fare in the 2009/2010 season, the company increased the number of days of work for the musicians by 40%. In addition to these two core seasons, the symphony accompanies most Ballet San Jose performances, produces the free outdoor Target Summer Pops festival, and performs special engagements in venues such as Villa Montalvo, Lake Cunningham Park, Discovery Meadow, San Francisco's Masonic Auditorium and Moscone Center and the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay. The symphony frequently acts as the backing orchestra for special events and headline artists such as Video Games Live and Frank Sinatra, Jr. and has performed a number of world premieres. In 2004, the orchestra