One orchestra, three cities, endless riverfront nights: The Florida Orchestra — the state’s largest professional orchestra — anchors Tampa Bay’s classical life from its home stages at the Straz Center’s Mahoney Hall, St. Petersburg’s Mahaffey Theater and Clearwater’s Ruth Eckerd Hall.
The 2026-27 season under Music Director Michael Francis pairs the great symphonic canon with film nights, pops celebrations and community concerts that carry the orchestra into parks and neighborhoods across the bay. Its youth and education programs reach tens of thousands of Tampa Bay students — many hearing a live orchestra first from a school gym mat.
For Tampa audiences, Friday nights at Mahoney Hall are the ritual: dinner on the Riverwalk, then 87 musicians raising the roof.
Fifty-eight seasons in, the Bay’s orchestra keeps getting louder in all the best ways.
