Megan Navarro
SAN MARCOS — As the busy holiday season approaches, members of the Hays County community can find a family-friendly activity through a free concert series by local nonprofit San Marcos Artists’ Retention and Training (SMART) Orchestra.
Founded in 2009 by Christopher Hansen, SMART was initially established because San Marcos CISD did not offer an orchestra course, leading the former artistic director to create a string education program at the high school. That mission was accomplished after two years.
Hansen ultimately left the artistic director role in 2019, when he became a professor at a university in Washington. It was then that Jeremy Sustaita, executive director, had to work with his team to keep SMART going, redevelop the organization and revamp it into a bigger community orchestra open to players of all ages.
“We are a nonprofit community orchestra. We are open to players of all ages, all professions. We have professional musicians. We have people who picked up their instruments again; I think in one case, we had somebody who picked it up after 30 years,” explained David Cole, artistic director and conductor. “At least while I've been around, the youngest player we've ever had was 13 and the oldest player retired after the spring of 2024 [and] she was 86. We do encompass the entire community and we are always welcome to auditions, like almost every community orchestra in the world. We're always looking for more string players and so, we tend to have regular auditions, usually at the beginning of each season, but that shouldn't impede people from getting in touch with us and asking to audition later on in the year.”
“We've done a lot of things in terms of development to make it the premier orchestra in San Marcos. So, we're a community group, but we put on very high production concerts for the community and our goal is to try to keep them free,” Sustaita said.
Designed to be an outlet for individuals interested in studying and performing music, SMART provides a fast-paced, structured and organized opportunity for its members to perform and learn in a full symphony orchestra rehearsal setting. There are nearly 60 members in the orchestra currently — who travel from different parts of Hays County and further to play — and they try to make sure every voice and instrument is covered.
Additionally, it is rooted in the Hays County community by offering a free concert series with at least four performances per session at the San Marcos High School Performing Arts Center, as well as a recital series at the San Marcos Public Library.
As part of its orchestral initiative, SMART is hosting “Once Upon an Orchestra - Adventures in Storytelling,” where each child under the age of 16 will receive a concert library card at the first show that they attend and those who attend at least three events, out of nine total, will receive a young music adventurer award in May 2026.
“The string education in this part of Texas is not as developed. We want it to get bigger and more popular. We're having a lot of trouble finding string musicians and so, we want to just start getting them more involved at the local level. We decided to do the library card this year,” Sustaita explained. “At the end of the season, depending on how many of them they came to, they'll get a bookmark. We're looking at gift cards to Half Price Books, little things like that that we're going to just kind of reward them with, as long as they come to all of our performances, or as many as they can, and that encourages the whole community to kind of get out involved.”
SMART will be hosting the following performances:
Once Upon an Orchestra at 5 p.m. at San Marcos High School
Oct. 19: “A Night at the Opera” — music by Puccini, Verdi, Mozart, Wagner and more
Dec. 14: “Merry and Bright” — music from “The Polar Express,” “The Nutcracker” and more holiday favorites
Feb. 15: “If Music Be the Food of Love” — inspired by four of Shakespeare’s immortal dramas, including “Much Ado About Nothing,” “Othello,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Henry V”
May 16: “To Boldly Go — A Symphonic Sci-Fi/Fantasy Experience” — music from “Star Trek,” “Harry Potter,” “Video Games Live” and “Star Wars.” (There will also be a May 17 performance of this at the Wimberley Valley Winery)
SMART Session — Once Upon a Recital Series at 1 p.m. at the San Marcos Public Library
Oct. 25: “Howl-O-Ween Harmonies” — spooky compositions and Halloween-themed favorites
Dec. 20: “Harmony in the Holidays” — classical and modern holiday tunes
March 14: “Children’s Concert” — geared toward young listeners with music from video games, movie scores and a narrated piece from “Peter and the Wolf”
May 9: “6th Annual Composer’s Recital” — showcases the talent of local composers by celebrating the musical community with fresh and innovative compositions
Sustaita and Cole explained that they are looking at possibly holding performances elsewhere in Hays County; however, due to a grant that they rely on from the San Marcos Arts Commission, about 90% of them need to be done in San Marcos.
When SMART won best classical artist at the inaugural San Marcos Music Awards in 2024, they were told that they were the best kept secret in San Marcos, Sustaita said. However, that struck a chord in him that there are not a lot of people who know about the group, leading him to look at how to get more involved in the community.
The concert series and involving local students is ultimately geared to make the community aware of “what an amazing thing orchestra is,” the executive director continued.
Cole echoed the same point, sharing that, with the multiple activies in which students can participate in school — whether that be band, orchestra, choir, sports or other extracurriculars — there can be multiple competing voices and music can get lost. He said that he believes what they are doing is giving the voice of music in public schools and as part of the community.
“All of the stats show that, for example, for students accepted to medical and law school, their most common undergraduate major is not pre-law or pre-med anymore, it's music. I've had students who've gone to interviews for medical school, and one of them came back to me and said, ‘It was kind of surprising. One of the questions they asked me is if I played musical instruments,’” he said. “From the age of the people that we have in our orchestra, it's not just something that if you're a football player [or] a basketball player, after a certain age, you might not be able to play much anymore and, in music, you play for a lifetime.”
To learn more about SMART and keep up-to-date on performances, visit www.smartorchestra.org.
