Big Announcement! The Houston Symphony League won a Gold Award of Excellence from the League of American Orchestras’ Volunteer Council and three Recognized Project Awards from the Texas Association for Symphony Orchestras (TASO).

The Houston Symphony League won a Gold Award of Excellence from the League of American Orchestras (LAO) Volunteer Council for its project Engaging Membership for Retention. This project highlights what the Membership Committee did to grow our League membership through retention efforts. The lead for the project was Leslie Nossaman. The Volunteer Council’s Gold Awards of Excellence honor best-in-class programs and initiatives that have made a significant impact on their orchestras. Only seven Gold Awards were given this year. 

The project will be presented to symphony volunteers at the upcoming LAO Conference in Salt Lake City on June 11-13, 2025. Leslie Nossaman will make the presentation and lead the discussion at the conference. LAO is a North American organization whose membership encompasses nearly 800-member symphony, chamber, youth, and collegiate orchestras in all 50 US states and Canada.

The Engaging Membership for Retention project also won a Recognized Project Award from TASO. In addition, two other projects – Shop, Sip, Stroll, and Dine for a Cause, a project chaired by Deborah Laws and Raquel Lewis, and Getting Them in the Door, submitted by Betty Tutor and Fran Peterson on behalf of the League’s Symphonic Social Connections – were also awarded Recognized Project Awards. These three projects will be presented at the annual TASO Conference in Waco on March 21-22. TASO’s membership includes 16 Texas Symphony Leagues.