Under the direction of John Canarina, the Drake Symphony Orchestra is open to any qualified University student. The orchestra presents a regular series of concerts on campus, one of which traditionally features the winners of the Young Artists Auditions. Artist faculty often appear as soloists as well, and one of the concerts presents the winner of the annual Drake Soloist Competition. In addition, the orchestra has performed with various choral organizations and in productions of operas and musicals. It has received several awards from ASCAP for its performances of contemporary music and has been heard on National Public Radio in a nationwide broadcast.

The orchestra performs a wide variety of repertoire from all periods of music. Recent performances have included Beethoven’s Second Symphony and Emperor Concerto, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, Bartók’s Dance Suite, and Copland’s Billy the Kid.

The Drake Soloist Competition is open to full-time music majors, the winner performing a complete concerto or comparable work with the Drake Symphony Orchestra. Recent winners of this competition have been pianists Michael Hanson,Christa Kober, and Nathan Smith, cellist Jia-Nan Zhao, flutist Emily Sapa, clarinetist Melanie Mueller, trombonist Megan Stine, percussionist Kirsten Anderson, and tenor Blake Justin Bessey.

The Young Artists Auditions are open to any student at Drake University who is studying an instrument or voice with a Drake faculty member. Winners are selected in several categories (keyboard, string, wind, percussion, and voice) and usually perform a movement from a larger work or a single self-contained piece. Vocalists perform two contrasting arias