Executive Director: David Rogers has been executive director of the Yakima Symphony Orchestra since 2013, after more than eight years on the administrative team for The Florida Orchestra and almost as many years on the music faculty of the University of South Florida. During his tenure in Yakima, the symphony organization has raised its profile both regionally and nationally through expansion of community partnerships, increased accessibility and attendance, and through initiatives such as outdoor summer concerts and a teaching artist program. As artistic administrator and director of operations at The Florida Orchestra, he was responsible annually for planning and coordination of a 30-week season of more than 100 concerts in three cities as well as education and community engagement activities throughout the Tampa Bay area.

For ten years, Rogers was a coordinator, composer and performer for Tampa’s Bonk Festival of New Music, a fringe festival of experimental music that gained an international reputation. A musician by training, his compositions have been performed on four continents, and he has performed around the United States on a variety of instruments in a variety of genres, from classical ensembles to pop/rock bands. He has worked as a freelance music editor, arranger and publisher, creating the orchestral arrangements for the Yakima Symphony Orchestra’s 2016 collaboration with local songwriting duo Planes on Paper, and more recently creating string and horn arrangements for a 2020 EP release by Vancouver, BC-based folk-pop musician Robert Guess. Rogers holds a Ph.D. and bachelor’s degree in music composition from the Eastman School of Music (Rochester, N.Y.) and a master’s degree from New York University.

Yakima Notes: Mr. Rogers is a member of the Yakima Downtown Rotary Club, serving on the music, academic scholarship and racial justice committees. He is a board member of the Yakima-Morelia Sister City Association and a member of the Yakima Arts Commission. He is a regular contributor to the YSO’s forte column in the Yakima Herald-Republic. He serves on the governing committees of both YSO affiliate ensembles: the Yakima Symphony Chorus and the Yakima Youth Symphony Orchestra. He is a stalwart supporter of music education programs and was honored as the Yakima Valley Music Educators Association’s 2018 “Friend of Music.” Since his arrival in Yakima in 2013, the YSO has been instrumental in the growth of the music-based social action program Yakima Music en Acción (YAMA), initially through a partnership with the Yakima School District and OIC of Washington, and then as the program emerged through two years as a YSO affiliate to become an independent 501(c)(3) organization.