The Stone Soup Symphony mourns the passing of our beloved friend and conductor, George Akehurst on Monday 2/8/2010. Our hearts go out to his family and all the musicians George has touched over the years.

Photo by Kelly Lunden
There will be a public, non-denominational memorial service for George Akehurst on February 28th, 2:00pm at St. Mark's church in Long Valley
Stone Soup Symphony members are asked to come ready to play, as we will perform 3 pieces.
There will also be an opportunity for any musicians who wish to play in honor of George to join the Stone Soup Symphony in a mass orchestra. All instruments and skill levels are welcomed. We will provide an easy-to-sightread piece at the event, so bring your instrument.
Beethoven's 5th symphony, 4th movement
Strauss' Redetzsky March
Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture (excerpts)


Founder's message by George Akehurst
History of the Stone Soup Symphony

The Stone Soup Symphony was founded to provide local amateur, semi-professional and professional musicians a venue to perform for the pure love of the art. All musicians that participate do so on a volunteer basis and receive no compensation for their talent. There are no auditions or competitive requirements to perform with us. All are welcome. We take pride in performing great classical and modern music with the volunteers we have. We attempt to make all musicians at any level feel welcomed and appreciated and at the same time strive to perform with the most professionalism and attention to detail we can achieve.

When Bob Pomicter and I founded the Stone Soup Symphony in 1998, we were faced with many challenges: finding musicians and rehearsal space, funding, legal issues, music purchasing, advertising, public relations and more. We faced an uphill battle for a group whose goal is to provide local musicians a fun, non-competitive environment where the trials of organization would be transparent to our members. We have been able to do this because of help from our members, the community and friends. I would like to thank everyone who has helped us through the years. With a group like ours any help from the smallest to the largest is appreciated. We return the favor by providing you with music from the world’s greatest composers that we hope you enjoy as much as we do. Our hope for the future is to continue to bring pride to our community through our concerts and through our ability to bring people together to make great music.

George Akehurst, Conductor/Music Director