The San Marco Chamber Music Society (SMCMS) was formed in 2008 by Eric and Ellen Olson, long-standing members of the Jacksonville Symphony. They invited other symphony musicians and local university faculty and began with a 2-concert season. It has now expanded to 5 to 6 concert programs per year, all free and open to the public. These concert programs are often repeated in various venues in Northeast Florida.

Typically, SMCMS presents a total of 15-20 concerts each season. Each concert season includes a benefit concert for type 1 diabetes research, collaborating with Breakthrough T1D (the leading organization supporting diabetes research and education). Over the years, SMCMS has raised more than $50,000 for diabetes research!

SMCMS has had a varied and eclectic mix of programming featuring woodwinds, strings, voice, trumpet, French horn, piano, organ, harp, and percussion. SMCMS has also brought several new works to life by commissioning musical compositions by Piotr Szewczyk, Brian Nabors, Kevin Day, and others. SMCMS presented the world premieres of its commissioned works to our local Jacksonville audiences and livestreamed the concerts to YouTube.SMCMS has presented many works by underrepresented composers over the years and will continue to do so.

SMCMS has also expanded its scope by performing successful international concert tours to England in 2016 and 2023, Germany in 2019, and Italy in 2025. SMCMS looks towards a bright future of many more exciting concerts for the Jacksonville community and beyond.

Two musicians, a man and a woman, standing inside a church with stained glass windows, holding a clarinet and a violin, both smiling and dressed in black.
A group of six musicians performing on stage in a church with stained glass windows in the background. They are playing various instruments, including oboe, violin, cello, and viola, and are dressed in formal white shirts.
Group of nine musicians with musical instruments posing inside a church or concert hall, smiling for the camera.

The San Marco Chamber Music Society Board of Directors

Eric Olson, President

Ellen Olson, Vice President

Bernadette Tasher, Treasurer

Shira Schwam-Baird, Secretary

Alonzo Batson

Donna Holoka

Stacey Miles

DIVERSITY STATEMENT

FOUNDATION
The San Marco Chamber Music Society exists to serve the community through the music we perform and present. To be a vital organization, we must be a culturally inclusive organization.
Serving an audience reflective of our richly diverse Jacksonville community is central to our mission. We are committed to achieving our mission by nurturing an organizational culture in which a rich diversity of ideas and perspectives are sought out, welcomed, heard, understood, respected, and valued.

DEFINITION
For SMCMS, a commitment to diversity also represents the active inclusion of the broadest possible representation of our Jacksonville community, within the organization and within our audience. This commitment includes: race, ethnicity, cultural experiences, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, age, socio-economic status, physical and mental ability, education and religion. Through this culture, we are committed to cultivating diversity of thought throughout the organization.

COMMITMENT
We are committed to actively:
Foster a culture of inclusion and work for equity for all people within our organization and our audience.

Hold inclusion and diversity as an essential value in our consideration of artistic and institutional discussions and decisions.

Increase and maintain diversity within the SMCMS Family (Board and musicians), the SMCMS audience, and the artists, collaborators and partners we engage.

Build relationships with individuals and organizations that represent a wide variety of backgrounds and modes of artistic expression.

Evolve our definition of inclusion, our artistic programs and our organizational culture to respond continuously to feedback and situations as they arise. We recognize the life-long, ever-evolving nature of this work. We commit to investment, attention, and vigilance at all levels of the organization. We also commit to ensuring inclusion and diversity become and remain integrated in our organizational identity.