By: Taylor Christensen | Royal Oak Review | Published October 14, 2025
ROYAL OAK — The Royal Oak Symphony Orchestra is celebrating 30 years serving the Royal Oak community, and it has a lot of excitement in store for the future.
The orchestra began in 1995 when Peter Tolias founded the orchestra. Since then, the group has been led by many different conductors, including John Roberston, John Dovaras, John McLaughlin Williams and guest conductors, according to royaloakorchestra.com.
The orchestra is composed of 68 nonprofessional musicians who volunteer their time to perform each season, with no pay provided.
Lisa Wade, the principal flute for the ROSO, and the vice president of the board of directors, has been a part of the orchestra since the group moved to Royal Oak from Troy 30 years ago.
“I grew up playing the flute. My mom was a musician, and so we had a lot of different instruments in our house, but I gravitated towards the flute, and I played in ROSO as well as at my church quite frequently, but it’s always been a hobby for me,” Wade said.
Wade said that originally the orchestra was located in Troy and was a pay-to-play setup, but when it moved to Royal Oak, it became a volunteer group.
“We aren’t making money by playing with the orchestra, so it really is a joining together of people with a common passion for music,” Wade said. “That’s the biggest reason why we’re there, but also the camaraderie, because we all come into it with the same expectation that no matter what, we are going to have a good time putting on a performance.”
When Wade began with the orchestra in 1995, she said she did not have to audition, but now the group has grown so much that auditions are needed if people want to join.
“We can’t have our doors completely open anymore. We have auditions now to get in, and we can only accept people that go through the audition process when there’s an opening, because a lot of our people have been here,” Wade said. “So now, because of the audition process too, we’ve kind of increased our talent level, and each new director that comes in brings us kind of to the next level and raises the bar.”
This season Dr. Mark Douglass will be taking over as director and is preparing to challenge the players and deliver some impressive performances for the community.
“I just want everybody to come together and to enjoy making and listening to music. I know that sounds like a very simple answer, but that’s the purpose of a community orchestra. It belongs to the community, and the community belongs to the orchestra,” Douglass said.
Douglass said he gave the orchestra a particularly challenging piece to learn for the Symphony Spooktacular on Oct. 17, which is Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4.
“It’s very rare for a community orchestra to do the Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4, and we have struggled and struggled in rehearsals, and they are beginning to rise to the challenge. So, I just hope that when it’s time, that everything comes together,” he said.
Douglass, being new to the scene, hopes to continue to serve the community in the best way possible by getting ROSO involved in various community projects.
“It’s the community’s orchestra. And I obviously want the community to know that, first of all, there is an orchestra in Royal Oak, and we want to support and we want to serve them as well,” Douglass said. “We want to play the standard rep, but we also want to play music that serves our community. So that’s, that’s really one of the directions I’m trying to help the orchestra continue to move in.”
Robyn Myers, president of the ROSO board of directors and assistant principal flute, has been a part of ROSO for eight years.
“The first season I played with ROSO, we performed “Jubilate Deo” by Dan Forrest, which is a powerful work based on Psalm 100, ‘Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.’ It is done in seven movements all in different languages of the world. It was a collaboration between us and one of the local Detroit metro choirs. I will never forget it,” she said.
Myers said that the orchestra continues to grow each year and attract more advanced players because of the high-level directors the orchestra brings on board.
“The music we are able to perform now is much more technical, allowing us to play larger and more complex works,” she said. “I can only speak to the conductors that I have played under, but prior to Mark Douglass coming on board this year, our former conductor, John McLaughlin Williams, had a lot to do with advancing the orchestra skill-level-wise.”
Myers wants the group to keep providing community outreach and developing exciting projects.
“It is our 30th anniversary season and we have some exciting projects in the works such as commissioning a piece of music for the occasion, as well as a possible symphony gala in spring involving the community as a culmination of the season’s celebration,” she said. “It’s all about keeping true to our mission statement and objectives to offer qualified musicians an opportunity to perform symphonic music, and to foster music education for both youth and adults.”
Myers said the connections she has made within the orchestra are bigger than she ever thought would be possible, as they helped her through a recent diagnosis of cancer of the spine.
“Throughout my entire cancer journey, hospitalization, surgery, radiation and chemo treatments, I continued to serve this orchestra as president and librarian, and I attribute my success of getting through it all — I am now in complete remission — because of the ROSO musical family that supported me, prayed for me and performed with me the whole year,” she said. “Music can be a powerful healer, and it gave me a goal each week that I had to accomplish along with the projects and administrative duties that I had to continue to complete.”
The upcoming performance of the ROSO will take place from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Oct. 17 at the Dondero Auditorium at Royal Oak Middle School, 709 N. Washington Ave. Tickets cost $20 and $15 for students and seniors. Those ages 12 and younger will be admitted for free.
For more information and tickets visit royaloakorchestra.com.