The Wheeling Symphony Orchestra is jumping into preparations for its 2025-26 season after officially unveiling the season’s theme, “The Place I Belong.”

The upcoming season focuses on the idea of home by pulling inspiration from the lyrics of John Denver’s “Country Roads” and the United States’ 250th birthday next year. WSO fans can expect three Pops productions, four Masterworks concerts, and several unique community concerts sprinkled in between, all directed by Maestro John Devlin, music director of the WSO.

From a performance by Oglebay’s Institute of Dance to the next installment of WSO’s film series featuring the soundtrack and a showing of “Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope,” this season is packed with exciting collaborations and creative feats.

Additionally, the first of two performances by vocalist Shara Nova will be held at the Towngate Theater in Wheeling, the first time WSO will be partnering with the local theater for a companion performance.

Now that they have made their exciting announcement, it is time to get to work for the next few months in preparation for the season kick off in September.

“The next several months all the way up to opening night in September will be a long push to get the word out, keep telling the story about all the exciting things to come and just making preparations for all the details on the logistics side,” said WSO Director Sonja Thoms.

Right now, WSO staff are hard at work getting the ticketing platform ready for subscribers to renew their plans with the symphony. They have almost 200 households that will be holding their seats.

After that, the WSO will begin to push single tickets out to the broader community.

As far as some of the logistical challenges of pulling together performances with various artists, partners and support staff, it is necessary to plan far in advance and work closely with WSO’s collaborators, Thoms said.

“There are a lot of moving pieces in this season and we just have great partners we get to work with in this community at Towngate Theater and Oglebay Institute and beyond,” Thoms said. “We start talking about these ideas early so that we can feel really secure and that our partners that we’re working with fully understand and align with our vision for how to pull this all together.”

The WSO is also continuing in their efforts to attract more young people to the symphony. The showing at the Towngate Theater will be largely directed at Ohio Valley residents in their twenties and thirties.

“[Attracting more young people] is just something that we’re going to keep pursuing as we can grow and find more opportunities and evolve. That’s definitely top of mind,” Thoms said. “We truly believe that orchestral music is for everyone; every age, every walk of life.”

Thoms said while attracting more young people to the symphony is an ongoing goal, the theme of home this year helps “pull that core value into center for us.”

“We’re really excited to offer some intentional ways for the younger crowd of the Ohio Valley to really come together,” she said.

After months of planning and preparation, Thoms said she is thankful for all the hard work among the WSO staff and community partners to make this upcoming season happen.

“We’re just so excited to finally be able to talk about it,” Thoms said. “It’s such a long process to pull all this together and so many people had to come together and collaborate to make it possible.”