The Austin Symphony was founded in 1911 and is Austin's oldest performing arts group and Texas' oldest continuous symphony orchestra. The Symphony offers outstanding classical music through a series of eight concert pairs running monthly September through April at Bass Concert Hall on the campus of UT-Austin. The Sarah and Ernest Butler Pops Series features the festive Holiday and Promenade Pops Concerts at Palmer Events Center, as well as the October and February Pops at Riverbend Centre. Austin's historic Symphony Square at 11th and Red River is home to the Symphony's administrative offices as well as the popular restaurant Serranos Symphony Square and the Women's Symphony League office.

The Symphony also offers a wide array of innovative, nationally-recognized youth programs that touch the lives of more than 80,000 young people each year, including over 28,000 4th, 5th and 6th graders who attend the Young People's Concerts in the spring at Bass Concert Hall. These concerts, which utilize live video projected on a huge screen above the orchestra, allow the students to see as well as hear the music being performed.

Through the years, the Symphony has developed into an organization able to serve the community in diverse ways. Through the formal season at Bass Concert Hall, the Butler Pops Series, various free family concerts and educational programming throughout the school districts, the ASO continues to entertain and educate its various audiences and supporters.

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