The South Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is one of Melbourne's oldest community orchestras, with a continuous record of performing in the South Melbourne Town Hall since its formation in 1946. It is an amateur orchestra, managed by a committee of its members.

Usually four concerts a year are performed in the South Melbourne Town Hall, with about ten rehearsals for each concert. Through the generosity of the City of Port Phillip and the Australian National Academy of Music, the orchestra has the use for both rehearsals and concerts of the South Melbourne Town Hall. Built late in the 19^th century, this magnificent old building - now fully restored - has acoustic properties as good as can be found anywhere.

The present Conductor is Lynette Bridgland, who completed her Bachelor of Education in Music at Victoria College in 1982, and a post graduate diploma in conducting at the University of Surrey in 1990. From 1992 to 2003 she was Director of Music at Fintona Girls School, Balwyn, and has a great deal of experience in conducting orchestras, bands, choirs and musical theatre productions. She is currently working at Strathcona Girls' School.

2006 saw the 60^th anniversary of the formation of the Orchestra, and this occasion was marked in three of the four concerts: the first looking to the future as a children's concert, the second focussing on the present orchestra and the third looking back and included the addition of past players for some of the performed pieces. The last concert commemorated the 250^th anniversary of the birth of Mozart, and included performances of the first and last symphonies, as well as the c minor piano conerto - no 24, KV 491 with Janis Cook as soloist.

In 2009 we mark the anniversaries of Handel (born 1759) with the Water Music in the first concert, Haydn (died 1809) with the first Cello Concerto (soloist Alister Barker) in the second concert, Ippolitov-Ivanov (born 1859) with the Caucasian Sketches in the third concert and Felix Mendelssohn (born 1809) with the Scottish Symphony in the fourth concert. In addition the second concert included a scherzo by the teenage Rachmaninov (clearly showing the influence of Mendelssohn), and the Beatlecracker Suite - a clever pastiche of Beatles melodies in the style of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker while the fourth concert also features the Brahms Violin Concerto with Anna O'Hagan from the Australian National Academy of Music as soloist.