SMC Symphony Orchestra Performs Khachaturian, Bizet and Tchaikovsky
Santa Monica College (SMC) Symphony Orchestra Conductor Mercedes Juan Musotto (R) and the string sections during the final concert of the Fall 2025 semester on Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, at BroadStage in Santa Monica, Calif. The concert featured music by Khachaturian, Bizet, and Tchaikovsky. (Elizabeth Bacher | The Corsair)
The musicians of the Santa Monica College (SMC) Symphony Orchestra wrapped up their fall season with a concert of Khachaturian, Bizet and Tchaikovsky, led by conductor Mercedes Juan Musotto on Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. The orchestra performs at its home venue, the Eli and Edythe BroadStage, and rehearses at the SMC Performing Arts Center every Tuesday night.
Earlier in the season, they held a children’s concert in collaboration with the dance department, featuring student choreographers and a guest narrator. December’s performance highlighted the orchestra with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 rather than a separate soloist.
A favorite among conductors, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 is known for its passionate highs and lows and lyrical instrumental solos. It also presents notable challenges. The SMC Symphony Orchestra is made up of musicians of all experience levels, including professionals as well as beginning students and community players.
Some SMC applied music instructors, such as concertmaster and violinist Andrea Sanderson, and clarinetist Arthur Naito, play alongside current and former students. Other professional musicians who regularly join are Mark Bassett, principal cello, and Jay Rubottom, principal bass.
“I think of Tchaikovsky 5 as a standard repertoire piece,” said Rubottom. “I’ve played it with professional orchestras plenty of times, and it’s never easy… But the difficulty is, I think everybody kind of has to be on the same page, because these melodies get passed back and forth so quickly and so frequently, and it still has to sound like, you know, essentially like one person sitting at a giant piano and playing it.”
Rubottom considers the piece a great opportunity for students, and an uncommon one among community colleges. “I think it's a really good opportunity, especially, for the students instead of community members to get to play this,” he said. “Because even though this is standard rep, it's still very hard standard rep. And it's the kind of thing that, you know, like when I was in junior college, back in the day, we would never have thought of trying to play something at this level.”
Nikki Iv, a recent SMC alum and former student of concertmaster Andrea Sanderson, continues to play in the orchestra while pursuing a bachelor’s degree in violin at California State University, Long Beach. “It’s a really nice community, I would say. And you get to develop your skills further,” Iv said.
“You also get an orchestra to play with every week,” Iv said. “Even though we play twice a week at Cal State Long Beach, it’s just best to get more experience that way. And you get to learn a ton of repertoire. Especially for me, because I want to be an orchestra conductor. I get to learn a lot of repertoire that I wouldn’t normally get to play, or some of the more popular works.”
Other performers were Dave Marcus, French horn, whose son Leo Marcus played both keyboard and trumpet. Brothers Martin Avila and Jares Avila were also in the brass section, playing trombone and French horn.
Clarinetist Arthur Naito, applied music instructor at SMC, said he really enjoys playing in the orchestra. “I missed it during the pandemic… I play in some other orchestras around town, so it's just nice to build repertoire, to read these great symphonies with a really enthusiastic orchestra,” Naito said. “And so that's a real pleasure… So I’m really lucky. I'm really fortunate. And I count my blessings every day.”
