Once struggling Pasadena Philharmonic hitting right notes.

Strawberry Water Park in Pasadena seems like an unlikely place for an orchestral concert. These days, the covered pavilion near the water slide and lazy river is a much more natural habitat for skateboarding teens than tuxedo-clad musicians.

Yet in October, the Pasadena Philharmonic drew about 1,000 people for a concert of nearly all Mexican composers, followed by a screening of “Coco.” The only exception was an orchestral suite taken from Michael Giachinno’s original score for Disney’s Day of the Dead-themed 2017 animated hit.

James Park, the orchestra’s music director, had polled orchestra directors across the state for suitable programming suggestions and “got a whole lot of nothing,” he says. But good oldfashioned research (including on YouTube) led him to 20th-century names such as Arturo Marquez and Maria Grever, the first female Mexican composer to draw broad international acclaim. The concert’s featured vocalist was a friend of Park’s and a graduate of nearby Sam Rayburn High School, whose orchestra also performed that night.

Overall, the evening represented a triumph for an organization that, barely a half-decade ago, was on the verge of going under.

“One of the things that I value as a musician is when music is done at the true kind of groundfloor level of the community,” says Park, who has now led the orchestra for six years. “Nobody loves going to Jones Hall more than I do and hearing the pinnacle — that’s an experience that we should all value and go do.

“But,” he adds, “there is something special about people who just love performing music getting up and performing for their local community.”

Homegrown arts scene

According to the Texas Demographic Center, Pasadena had an estimated 153,528 residents as of Jan. 1. It’s bigger than McAllen, Midland and Waco, and more than triple the population of Galveston. But it’s been a long time since “Urban Cowboy” was partly filmed there nearly 40 years ago and, especially where culture is concerned, Pasadena’s image as an entity of its own seems to have melted into the metropolitan melange that is Greater Houston.

Not the case, Park insists. The Pasadena Philharmonic is Exhibit

A that the area’s largest suburb — still bigger than Pearland, The Woodlands and Sugar Land, for now — has an arts scene that, he says, “is not hired out.”

“It’s not brought in from (Houston); it is its own homegrown musical arts scene,” Park continues. “It’s meaningful to its community, and we do interesting repertoire. Our concerts are not the kind where you just come sit quietly, applaud (and) leave. They’re more engaging because of the way that we speak to the audience.”

The Pasadena Philharmonic was founded in 1982, when the city was still flush with oil money, and the orchestra’s parent organization, the Pasadena Philharmonic Society, would hold elaborate Mardi Gras balls by way of fundraising. Usually, the husband and wife who raised the most money were crowned king and queen.

But as the years wore on and Pasadena’s demographics shifted — Data USA reports that in 2018 the city was fully two-thirds Hispanic — the Mardi Gras balls disappeared, the funding dwindled, and the orchestra found itself in dire straits. The ensemble could have easily disappeared, Park explains, if not for the determination of the allvolunteer board of directors and the musicians themselves.

“They knew they had a nice little gem there,” he says, “(and) a

long history, and they didn’t want to give it up.”

Relating to the community

By this time, Park was already at his other job, as choir director at Clear Creek High School. Someone he hired to help out with a performance at the school happened to be the Philharmonic’s personnel director, who told him the orchestra had been searching for a music director. He and his wife attended a concert and liked what they heard, but Park also realized some things needed to change.

“One of the things that was ingrained in me through my training was if your orchestra — or any arts group — isn’t relevant to your community, then it will die,” he says. “So if your group is dying, it is not relevant to your community. So the first thing I said was, ‘OK, you can’t expect people to just show up to your concert. You have to be relevant in their lives in order for them to feel invested to come.’ ”

Park began reaching out to his fellow music directors in the

Clear Creek and Pasadena school districts, inviting them to play in the orchestra and as featured soloists, and recruiting players from San Jacinto College’s Central campus, the Pasadena Philharmonic’s regular home (and where his wife teaches cello). As at Strawberry Park, some concerts feature the Philharmonic sharing the stage with an orchestra from a secondary school in the area.

“They’ve got wonderful music in (those) programs,” Park says. “There’s no reason why they shouldn’t be supportive of a community orchestra, especially when that should be your pipeline.”

According to Park, membership in the Pasadena Philharmonic is open to anyone who can play. There’s no audition process, although he notes that the wind players are “pretty set.” The waiting list there is so substantial, he’s exploring the idea of starting a concert band or jazz band if things continue to go well.

“It is important to us that the orchestra is an actual community orchestra,” Park says. “We’re not trying to be anything more than we are, but we’re really proud of what we are.”

Park notes that on concert nights, nearby restaurants will be crowded with tables full of musicians.

“The musicians’ community is so tight-knit, a lot of people who are teachers in the area, they don’t just play for their soul and for their mental health,” he says.

The Philharmonic, he adds, represents “an opportunity for them to just be with their friends in a nonprofessional setting, where they can enjoy each other’s company and enjoy each other’s playing in a relaxed atmosphere.”

Attendance at Pasadena Philharmonic concerts now regularly reaches the 300-400 range, Park says. In July 2017, the orchestra played at incoming Pasadena Mayor Jeff Wagner’s inauguration. (Wagner must be an especially big fan; his wife, Ginny, is now on the orchestra’s board.) Park lost count of the number of people who told him, “I didn’t even know we had an orchestra.”

“We’re in our 34th year,” he replied.

Enticing petrochemical support

Pasadena native Paul Driscoll, a longtime magician and entertainer — he was a fixture at Houston’s legendary Egyptian-themed Magic Island nightclub back in the ’80s and ’90s — acts as master of ceremonies at the Philharmonic’s concerts and recently signed on as the full-time public affairs director. The board hired him in hope of drumming up financial support from Pasadena’s many petrochemical companies and the aerospace firms around Ellington Field.

“(When) I go to speak at the Rotary clubs and Kiwanis and Lions groups,” he says, “I open up by saying, ‘I’m a magician for over 30 years. It’s my job to keep secrets, but I have a secret that I’m very happy to reveal: Did you know that Pasadena has a philharmonic orchestra?’ ”

Driscoll guesses that many people at the Strawberry Park performance may have never seen a live orchestra before; the large attendance suggests that many will come back. Park hopes to keep them in the fold by dividing concerts among several shorter pieces rather than one long symphony, for example, and often organizing them by theme.

Besides Sunday’s holiday concert, featuring Bernhard Romburg’s “Toy Symphony” played on actual toys, the orchestra will perform “Classical One-Hit Wonders” in March and “Sibling Rivalries” in May. The point, Park says, is to show that classical music can be entertaining — and not nearly as stuffy as people might think.

“And you can do that without dumbing it down,” he adds. “You can do that without a gimmick. We do quality music. We do good music at our concerts, but we do it in a way that is accessible and that people don’t feel intimidated. That’s why they keep coming back.”