This marks 20 years since the founding of the Lake County Symphony Orchestra, created and sustained by impassioned music lovers and performers, and standing today as the only professional orchestra in the county. The group has its origins in a community church orchestra in Zion. Executive and artistic director Ron Arden was hired in 1998 to run the group, ultimately leaving in 2003. In those short few years, the group had proven itself popular, he said. “By that time, we had a mailing list of 3,000 people,” he said. “We were filling the sanctuary.” Ron Arden, the executive and artistic director of the Lake County Symphony Orchestra, which marked its 20th anniversary this year. Arden described the group as his “calling.” (Courtesy of the Lake County Symphony Orchestra) In 2004, Arden and other charter members founded the Full Score Chamber Orchestra, which would be renamed the Lake County Symphony Orchestra a few years before the COVID pandemic. “It just really grew very quickly,” Arden said. What started with about 20 players has grown to nearly 50, featuring artists from all over the area playing about five concerts a season. “We have a roster that boasts really high-quality players from Chicago and Milwaukee who have auditioned into the orchestra,” Arden said. It hasn’t always been easy maintaining an orchestra in between two major cities, Arden admitted, but “some really wonderful, cool things have happened” over the years. It was the first orchestra to perform at the renovated Genesee Theatre in Waukegan and has accompanied artists including Marie Osmond, the Temptations and Clay Aiken. Its “hallmark” performances are its Christmas concerts, coming up again in December, but the orchestra performs everything from classical and gospel to rock, and even video-game music. The group was about “nurturing” and “celebrating the arts in Northern Illinois,” Arden said, producing family-friendly concerts and educating the community using, “great symphonic music.” “Personally, it’s a calling; there’s no other way to say it,” Arden said. “Every time I think I’m sick and tired … something happens. You can call it God. You can call it whatever you want.” Several years ago, the orchestra created a governing board. Arden said it is always looking for board members who want to help the orchestra survive. The entire endeavor was powered by his and many others’ personal love of the arts, he said. “It’s a really beautiful success story of what can happen when musicians are impassioned about playing their music for the community,” Arden said.