The grant presentation is a watershed moment as the four organizations that rose from the 2002 bankruptcy of the San Jose Symphony continue to grow and succeed.

This quartet has done nothing less than re-imagine the traditional model of how a symphony is run.

"If you take a look at what's happened, at how our community has responded to the downfall of the San Jose Symphony, it is both a true Silicon Valley story and one that might be of interest to communities around the country, in that we did not recreate the grand old symphony organization," says Christopher Greene, president of the San Jose Symphony Foundation. This is the endowment organization that formerly supported the San Jose Symphony.

Greene cites the establishment in recent years of Symphony Silicon Valley, the San Jose Youth Symphony, and the Preludes and Encores auxiliary group, and the legal reorganization of the San Jose Symphony Foundation as key steps in rebuilding the foundation of a major city symphony. Additionally, Greene notes the opening of the California Theatre, which has provided a top-flight venue for concerts.

"Those five things, if you look at it, define the classic old symphony, which is: professional orchestra, youth orchestra, community service organization, endowment and venue," Greene says. "But these are separate organizations that are now working together as a network as opposed to a single organization that's trying to do it all."

The groups are legally independent of each other, instead of most of them being under the umbrella of one symphony organization, as in the days of the San Jose Symphony. It may seem like a fine distinction, but it's an important one.

"The advantages of having a network are that first, each organization can do what it does best," Greene says. "Secondly, a network is more robust than a single entity because if any one element of the network fails, the other elements can carry on, while if the single entity fails, it takes everything down at once."

The San Jose Symphony's bankruptcy meant the demise of groups that were considered programs of the symphony, such as the San Jose Symphony Youth Orchestra. The San Jose Symphony Foundation was able to continue operating because it was a separate legal entity. The foundation wasn't affected by the bankruptcy--except for the fact that it no longer had a symphony to support. The San Jose Symphony Foundation was created in 1973 as a supporting organization for the San Jose Symphony. Legally, it could not offer grants to any other group.

After the San Jose Symphony failed, the San Jose Symphony Foundation needed to legally redefine itself in order to be able to give grants to other groups, a process it completed last fall.

The foundation is no longer legally bound to a specific grant recipient but chose Symphony Silicon Valley and the San Jose Youth Symphony because they are successors to the San Jose Symphony and its programs. The groups also to happen to be thriving artistically. Symphony Silicon Valley offers increasingly ambitious seasons while the San Jose Youth Symphony recently performed with top pianist Jon Nakamatsu.

"There were two obvious organizations that rose up out of the ashes of the symphony's demise: Symphony Silicon Valley is essentially the same musicians as the old San Jose Symphony, combined with the entrepreneurial spirit that symphony president Andrew Bales and his board have put together with that organization. The Youth Symphony is essentially the old symphony's youth orchestra that was formed by the parents of the students that were in that orchestra," Greene says. "We decided that the best way that we could honor the legacy of the San Jose Symphony was to provide grants to the professional orchestra that has risen from that bankruptcy and the youth orchestra that arose from the same event."

Likewise, another way for the foundation to honor the old symphony was to keep its name as the San Jose Symphony Foundation. The name reflects pride in the organization that brought classical music to the South Bay for 123 years. Greene points out that with its founding in 1879, the San Jose Symphony was the oldest orchestra in the western United States. It was also senior to most of the country's major orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony.

"The San Jose Symphony was a part of the heart and soul of our community. People loved it and it had a very important role to play in our community. We feel that what we are able to do through our grants program is to contribute the heritage that the San Jose Symphony has had in our community for a century and a quarter," Greene says.