Holiday Concert with the San Diego Mandolin Orchestra

The San Diego Mandolin Orchestra will present a concert of holiday music on Friday, December 8 at 3:30 p.m. in the Winn Room. Registration is not required for this concert. 

The San Diego Mandolin Orchestra has played for more than 50 years and is part of the Classical Mandolin Society of America. Instrument groupings that make the orchestra include mandolins, octave mandolins, mandolas, mandocellos, basses, a zither, and guitars.  

Through the decades to the present, the orchestra has performed at many and varied places and for a wide variety of occasions, from wedding receptions to music festivals and even on a flatbed float one year down Broadway in the annual San Diego Poinsettia Bowl Parade. The group has recorded three albums and played in venues such as the East County Performing Arts Center. 

Today, the group is under the umbrella of the San Diego Community College Continuing Education program at Mesa College. With the class course now a permanent and popular part of the curriculum, and the conductor an esteemed part of the faculty, a local de facto conservatory has thus evolved for the field of mandolin music. Furthermore, the institutional setting facilitates the promotion and awareness for new member recruitment with each and every new semester.  

About the conductor: Coronado resident James Trespasso started his teaching career in 1968 at Northern Michigan University. After a dutiful stint in the Armed Services playing in the United States Army Band, he returned to Northern Michigan University and obtained a masters degree in music.  He subsequently taught at St. Louis High School, Michigan; then Coronado Unified Schools, California; and retired as a music teacher from the San Diego City School District in 2009. Over the years, he has received many awards including the Rotary Excellence in Education, Music Teacher of the Year for Secondary Music, Music Teacher of the Year for Elementary Music, Retired Teacher of the Year from CMEA (California Music Education Association), also many awards from his school in the district. 

Trepasso remains active in music education.  He repairs instruments for the San Diego City School District, serves on the Board of Directors for both the Community Council for Music in the Schools and Band-At-the-Beach Music Camp, and was the previous conductor of the historical San Diego City Guard Band.  He plays horn in the San Diego British Brass Band, trumpet in the San Diego Concert Band, mandocello with the “Fifty Strings” mandolin ensemble, and euphonium in the City Guard Band.