Love and Legacy at the CSO

Meet Irv and Melinda Simon, longtime Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops subscribers, generous supporters and Thomas Schippers Legacy Society members.

Irv grew up in New York City watching Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts on television. A fourth-grade field trip found Melinda at Music Hall for a Young People’s Concert. Max Rudolf was on the podium for a program that included Syncopated Clock. Melinda remembers attending CSO concerts with her family at Sharon Woods Park. Irv and Melinda’s early lives were infused with music literacy through exposure to the New York Philharmonic and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, respectively. At home, they were listening to big band, folk, the Beatles and Detroit music.

Irv and Melinda met while working on peanut butter at P&G in the early 1970s. Some of their early dates were CSO concerts with tickets hurriedly purchased on a lunch break for the same evening. They were married in 1976, and soon after the Simons ventured abroad to Germany for work and eventually came back to Cincinnati and the CSO.

The Simons have supported numerous CSO initiatives, including commissions, the new CSO Proof series, an endowed viola chair and two CSO album recordings, just to name a few. When the pandemic started, the Simons took time to review their estate plan and, with so many happy memories, decided to make special provisions for the CSO.

Irv and Melinda hope that their legacy will ensure a future where the CSO continues to evolve and innovate, with a focus on inclusion and diversity on stage and in our audiences. One of their biggest hopes is their legacy will inspire new philanthropists to support the CSO through their estate plans.

If you want to make a gift that supports the future of the CSO, as Irv and Melinda have, please contact Kate Farinacci at 513.744.3202 or kfarinacci@cincinnatisymphony.org to get started.