Friday, the orchestra celebrated their 25th Anniversary Concert.

Conductor Evans Haile joined the orchestra as music director in 2001.

He says the concert is a celebration of what the orchestra means to the community.

"Its easy in this town to lose your sense of culture because lets face it football basketball seems to take precedent, but the fact is the arts are what connect us to each other as a community and in terms of humanity," says Haile.

The orchestra got started back in 1983 when a group of local musicians met to form the orchestra.

That Fall they put on their first concert, presenting a 34 member ensemble which included professionals, amateurs and students.

Gainesville Chamber Orchestra has managed to survive while other orchestras in Florida haven't.

Haile says Miami doesn't have one, Jacksonville is on strike, and Orlando has had to close theirs twice, but here they plan on going on for much longer.

"Its going to be a wide variety of real performance of a party celebration of a very important milestone for this community as well as for this orchestra," says Haile