Atlantic Classical Orchestra in Vero Beach, Florida

The Atlantic Classical Orchestra, known as the ACO, is a professional orchestra with its administrative office in Vero Beach that plays a winter Masterworks Series in two Treasure Coast cities.

Its Mission and History page calls the ACO the premier orchestra for the Treasure Coast, committed to live performances of orchestral music, both old and new, for residents, families and visitors. The orchestra lists its administrative office at 2145 14th Avenue, Suite 20B, in downtown Vero Beach, with an administrative line at 772-460-0850 and a separate box office line at 772-460-0851. Its Vero Beach concerts take place at the Community Church of Vero Beach, and the matching Martin County performances are at The Lyric Theatre in Stuart.

The ACO home page groups its work into four parts: the Masterworks Series of four orchestral programs from January through April, Chamber concerts described as intimate programs performed by ACO musicians, Friends events, and Inside the Score, a set of conversations with David Amado and each concert's guest artists about the stories behind the music.

The orchestra grew out of one musician's plan to bring a professional ensemble to Florida's Treasure Coast.

According to the ACO history, Andrew "Andy" McMullan, the founder of the Vero Beach orchestra, earned a master's degree from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester and became Director of Bands at the University of Connecticut, where he met Jean Gentry, a music graduate student; the two married in 1950. After leaving a tenured university post he bought a twelve-employee business and grew it into a manufacturing company of 160 before selling it thirty-four years later, while still playing French horn and conducting chamber music, opera and symphony. The couple also performed for decades with the Portland Symphony.

In 1990 McMullan set out to bring a professional orchestra to the Treasure Coast. The history page says the first ACO office was the McMullans' dining room table, that ACO grants were defended before judges in Tallahassee, and that a two-city board plus the Stuart Friends and the Vero Beach Friends raised money by collecting program ads and holding benefits. Rehearsals were held across the Treasure Coast in schools and churches, and performances took place at the First Baptist Church in Vero Beach, later at the Waxlax Center for the Performing Arts, and always at the Lyric Theatre in Stuart. Jean McMullan recalled that the couple drove to rehearsals this way for fourteen years.

Two of the earliest musicians recruited for the Vero Beach and Stuart concerts, Tom Servinsky and Tina Burr Apelgren, still play with the ACO, according to the same page. The orchestra said goodbye to its founder in January 2019 and to Jean McMullan, his wife and collaborator, in May 2023.

The ACO's regular Vero Beach hall is the Community Church of Vero Beach, and its holiday concert plays the Waxlax Center at St. Edward's.

The 2027 Masterworks page lists the Community Church of Vero Beach and The Lyric Theatre in Stuart as the two Masterworks venues. That keeps the two-city pattern the ACO history describes from its early years, with one Indian River County hall and one Martin County hall.

The Waxlax Center, an earlier Vero Beach home for the orchestra, is still on the calendar. The 2026 Holiday Concert page schedules the Vero Beach performance for Sunday, December 6, 2026 at 4:00 pm at the Waxlax Center at St. Edward's, one day after a Saturday, December 5 performance at 7:00 pm at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Stuart. The program runs from Leroy Anderson's A Christmas Festival and Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Snowflakes to the It's a Wonderful Life Suite by Tiomkin, the Blue Danube waltz and a Christmas Singalong.

The 2027 Masterworks Series has four programs, one a month from January through April, each on a Thursday at 7:00 pm at the Community Church of Vero Beach.

Each program then moves to The Lyric Theatre in Stuart on the following Friday for a 3:30 pm matinee and a 7:30 pm evening performance, and the ACO lists each concert at about 2 hours including one intermission. Masterworks I, Stage and Screen, opens the series in Vero Beach on Thursday, January 21, 2027 with Copland's Music for Movies, Rózsa's Concerto for String Orchestra, Korngold's Much Ado About Nothing suite and Bernstein's 3 Dance Episodes from On the Town.

Masterworks II, Dreams and Nightmares, follows at the Community Church of Vero Beach on February 18, 2027 with Anna Clyne's Sound and Fury, Samuel Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with soprano Mary Wilson, and selections from Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Masterworks III, Communion and Combustion, comes on March 18, 2027 with Copland's Quiet City, Mozart's Sinfonia concertante K364 and Beethoven's Seventh Symphony; its featured artists include Sara Luciani, listed as the ACO's second oboe and English horn since 2005.

The guest artists coming to Vero Beach have national résumés. The Masterworks II page says soprano Mary Wilson has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra, and at Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl, and that Opera News named her first solo recording, Mary Wilson Sings Handel, one of its Best of the Year. The Masterworks III page lists trumpeter Jesse Cook among its featured artists and says he completed a diploma in natural trumpet at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland, during a 2025 to 2026 sabbatical. Each Masterworks program in Vero Beach runs about two hours.

The final program, Rhythm and Ritual, comes to the Community Church of Vero Beach on Thursday, April 15, 2027, with Respighi's Trittico Botticelliano, the Concerto for Flute by Zhou Tian and Falla's El Amor Brujo. Its soloist, Christina Apelgren, is identified by the ACO as the orchestra's principal flute since its inception.

David Amado has been the ACO's music director since July 2016 and conducts all four Masterworks programs at the Community Church of Vero Beach in the 2027 season.

The ACO music director page says Amado, who leads the orchestra's Vero Beach concerts, led the Delaware Symphony Orchestra for twenty seasons as music director and was named its first Music Director Laureate in June 2023, and that he was recently appointed Artistic Director of the Oregon Mozart Players in Eugene, Oregon. He served as associate conductor of the St. Louis Symphony from 2001 to 2004, and his recordings on Telarc and Naxos have earned Latin GRAMMY nominations, according to the same page.

Amado trained first as a pianist in The Juilliard School's pre-college and college divisions and earned a master's degree in instrumental conducting at Indiana University. In Vero Beach his role extends past the podium: the ACO home page lists Inside the Score conversations in which he and each concert's guest artists discuss the music before the program.

As a guest conductor, according to the same page, Amado has led the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and the Rochester Philharmonic, along with the Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Milwaukee, National, New World and Toronto symphonies. His first professional post was an apprenticeship with the Oregon Symphony, followed by six years with the St. Louis Symphony, where he also directed the St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra, before he took the Vero Beach podium in 2016.

Masterworks seats at the Community Church of Vero Beach are sold in four price zones, from $25 to $85 for a single ticket.

The ACO Venues and Seating page lists Premiere seats at $85 single or $275 for a subscription, Preferred at $75 or $245, Reserved at $60 or $190, and Select seats, furthest from the stage, at $25 single or $85 for the series. Prices shown do not include fees. The page says wheelchair-accessible spaces and companion seats are available in every price zone and that the box office will hold the right seats on request. For comparison, Premiere seats for the matinee at The Lyric Theatre in Stuart are listed at $90 single or $300 for a subscription.

Volunteer support is organized by city. The Vero Beach Friends page describes a group that supports the orchestra in the community where it performs at the Community Church of Vero Beach, helping with fundraising, special events, receptions and ushering. Its Fall Luncheon is set for Monday, November 2, 2026 at 11:30 am at Quail Valley River Club on Highway A1A, with flutist Tina Apelgren and harpist Susan Knapp Thomas, and an RSVP date of October 21, 2026.

Last verified: October 15, 2026, after the ACO mission and history, music director, venues and seating, Vero Beach Friends, holiday concert and four Masterworks program pages were fetched again for this orchestra guide.