With drama befitting the Beethoven symphony that will herald its first concert, the Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra will make its long-awaited debut March 4, marking the return of a professional orchestra to the state more than two years after the Hono­lulu Symphony played its final note.

"Just feeling the music in our minds already, it gets your heart fluttering," said Vicky Caye­tano, a member of the symphony board. "We feel like we’ve put together an extremely sustainable plan for not only this season, but for years to come."

The symphony has scheduled an eight-program "Masterworks" classical-music series at Blaisdell Concert Hall stretching from early March to mid-May. A "pops" series is also planned, but details have not been finalized, symphony representatives said.

Ticket sales start Wednesday, with season-ticket packages priced under $100.

The debut program will feature Hono­lulu-based pianist Lisa Naka­mi­chi, a noted Mozart interpreter who has toured the United States, Canada and Japan. She will perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D Minor, which was featured in "Amadeus," the 1984 film about the famed composer’s life.

Nakamichi said it comes as a bit of a surprise to be the opening soloist, since concerts were supposed to begin last fall.

"This is going to be a special occasion," she said. "It’s pressure for me because I would really like to put on a great show for everyone so that people will want to keep coming back to the symphony."

Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, probably the most popular and performed symphonic work in history, will also be on the program, along with a work by Carl Maria von Weber. Leading the symphony will be Japanese conductor Naoto Otomo, who made a well-received appearance with the Hono­lulu Symphony in 2008.

The new orchestra would be a remarkable turnaround for the city’s classical music scene after the demise of the Hono­lulu Symphony, which gave its final official performance in the fall of 2009 after years of financial trouble. Disbanding the 110-year-old orchestra, billed as the "oldest American orchestra west of the Rockies," was seen as not only a loss of an historic institution, but a threat to other performing arts organizations that relied on symphony musicians, and to the music education of thousands of students.

THE trials and tribulations of the local symphony reflect a nationwide trend. Orchestras in San Jose, Calif.; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Tulsa, Okla.; Savannah, Ga.; and New Mexico have undergone reorganization in the past decade, while the Louisville Orchestra in Kentucky is in bankruptcy but still performing, and New York’s Syracuse Symphony Orchestra has stopped performing entirely, according to the League of American Orchestras.

The effort to revive the orchestra in Hawaii has given a lift to the music community, said JoAnn Falletta, who guest-conducted the Hono­lulu Symphony several times and has been acting as artistic consultant for the new organization.

"What was so inspiring was how many (performers) wanted to help," said Falletta, music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. "They would call periodically and say, ‘Is there anything I can do to help? … Can I volunteer and give an extra recital or something to raise funds?’

"The people who are coming, in all cases, are coming for a fraction of what they would be paid in other orchestra situations," said Falletta, who will be conducting the new symphony in a performance of Russian music in early April.

"They knew that Hawaii has a great orchestra, and they wanted to be part of that renaissance."

The symphony board, a group of civic and business leaders who first went public as the Symphony Exploratory Committee last spring, developed a $6 million budget and reached a contract that paid musicians $30,000 for the first two seasons and planned to begin concerts last October. When that failed to materialize, pressure began to mount. Symphony representatives said the organization was being overly cautious, hoping to produce a financially and artistically sound product.

"The board decided let’s take the time and do it well and not rush and take a bigger risk than we might otherwise," said Steven Monder, retired president of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, adding that for this season the budget will be between $3 million and $4 million. Monder has been acting as administrative and business consultant for the Hawai‘i Symphony and was called the "creative visionary" of the new orchestra.

A key step for the organization was receiving tax-exempt status, which allowed it to perform fundraising and other business functions, Caye­tano said.

"It just takes time and process," she said. "We knew it would be challenging, and it has definitely been as challenging as we anticipated it would be."

Fellow board member Oz Stender said other important milestones were receiving support from the Symphony Foundation, the fundraising arm of the old symphony, and getting a matching grant from the Harold K.L. Castle Foundation.

"Without that I think we would still be struggling to see where we’d get the major funding," Stender said.

The board also focused on shoring up support from a few key donors to the old symphony. "For those we’ve talked to, they’re anxious and eager to help," he said.

Falletta said an important facet of the new orchestra is the flexibility the board and musicians have demonstrated in presenting innovative programming, with the result that audiences will have opportunities to develop and refine their appreciation of music. Master classes and other public presentations are likely to be featured, she said, and guest artists "may even speak from the stage."

Technologically, the orchestra intends to make the leap into the modern age, broadcasting concerts to the neighbor islands, producing short videos and using social media to develop its support base, she said. Both the Virginia and Buffalo orchestras are on Twitter and have found it useful in reaching out to new followers, she said.

"We believed that most of our subscribers were of a certain age where they wouldn’t be comfortable with that, but we found out very quickly that young people were very open to hearing about symphony orchestras."

Jonathan Parrish, a representative for the musicians, said work offers will go out to all of the musicians who were under contract to the Hono­lulu Symphony as of fall 2009, but it could not be determined who among those would be back.

"There will be a lot of familiar faces, but there will certainly be some new ones," he said. "But if the opera and the ballet of the last two years are any indication, then the orchestra is going to sound as good as what we could expected from the Hono­lulu Symphony. … The musicians never stopped practicing. That’s what makes us what we are; otherwise we’re not professional musicians anymore.

"We’re obviously really excited about getting back on stage and performing for the community."

Monder said reviving an orchestra in Hawaii, for all the obstacles it faced, represents a triumph beyond the beauty of music.

"Not only is it going to sound great, it’s going to feel great," he said. "This is a mission to bring an orchestra back to Hono­lulu and all these artists, these musicians, the guest artists, the volunteers, the new board, putting shoulder to wheel to get this done."