Meet Heather Caisse-Roberts with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra

Heather Caisse-Roberts, President & CEO of Springfield Symphony Orchestra (SSO)

‍On Tuesday, September 8, at noon, Heather Caisse-Roberts, President & CEO of Springfield Symphony Orchestra (SSO), will deliver a lunchtime presentation for Young Professional Society (YPS) of Greater Springfield at the Henry M. Thomas III Center at Springfield. Lunch will be provided, and insightful discussion about unlikely career paths and capitalizing on connections is guaranteed.

As part of their programming, YPS of Greater Springfield hosts bimonthly Leadership Luncheons that feature prominent business leaders from the Pioneer Valley and its neighboring towns. These subjects draw on their professional experience and apply what they have learned, hosting seminars, Socratic discussions and guided lessons that benefit YPS members looking to take their next step in their careers and personal lives, and Caisse-Roberts’s luncheon promises to be a prime example.

Heather Caisse-Roberts taught elementary-aged students in Vermont, worked overseas then returned to Western Massachusetts to continue her career in education. She could never have predicted her role with the SSO.

When she arrived in Greater Springfield following her time abroad, she spent nearly a decade serving as Executive Director of Institutional Advancement at American International College in Springfield, Mass. She then led developmental work at New England Public Media and the Young@Heart Chorus until she joined the SSO in 2022. What began as an opportunity to assist with grant writing and fundraising turned into a series of developmental operations and leadership roles. In 2025, she was given the opportunity to lead the organization.

She has reflected on the curving path that brought her to the Orchestra’s doorstep, and a few common threads that strung all these unlikely roles together: people, access and the chance to build and cement institutions that benefit the communities they serve.

Today, Caisse-Roberts finds herself at the helm of the SSO during a consequential period as their staff and board focus on financial sustainability, sensible partnerships, lifting young musicians, appealing to new audiences and otherwise making symphonic music more accessible. She believes deeply in the power of live music, especially in our region, and encourages everyone to ask the institutions we know and value how we can continue to keep them alive in the places they serve.

“During my Leadership Luncheon, I want to talk about what it means to build something you care about,” said Caisse-Roberts. “Not in the neat, retrospective way where everything worked out and I now have three profound lessons to share. Even though I am still very much still in it, my career has been a strange road… Looking back, though, there is a clear thread through all it. I have always been drawn to places that matter to the community around them.”

Her work has included elementary education, higher education, public media, fundraising, development, operations and entertainment. Each of the organizations she has served have been cornerstones of academia, communications and the arts in the cities and towns they serve. They do important work already, so the question becomes: how do you love something and implement change for it?

In her approach to the SSO, Caisse-Roberts had to figure out how to honor the organization’s more than 80 years of history while minding that she is not targeting the same audience that they appealed to in 1955. Daily she must balance mission and money, figure out how to make people care about her cause, identify what is worth fighting for and illustrate these same civil responsibilities to others.

“I will absolutely use my current work and the wild last year as part of the story, but I do not want this talk to be about the Springfield Symphony Orchestra,” she explained. “I want it to be about building things, changing things, getting some things wrong, finding the people who will help you get other things right and actually participating in the place where you live and work.”

Eager to chime in, ask questions and learn what her grand takeaways have been thus far? You’ll just have to pull up a seat at the table on Tuesday, Sept. 8, at 12pm. RSVP online today at SpringfieldYPS.com!