A conductor fulfills his dream, and South Bay music lovers can hear free symphonic concerts.

More than two decades ago, a couple of ambitions came together and the Peninsula Symphony was born.

An accomplished jazz trumpeter and music teacher, Joseph A. Valenti aspired to conduct his own symphony orchestra.

And other South Bay musicians and students wanted a place where they could play serious music.

“They came to me and said, ‘Joe, start an orchestra,’ so I did,” Valenti said in a recent interview.

Violinist Elizabeth Ivanoff Holborn has been with the orchestra from the beginning.

“I had experience as a concertmistress with many different orchestras, and I wanted to help Joe fulfill his dream,” recalled Holborn, the orchestra’s only concertmistress for 22 years. “I admired Joe’s courage, his single-minded purpose and his total dedication to his dream.”

The fulfillment of these ambitions has given South Bay music lovers free concerts--four symphonic programs and one pops event a year. The performances are financed largely by orchestra association memberships; 357 people pay from $50 to $750 a year to belong.

“The orchestra serves a nice community function, that of bringing good music to the peninsula,” said Conrad Wedberg Jr., a board member. “We get good audiences, and free admission is an attraction.”

Audiences will have another opportunity to hear symphonic music without damaging their pocketbooks Saturday night when the orchestra plays the prelude to Wagner’s opera “Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg,” the Second Piano Concerto of Rachmaninoff and Saint-Saens’ Third Symphony, the “Organ Symphony.” Wedberg will give a pre-concert lecture about the music and composers.

Another role of the orchestra is conducting an annual competition to encourage young musicians. It offers cash awards and a chance for first- and second-place finishers to solo with the orchestra. This year’s event has drawn 16 contestants, with preliminary rounds set for Wednesday and finals for March 12.

Usually working with 65 to 85 players, the Peninsula Symphony has the familiar community orchestra mix of amateurs, semiprofessionals, students who want to build careers, and some union musicians. The core of the orchestra, amateurs who live in the South Bay, rehearses every Tuesday evening at Harbor College in Wilmington.

Sometimes, says Valenti, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra players come in as soloists or as principal orchestra players.

“We bring in ringers,” as Valenti put it.

The repertoire shows a preference for Tchaikovsky and Brahms but stretches to Mahler and Richard Strauss. Says Valenti, “I’m a middle-of-the-roader and lean toward the Romantic era, which is more digestible for everyone. People go away whistling a tune and it’s nice. It generates a crowd and it’s fun for the orchestra.”

An annual pops concert--done picnic-style at Rolling Hills High School--programs show tunes and other “light-hearted things people can connect with easily,” said Valenti.

But he also likes to challenge his players.

This was evident in 1981 when Valenti assembled 130 musicians to play Reinhold Gliere’s rarely performed Symphony No. 3, “Illya Murometz.” According to Valenti, their venture into the complex score was only the 33rd performance of the work since its composition in 1911. “It is so monumental. . . . It took me a whole year rehearsing it piece by piece to get it glued together,” Valenti said.

Times music reviewer Terry McQuilkin said tackling the piece was “above and beyond the call of duty for a community orchestra.” His review praised the orchestra for “heroically” mastering the score and carefully shaping each movement. “Melodies sang,” McQuilkin wrote.

With his shock of white hair, Valenti looks like a stereotypical conductor. Association members and players credit him for building and maintaining the orchestra.

“He has made it what it is. When the music soars, he looks over and smiles,” Holborn said.

Second violinist Ruth Muller, a retired bilingual teacher, gives Valenti “90% of the credit for success of the orchestra. . . . He puts his heart and soul into it.”

But even on the affluent peninsula, maintaining financial support for the ensemble is a struggle, said Mimi Horowitz, association president.

“The cost of the concerts goes up and up,” she said, ticking off expenses for musicians’ fees, insurance and rental of the concert hall. Two years ago, lack of funds forced the orchestra to cancel the fifth concert of the season, and the current $80,000 budget has a projected deficit.

The board has discussed charging admission but does not want to, believing that would violate the orchestra’s tradition as a community ensemble blending amateurs and professionals who give the South Bay good music for free, she said.

“We have 800 to 1,000 people coming to the concerts,” she said. And while the orchestra is known in the community it has to make more inroads by increasing association membership and holding fund-raising events, she said.

“The orchestra does everybody good,” said Helene Mirich-Spear, a violinist who is orchestra manager and assistant concertmistress. “It is a musical and social thing for the community, it gives students experience in orchestra literature and union pros get another job.”