Symphony by the Sea is an all-professional, 35-piece symphony orchestra on the North Shore of Boston that performs music ranging from Baroque to Contemporary. The orchestra was founded when Royston Nash, conductor of the Cape Cod Symphony and former Music Director of London’s D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, assembled a group of local and Boston area musicians and began weekly rehearsals at Marblehead’s Old Town Hall. After playing informally together for several months, the orchestra made its public debut at the Peabody Essex Museum in June 1981.