Miami Symphony Orchestra sees an opening in South Florida's shifting classical music scene: arts groups that are struggling with uneven ticket sales and diminished donations are canceling concerts, paring down performances, and filing for bankruptcy.

Yet the Miami Symphony, long dismissed as second rate by critics and South Florida's cultural establishment, has launched an aggressive expansion -- recruiting a new slate of board members, targeting a budget growth of 50 percent and increasing the number of concerts from this year's 10 to 16 next season.

Conductor Eduardo Marturet concedes that the symphony will have to invest years before it becomes the fulltime ensemble the region has lacked since the 2003 bankruptcy of the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra.

''We are at 10 percent of where I think the orchestra is going to be,'' he says.

NOW'S THE TIME

But Marturet is certain that now is the time to grow, despite the financial crises that have beset arts groups and their benefactors.

''The crisis for an organization like ours was going to be more helpful than damaging,'' he says, ``because we had no choice but to grow or disappear.''

Marturet took over musical direction of the orchestra after its founder Manuel Ochoa died in 2006. And he has been a change agent ever since: adopting a more rigorous musical repertoire, in part to weed out unfit musicians; taking the symphony to the recording studio for its first album, and evangelizing to the board of directors on the need for greater financial investment and broader representation in its ranks.

''A fresh approach to orchestra management is really prevailing,'' says concertmaster Daniel Andai.

''It's like a gem that needs to be polished to become a precious stone,'' says Rafael Diaz-Balart, board chairman. ``We are going to get there.''

SEEKING DIVERSITY

Getting there will take more money, Diaz-Balart says, and, perhaps more important, a change in the orchestra's image as a predominantly Hispanic cultural group.

''It operated and developed very much as a Cuban-American, Hispanic organization for many years,'' Diaz-Balart says. ``And, I think, as a result of that aspect of the organization, we encountered certain -- not necessarily obstacles -- but we were not properly represented on the board of directors by all the communities that exist in Miami, and as a result our outreach into the different communities . . . was hampered.''

Founded in 1989 by Cuban immigrants -- Ochoa, and his wife, Sofia, who recently retired as executive director -- Miami Symphony long recruited board members and musicians who were most familiar to its core leaders.

That meant the symphony, its leadership and its supporters were largely homogenous.

But if the symphony is going to become ''a Miami-wide organization,'' Diaz-Balart says, then it needs more diversity on its board and on stage.

So Marturet has begun auditioning musicians from as far away as Korea, and Diaz-Balart has launched an initiative for performances in new neighborhoods and venues, such as Riviera Country Club and the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables.

Andai, named concertmaster in 2008 after almost a decade with the symphony, says the level of playing has improved under Marturet.

''People in the orchestra now are far more prepared,'' he says. ``The musicians themselves in the orchestra are talking. They are taking the orchestra far more seriously.''

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