In 1993, a group of the remaining musicians performed a memorial concert for John Wingerd, a founding member and pianist of the original association. The concert received an enthusiastic response among the public and helped to uncover newly arrived musicians in the area eager to find performance opportunities. The Mother Lode Friends of Music was reborn, with Ron Brickman as President.
The new society retained the focus of the old by emphasizing regular Sunday-afternoon musicales of classical music, free to the public, followed by refreshments and socializing among performers and the public. A membership format was retained to help build a network of supporters and to facilitate communication. In the first few years, the Friends of Music focussed on chamber music concerts, which, with an ever-expanding network of performers and audience, grew in quality and audience appreciation. The organization quickly outgrew its original home in the Jackson Public Library, moving to the Cultural Center in the Old Grammar School in Sutter Creek. In 1998. the society outgrew this location and moved to the Sutter Creek Church of the Nazarene, the current venue for most of its performances. In 1996, the organization presented its first orchestral concert in the Volcano Amphitheater as part of the annual "Bach to Mozart" concert series initiated by the Amador County Arts Council. The first concert offered music by J.S. Bach, Handel, and Mozart, and excerpts from the Stabat Mater of Pergolesi, with local soprano Brenda Grimaldi and contralto Arlene White, and with Hank King conducting. The society has since increased in stature as a presenter of orchestral music, using primarily performers from the foothill counties. Its orchestra is now capable of performing major works of the symphonic repertoire. Recent highlights have been performances of the "Organ Symphony" of Saint-Saens, the complete "Grand Canyon Suite" of Ferde Grofe, and an all-Rossini concert featuring the Stabat Mater. Every other year, the organization offers a concert of symphonic music in collaboration with the local chorus, the Mother Lode Music Festival Chorus. Since 1998, the regular conductor of the Friends of Music Orchestra has been Danish-born and European-trained Henrik Jul Hansen. In the 2000/2001 season, the Orchestra hosted the Sacramento Ballet in a performance of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, performed at the newly opened Performance Center of the Jackson Rancheria in Jackson.