Gil Shaham, who appears with the Cleveland Orchestra at the Knight Concert Hall from Jan. 24-25. Photo by Christian Steiner

The Cleveland Orchestra returns this month to the Arsht Center’s Knight Concert Hall for its annual residency, and over three months will present four subscription concerts featuring artists including baritone Simon Keenlyside, violinists Gil Shaham and Arielle Steinbacher, and percussionist Colin Currie.

So far, so good for regular attendees of the residency, and of orchestral concerts in South Florida generally. But symphonic ensembles need to make sure their audiences keep expanding, and Ross Binnie thought the barrier to youthful entry was chiefly financial.

“I have had an idea for a while that the music should be as accessible as possible to all ages,” said Binnie, who has been the Cleveland Orchestra’s chief marketing officer since 2010. “I tried to remove all barriers to hearing our product … The area of most concern was making sure youths and parents would find the concerts affordable.”

The solution was the Under 18s Free program, which offers free tickets to young people ages 8 to 17, one per each full-price adult admission. The free tickets have been a success in Northeast Ohio, orchestra management says, with some 78,000 young people attending Cleveland Orchestra concerts at Severance Hall and at the orchestra’s summer home at the Blossom Music Festival.

Now Binnie is expanding that program to the Miami residency. All four concerts will offer the same deal patrons in Ohio enjoy: for every full-price ticket, there’s a free one for kids ages 8 to 17.

“It’s an industry-wide problem: Where is the next audience going to come from?” Binnie said. “So let’s take the price out of it.”

Tickets must be bought through the Adrienne Arsht Center box office, and there must be a full-price ticket for each free one. For example, Binnie said, if two 17-year-olds want to come to a concert in Miami, only one of the tickets is free.

“Many families today are hard-pressed, and concerts can be an expensive proposition,” said Binnie, 49, a North Londoner who worked for 11 years at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra before coming to Cleveland. “I wanted them to have a Cleveland Orchestra concert be as affordable as a night at the movies.”

The program has been “a huge success” at home, Binnie said, and has helped widen the orchestra’s reach and subscriber base. Social media has been a part of his as well.

“In May of last year we had 4,500 friends on Facebook. Now we’re over 51,000,” Binnie said, and the orchestra has hired a social media specialist to steer that effort. But he says the orchestra is using social media to expand its reach, not to pander to users, because the core product is too important.

“The Cleveland Orchestra is a legendary brand, and one of the great orchestras of the world. Our music director [Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Möst] can create stuff with them that I’ve never heard before,” Binnie said, but added that the orchestra, in order to survive in today’s era, needs to “loosen our brand” and make sure its work is as accessible to the widest possible audience.

And it’s working, he said.

“I know there are a lot more young people,” Binnie said. “I see them packing our house.”

The first two concerts in the Cleveland Orchestra’s Miami residency are set for Friday, Jan. 24, and Saturday, Jan. 25, at the Knight Concert Hall; both concerts will begin at 8 p.m. Shaham joins Welser-Möst and the orchestra for the Violin Concerto of Erich Wolfgang Korngold on a Vienna-themed concert that also includes Schubert’s early Symphony No. 2 (in B-flat, D. 125) and a selection of waltzes and polkas by Johann Strauss II. Call 305-949-6722 for tickets or visit arshtcenter.org. More information is available at www.clevelandorchestramiami.com.