REDMOND, Wash. - They don't get paid and they don't really care. They just want to make beautiful music together.

It's the Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra - a local symphony orchestra, non-profit and all volunteer, led by a conductor who doesn't make a dime and is having the time of his life.

Meet Alan Shen - Microsoft program manager with the RTC team, who helps people in a corporate setting connect with each other and work efficiently and creatively, toward a common business goal.

"It's basically a corporate real-time collaboration system," says Shen.

And meet Alan Shen - amateur conductor with his own orchestra, who helps people in a concert setting connect with each other and work efficiently and creatively, toward a common musical goal.

Shen cheerfully admits bringing his hobby to work with him and says music has always been a big part of his life, or almost always.

"I was pretty serious in piano and violin, but throughout university I just studied computers," said Shen.

Computers and music seem to fit together pretty well now. When he's not working, he's conducting, and managing the Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra, now finishing its eighth season.

When we first checked out Shen and company seven years ago, he told us about taking the plunge into the baton business.

"I just came home and said, 'Why not start one? Why not start a symphony? I mean how hard can it be?' Ha, ha," laughs Shen.

The orchestra is heavy on University of Washington students and alumni, with Microsofties and others mixed in, all playing for fun and for free, as a break from that other world beyond the wall of sound.

Cellist Aida Fitszgerald is a relative newcomer, rehearsing for her second concert.

"You hear it all come together for the first time, you do bits and pieces for rehearsal and then to hear it come together and you pull it off - that's a great feeling," said Fitszgerald.

First viola Scott Selfon is also a composer and the next show will feature one of his works.

"Sometimes I look at the notes I've written and even I don't understand what I was thinking," said Selfon. "It's been a lot of fun. I'm nervous, but I'm excited."

Shen says he hopes to do this until his arms fall off. Fun is the bottom line for this non-profit group, tax deductible donations are always welcomed, and the boss says the players make the magic happen.

"They don't get paid," said Shen. "They have busy jobs just like myself, but they still want to come, play the music together make something cool and without the musicians there is no symphony."

There is one musician in the 60-chair orchestra who gets paid. The harp player gets $50 a show for the trouble of transporting her large and very valuable instrument. Maestro Shen says staying as an all-amateur group keeps ticket prices down, and that's the way they want to keep it.

Ticket prices are $5 and $8 at the orchestra's show Saturday night at the Town Hall in Seattle.