Louisville Orchestra

Last updated • 2 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Louisville Orchestra
Louisville Orchestra Portrait.jpg
Former nameLouisville Philharmonic Society
Founded1937
Location Louisville, Kentucky
Concert hall Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts
Music director Teddy Abrams
Website louisvilleorchestra.org

The Louisville Orchestra is the primary orchestra in Louisville, Kentucky. It was founded in 1937 by Robert Whitney (1904–1986). The Louisville Orchestra employs salaried musicians, and offers a wide variety of concert series to the community, including classical programs featuring international guest artists, pops performances, and education and family concerts. In 1942 the orchestra adopted the name of the former Louisville Philharmonic Society (founded in 1866), which it kept until 1977 before reverting to its original name. [1] The orchestra is the resident performing group for the Louisville Ballet and the Kentucky Opera, and presents several concerts across the Kentucky/Indiana area.

Contents

The orchestra performs its concerts at Whitney Hall (named for its founder) in the Kentucky Center for the Arts [1] and The Brown Theatre. [2] The current music director of the Louisville Orchestra is Teddy Abrams, who began his tenure in 2014. [3]

First Edition Recordings

Ten years after its origin, the orchestra launched First Edition Records, becoming the first American orchestra to own a recording label. In 1953, the orchestra received a Rockefeller grant of $500,000 to commission, record and premiere 20th-century music by living composers, placing the Louisville Orchestra on the international circuit. Between 1955 and 1992 at least 170 LPs were released, containing more than 450 compositions by living 20th Century composers. [3]

Eight compact discs were compiled and released by First Edition Records between 1990 and 1994. Around 1999, the Louisville Orchestra was awarded grants from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music and the National Endowment for the Arts, both for the purpose of digitizing all of their master tapes and restoring the music scores for archiving the orchestra's historic first edition Records recordings. [4] Between 2001 and 2006 some 55 of the recordings were compiled by composer and re-released on CD on the First Edition Music label, which was not part of First Edition Records. The label ceased operations in 2006. [5]

Awards and recognition

The Louisville Orchestra has earned nineteen ASCAP awards for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music. The history of commissioned works project is detailed in the documentary film Music Makes a City . [6] The Louisville Orchestra has performed for many events including "A Festival for the Arts" at the White House, the Inter-American Music Festival at the Kennedy Center, "Great Orchestras of the World" at Carnegie Hall, and toured Mexico City. In 2001, the Louisville Orchestra received the Leonard Bernstein Award for Excellence in Educational Programming, presented annually by ASCAP and the American Symphony Orchestra League to one orchestra in North America.

Music directors of the Louisville Orchestra

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra</span>

The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO) is an American chamber orchestra based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Its principal concert venue is the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. In collaboration with five artistic partners, the orchestra's musicians present more than 130 concerts and educational programs each year in over 14 venues throughout the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. The SPCO is regularly heard on American Public Media's nationally syndicated radio programs "Performance Today" and SymphonyCast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Piston</span> American composer (1894–1976)

Walter Hamor Piston, Jr., was an American composer of classical music, music theorist, and professor of music at Harvard University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Australian Symphony Orchestra</span> Symphony orchestra from Perth, Western Australia

The West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO) is an Australian symphony orchestra based in Perth, Western Australia. Its principal concert venue is the Perth Concert Hall. WASO also gives concerts at the Mandurah Performing Arts Centre. As of March 2012, WASO has a roster of 79 full-time musicians and presents over 170 performances per annum throughout the state. The orchestra has an affiliated WASO Chorus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julius Rietz</span> German composer, conductor, cellist, and teacher

August Wilhelm Julius Rietz was a German composer, conductor, cellist, and teacher. His students included Woldemar Bargiel, Salomon Jadassohn, Arthur O'Leary, and Sir Arthur Sullivan. He also edited many works by Felix Mendelssohn for publication.

The Louisville Youth Orchestra (LYO) was founded in 1958 in Louisville, Kentucky. The orchestra caters for young people from grade school through age 21. The LYO is made up of four orchestras, two elementary string programs, and various ensembles in which students advance according to their own musical progression and interests. There are nearly 400 musicians from 60 schools and 15 counties in the Louisville & Southern Indiana metro area.

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is a professional orchestra founded in 1996 by artistic director Gil Rose in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nashville Symphony</span> American symphony orchestra

The Nashville Symphony is an American symphony orchestra, based in Nashville, Tennessee. The orchestra is resident at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Antonio Symphony</span> American symphony orchestra based in San Antonio, Texas

The San Antonio Symphony was a full-time professional symphony orchestra based in San Antonio, Texas. Its season ran from late September to early June. Sebastian Lang-Lessing, its music director from 2010 to 2020, was the last to serve in that capacity. The orchestra was a resident organization of the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts in San Antonio. In August 2022, the orchestra's musicians reformed as the San Antonio Philharmonic, a name first used in 1914, and announced a ten-concert classical-music series for the 2022–23 season to be given at First Baptist Church of San Antonio, 100 yards from Tobin Center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">JoAnn Falletta</span> American conductor

JoAnn Falletta is an American conductor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diane Wittry</span> American conductor and composer

Diane Wittry is an American musical conductor and composer. She is currently the music director and conductor of the Allentown Symphony Orchestra in Allentown, Pennsylvania. She is well-known as a teacher of conducting and regularly teaches Conducting Master Classes in the Czech Republic and the United States.

Jorge Mester is a Mexican conductor of Hungarian ancestry. He has served as the artistic director for the Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río, Veracruz, since it was founded in 2014.

The Symphony No. 5 by Walter Piston was composed in 1954.

The Symphony No. 1 by Walter Piston was completed in 1937.

Walter Piston's Serenata for Orchestra is an orchestral suite or miniature symphony written in 1956.

Louisville Chorus, established 1939 in Louisville, Kentucky, is the longest-thriving most frequently performing choral arts agency in Kentuckiana and neighboring states—also exceeding the longevity of opera, ballet, and theatre in the area.

The Pasadena Symphony and POPS is an American orchestra based in Pasadena, California. In 2010, it took up residence at the Ambassador Auditorium, where its Classics Series runs from October through April. Since 2012, it performs a summer series at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden from June through September.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rossen Milanov</span> Bulgarian conductor

Rossen Milanov is a Bulgarian conductor. He is Music Director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra & New Jersey's Symphony in C. He is also Principal Conductor of Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias, in Spain and the former Music Director of Bulgaria's New Symphony Orchestra. He is the Music Director of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Teddy Abrams</span> American songwriter

Edward "Teddy" Paul Maxwell Abrams is an American conductor, pianist, clarinetist, and composer. He is currently Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra and previously led the Britt Festival Orchestra.

Nathan Hongwon Lee is a Korean-American pianist. Described by The New York Times as a "prodigiously talented" pianist with "musical insight and sensitivity", Lee was a winner of the 2016 Young Concert Artists International Auditions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marios Papadopoulos (musician)</span> British conductor (born 1954)

Marios Papadopoulos is a Cypriot-born, British conductor and pianist. He is the founder and music director of the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra in Residence at the University of Oxford.

References

  1. 1 2 Korda, Marion (2001). "Louisville". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan. ISBN   9780195170672.
  2. ↑ "2014–15 Classics and Coffee Concerts". The Louisville Orchestra. 2014. Archived from the original on May 12, 2015. Retrieved May 29, 2017.
  3. 1 2 "History". Louisville Orchestra website. 2016. Retrieved May 29, 2017.
  4. ↑ Johnson, Emma (November 27, 2018). "Finding First Editions". the Louisville Renaissance Project.
  5. ↑ First Edition Music discography at Discogs
  6. ↑ Webster, Andy (September 17, 2010). "Ky., as a Contemporary Music Hub". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved May 19, 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.