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Although the official date
of the founding of this orchestra is 1930, it was actually started in 1917
by 25 members of St. Cecilia Music Society in Grand
Rapids, Michigan, that
began by meeting up for practice sessions. They started performing concerts and
in 1923 they asked Karl Wecker from the Grand
Rapids Junior College Music Department to become their conductor. After a hiatus of 3 years when
the orchestra did not perform it was re-organized in 1930 and became the Grand
Rapids Symphony. At this time
they presented six pairs of concerts at the Powers Theatre, Pearl Street, with 246 subscribers, and from 1933
they performed these concerts of the season at the Grand Rapids Civic
Auditorium. In the Great
Depression the orchestra provided work for 124 musicians as part of the
Federal Emergency Relief Program and 36 of the musicians were compensated
through the Federal Music Program.
In 1939, and going into the 10th season, the orchestra
had reduced the number of musicians and the financial status was improving,
but in 1940 Karl Wecker resigned to work with the
Federal Music Program. In the
years that have followed they have had conductors that included Nicolai Malko, Rudolph Ganz, Robert
Zeller, Theo Alcantara, Semyon Bychkov, Catherine
Comet, who was the first woman to lead a professional regional orchestra,
and their current music director, David Lockington. In 1976 the orchestra was officially
given the title of "regional" orchestra with a budget of over
$500,000. This led to the
Coffee Concerts and the Chamber Series which were added to their other
programs that included Taproots which gave out-of-town concerts and Harmony
which was an educational program for schools. Later programs that were added were
the Lollipop series, the Family series, Casual Classics and Access to Music
which is an annual concert for people with special needs. The orchestra has received two ASCAP
awards and was the first orchestra in the state to receive the
Governor's Arts Award. It
continues in the mission of reaching as many people as possible and has
toured Northern Michigan and the upper peninsula where there is not the
opportunity to hear a professional orchestra. They have made several recordings
and have performed the musical works of American and women composers. In 2003 they performed the world
premiere of Hailstork's Symphony No. 2, which was dedicated
to David Lockington and the orchestra.
Richard Addinsell
recordings
Warsaw Concerto
Centaur CRC 2433 (CD: Piano Pops)
Conductor - John Varineau
Piano - Rich Ridenour
Source:
- http://www.grsymphony.org/grs06.about.history.html
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