National Symphony Orchestra
| National Symphony Orchestra | |
|---|---|
| Orchestra | |
Kennedy Center
|
|
| Short name | NSO |
| Founded | 1931 |
| Location | Washington DC, United States |
| Concert hall | John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts |
| Music director | Christoph Eschenbach |
| Website | www |
The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO), founded in 1931, is an American symphony orchestra based in Washington, D.C.. Its principal performing venue is the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
For the first period of its history, the NSO performed in Constitution Hall. During the tenure of the first music director, Hans Kindler, the musicians received a salary of $40.00 per week, for three rehearsals and one concert, for five months of the year. The first female member of the NSO was a harpist, Sylvia Meyer, who joined in 1933.
Kindler and the NSO made several 78-rpm recordings for RCA Victor, including the two Roumanian Rhapsodies by George Enescu; much later, in 1960, the NSO would perform the first of these works under the baton of the visiting Romanian conductor George Georgescu, a close associate and favored exponent of the composer. One of the more unusual RCA recordings with the orchestra was of the complete ballet music from the opera King Henry VIII by Camille Saint-Saëns, one of the very few recordings conducted by Walter Damrosch. Years later, Howard Mitchell made a series of stereophonic recordings with the orchestra for RCA. Antal Doráti recorded with the orchestra for Decca Records. Mstislav Rostropovich made recordings for Teldec, Sony Records, and Erato. The orchestra returned to RCA Victor under Leonard Slatkin, until RCA abandoned new classical recordings.
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Wikipedia