Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra
| Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO) | |
|---|---|
| Orchestra | |
| Founded | 1893 |
| Concert hall | The Lighthouse, Poole |
| Principal conductor | Kirill Karabits |
| Website | bsolive |
The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an English orchestra with a remit to serve the South and South West of England. Founded in 1893, the BSO has developed a reputation as one of the UK's major orchestras and has worked with many of the world's leading composers, conductors and performers. Originally based in Bournemouth, the BSO moved its offices to the adjacent town of Poole in 1979.
The Orchestra has worked with an esteemed array of Principal Conductors including Sir Dan Godfrey, Rudolf Schwarz, Constantin Silvestri, Paavo Berglund, Andrew Litton and Marin Alsop, with Kirill Karabits the incumbent. It is resident at The Lighthouse, Poole, with other major concert series given at Portsmouth Guildhall, the Great Hall of Exeter University and Colston Hall in Bristol. Shorter series are also given in Bournemouth (Pavilion Theatre) and Basingstoke.
In 2014, the Orchestra was voted the winner in Bachtrack’s World’s Favourite Orchestra 2014 poll. Over the course of a month, readers submitted their votes, with 11,613 taking part. 383 different orchestras in over 40 different countries were nominated.
The Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra was founded in 1893 by Dan Godfrey as a group of 30 wind players and a drummer, though several of the instrumentalists – as is the current practice with military musicians – were proficient in both wind and string instruments. This flexible approach meant that the musicians could form a military band for open-air concerts (playing on Bournemouth Pier) or a more formal classical ensemble for indoor programmes. The group gave its first concert on Whit Monday 1893 at the Winter Gardens, with its first classical concert in October that year.
The band quickly expanded to become a full orchestra, gaining a reputation for championing British music. Edward Elgar and Gustav Holst (among others) conducted the orchestra in their own works. The orchestra gave the UK premieres of major works by Richard Strauss, Camille Saint-Saëns and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. On 14 December 1903, the Orchestra gave its 500th symphony concert, conducted by Godfrey; a souvenir booklet listed all the works played by the orchestra since its inception, noting any first performances. The Bournemouth Municipal Choir, founded by Godfrey in 1911, sang regularly with the orchestra.
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