George Halford's Orchestra

George Halford's Orchestra was a professional symphony orchestra based in Birmingham, England from 1897 to 1907 and an important precursor of the later City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Halford's orchestra was founded in 1897 by the conductor and composer George Halford, supported by a syndicate of 54 influential Birmingham citizens under the presidency of the city's Lord Mayor. Since 1856 Birmingham's leading permanently-established orchestra had been , which had performed regular annual seasons of concerts since 1873. By the end of the century the ageing had come to be seen as increasingly outdated and his orchestra was considered to lack players of reputation. Halford sought to establish a permanent orchestra to rival any in the country, to be staffed increasingly with locally based musicians. Its launch was heralded in the local press as "a local musical enterprise exceeding in scope and intention anything within living memory" and "the most important and the most extended orchestral undertaking Birmingham has yet witnessed".

Halford's orchestra had 80 players, led jointly by Ernest Schiever and Fred Ward, who were also the leaders of the Birmingham Festival Orchestra under its conductor Hans Richter. The layout of the orchestra was unusual, with the wind instruments placed in the middle of the platform and the string instruments to the side - an arrangement that the composer Havergal Brian credited with the orchestra's fine ensemble and tutti. Brian later commented on how "Constant playing under its own and distinguished conductors has made the Halford band a most pliable instrument. The attack, the manner - almost effortless - in which a forte rises from the faintest pianissimo, the perfect phrasing, are several features of this fine orchestra."

Concerts were held fortnightly at Birmingham Town Hall on Tuesday evenings between October and March each year. Detailed analytical programme notes about the music to be played were made available ten days before a concert, open rehearsals were given and sometimes concerts were accompanied by lectures from the visiting musicians.

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