New Haven Symphony Orchestra

The New Haven Symphony Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra based in New Haven, Connecticut. The New Haven Symphony Orchestra gave its first concert in 1895 and is the fourth oldest orchestra in the United States. Today, the orchestra is made up of over 70 professionals, most of whom live and work in the Greater New Haven area. The NHSO is currently directed by Maestro William Boughton and is celebrating its 120th anniversary in the 2013-2014 season.

The NHSO was founded in 1894 by Morris Steinert (a music merchant) and Horatio William Parker (the head of Yale University's Department of Music). Many of the earliest American symphony orchestras were based in large cities like Boston or New York City, yet Steinert and Parker were able to form a viable orchestra made up of local musicians in a relatively smaller city. The original members of the NHSO were mainly German-Americans seeking to continue the orchestral traditions of their native country in the United States, where classical music was less appreciated at the time.

The first performance of the NHSO took place in January 1895 at a now-defunct theater on Chapel Street in New Haven near the present-day Union League Café. The program included works by Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Schubert, as well as two solos performed by Isidore Troostwyk, a Dutch-born violinist who had recently arrived as a Professor of Music at Yale. Troostwyk served as concertmaster of the new orchestra.

In its early years, the NHSO was closely tied to Yale University, drawing its conductors from the School of Music faculty and serving on occasion as a laboratory for Yale composers and performers. The University also offered financial and organizational support. Before the construction of Woolsey Hall in 1901, the orchestra performed in various local venues including the Hyperion Theater, Alumni Hall (later replaced by Wright Hall, on Elm St) and College Street Hall (on the site of the present Palace Theater)

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