Quad City Symphony Orchestra
| Quad City Symphony Orchestra (QCSO) | |
|---|---|
| Orchestra | |
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| Former name | Tri-City Symphony |
| Founded | 1916 |
| Location | Davenport, Iowa |
| Principal conductor | Mark Russell Smith |
| Website | www |
The Quad City Symphony Orchestra (QCSO) is a United States symphony orchestra based in Davenport, Iowa, and representing the Quad Cities area. The current music director and conductor is Mark Russell Smith. Established in 1916, the orchestra has a full season, performing six masterwork series concerts, three pops concerts, and five signature series chamber concerts. The 96-member orchestra principally performs at two venues: the Adler Theater, located in downtown Davenport, and Centennial Hall on the campus of Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. The Riverfront Pops Concert in early September is held at the W.D. Petersen Memorial Music Pavilion in LeClaire Park on the Davenport riverfront. Its Holiday Pops Concert is performed at the Adler Theater. The signature series concerts are held in a more intimate setting, often in Augustana's Wallenberg Hall. It also maintains five ensembles for local youth and conducts extensive outreach in area schools.
The orchestra began at a meeting of musicians and citizens from Davenport, Rock Island and Moline on February 10, 1916. They hired Ludwig Becker of Chicago as the first music director. The first name for the orchestra was the Tri-City Symphony. The Tri-Cities, as the area was then called, was the smallest community in the United States to support a full symphony orchestra.
The first rehearsal for the orchestra was held on March 12, 1916, and its first concert was held on March 29. The orchestra was composed of 60 amateur and professional musicians from the Tri-Cities. The first performance was held before an audience of 1,200 people at the orchestra's first home, the Burtis Opera House, a vaudeville theater in Davenport. The program included: Wagner's Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nuremberg; the Wagnerian aria Dich Theure Halle sung by contralto Esther Plumb; Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8 (Unfinished); Camille Saint-Saëns’ Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, featuring pianist Robert MacDonald; and a few shorter pieces, including a string Orchestra elegy, a waltz, and Tchaikovsky's Marche Slav, The orchestra's first pops concert was held on May 6, 1917, at the Davenport Coliseum.
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