St. Cecilia Society

The St. Cecilia Society of Charleston, South Carolina, named for the traditional patron saint of music, was formed in 1766 as a private subscription concert organization. Over the next fifty-four years, its annual concert series formed the most sophisticated musical phenomenon in North America.

Due to loss of the organization's administrative records during the American Civil War, much inaccurate information about the society has been published. Its important role in the formation of early American musical culture has largely been overlooked.

Although its musical patronage ended in 1820, the St. Cecilia Society continues to flourish today as one of South Carolina’s oldest and most exclusive social institutions.

Many writers have labeled Charleston’s St. Cecilia Society the first musical society in the United States, but it would be more accurate to describe it as the earliest known private subscription concert organization in North America. Similar subscription concert organizations, such as the Academy of Ancient Music, abounded in mid-18th-century Britain, and similar subscription series also appeared in Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia in the mid-1760s. Unlike those northern examples that were founded as public commercial ventures run by professional musicians, however, Charleston’s St. Cecilia Society was established as a private organization. It was incorporated and administered by gentlemen amateurs, who contracted with professional musicians to present an annual series of private concerts. This arrangement not only endowed the society with a more secure financial base, but also ensured its survival beyond the initial generation of founders.

Since the loss of the society’s earliest records, its founding date has been the subject of a good deal of speculation and confusion. A wide range of dates, spanning from as early as 1732 to as late as 1784, has been published in various books and articles over the past century, but the year 1762 is most often cited in reference to the society’s origin. Unfortunately, this widely accepted date is grounded on inaccurate information taken from secondary sources. The preponderance of historical evidence, of which there is a considerable amount, clearly places the founding of Charleston’s St. Cecilia Society in the year 1766.

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