Highlights
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1916 as a municipal orchestra, supported by taxpayer money. Gustave Strube served as the first conductor of the group of about 50 players. It became a private institution in 1942. The orchestra came into its own in the 1960s when philanthropist Joseph Meyerhoff became president. During his tenure, the BSO moved from the Lyric Opera House to its new permanent home at the 2,443-seat Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. The orchestra also performs at the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda. The BSO had many firsts under conductor Sergiu Comissiona, whom Meyerhoff appointed. Comissiona expanded the orchestra's season to 52 weeks. The BSO went o...
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1916 as a municipal orchestra, supported by taxpayer money. Gustave Strube served as the first conductor of the group of about 50 players. It became a private institution in 1942. The orchestra came into its own in the 1960s when philanthropist Joseph Meyerhoff became president. During his tenure, the BSO moved from the Lyric Opera House to its new permanent home at the 2,443-seat Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. The orchestra also performs at the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda. The BSO had many firsts under conductor Sergiu Comissiona, whom Meyerhoff appointed. Comissiona expanded the orchestra's season to 52 weeks. The BSO went on its first international tour in 1979 and became the first American orchestra to be invited to the Dresden Music Festival in 1981. Comissiona also led the BSO's first recordings. Under director David Zinman, the BSO was the first American orchestra to tour the Soviet Union after cultural relations were resumed at the end of the Afghanistan war. The BSO won several Grammys for its recordings with Yo-Yo Ma in the 1980s and '90s and received nominations for other works. In 2005, the BSO made history when it named Marin Alsop its 12th director, making her the first woman to be appointed music director of a major U.S. orchestra. Under Alsop, the orchestra released recordings on iTunes and was broadcast on XM Satellite Radio. For the 2007-2008 season, the orchestra unveiled a ticket sales plan intended to boost attendance. New and current BSO subscribers paid $25 per concert for seats anywhere in the hall.
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Hard times for the arts
As the Baltimore Opera Company rehearsed last month for the production of Bellini's Norma, it faced a serious problem: Its available cash had dried up. With rumors spreading about the company folding, a board member ensured that the show would open - by...Tags: Classical Music, Local Authority, Orange (Orange, California), Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, Walters Art Museum
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Alsop goes off the cuff with Tchaikovsky program of music and a talk
Marin Alsop is back in town for her first Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concerts since last month's sensational production of Leonard Bernstein's Mass that won over audiences and quite a few critics in New York and Washington, as well as right here. The...Tags: Classical Music, Theft, Towson University, Cher, Meyerhoff Symphony Hall
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Holiday shows around town
Baltimore Sun reporter• Tap dancing Santa Clauses and singer Sandi Patty return to the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St. for the annual Holiday Spectacular with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. This year, they're joined by the African Children's Choir....Tags: Religious Festivals, Public Holidays, Fiction, 1st Mariner Arena, Meyerhoff Symphony Hall
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3 musical centuries
The Annapolis Symphony Orchestra saluted the 300th anniversary of its hometown last weekend with a musical history tour that covered the past three centuries and also took a brief look at the present. It seemed doubly appropriate for such activity to take...Tags: Arcangelo Corelli, Marin Alsop, Classical Music, Music Industry
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'How the Grinch Stole Christmas!' starts its run here
How do you pack up a Broadway musical and take it on the road?
You get a really, really big suitcase.
The first national tour of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! officially opens tonight at the Hippodrome Theatre (after two preview...Tags: Music Theater, Television Industry, Hippodrome Theatre, Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, Boris Karloff
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BSO does justice to German masters
With the economy careening around us, there's nothing like an evening with the gold standard of rock-solid German musical stock to settle the nerves. Beethoven concertos and Schumann symphonies, at least, never lose their value, or their ability to...Tags: Classical Music, Meyerhoff Symphony Hall
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'Movie music' slur displays artistic elitism
In his review of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's concert featuring Leonard Slatkin's composition "The Raven," a musical representation of Edgar Allan Poe's poems, critic Tim Smith said: "Unfortunately, what underscores the poems is little more than...Tags: Edgar Allan Poe, Bernard Herrmann, Leonard Slatkin
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First-graders get chance to play with the big kids
It may have sounded like musical pandemonium to an outsider, but those violin squeals, twittering flutes and rich mahogany-sounding notes emanating from bass fiddles and cellos late yesterday morning in the Aaron and Lillie Straus Foundation Recital...Tags: Marin Alsop, Harriet Tubman, Elementary Schools
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Elmer Rathbun Haile Jr.
Elmer Rathbun Haile Jr., a retired national parks roads design engineer and historian of the Long Green Valley, died of heart failure Monday at Oak Crest Village. He was 98. Born in Towson and raised in Cockeysville, he was a 1927 Towson High School...Tags: Technology, Engineering, Railway Transportation, Johns Hopkins University, Monuments and Heritage Sites
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Monument Piano Trio kicks off church's 'Music in the Valley'
A recent and welcome addition to the region's cultural scene is "Music in the Valley" at the gothic-style, postcard-pretty St. John's Episcopal Church in Glyndon (the sort of place where you'd expect to bump into Miss Marple). This season's four-...Tags: Harold Arlen, Classical Music, Christianity, Monuments and Heritage Sites, Employees
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A propulsive reading of Sibelius' 2nd Symphony
Leonard Slatkin returned this week to guest-conduct the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's for the first time in 15 years and brought with him an eclectic bag of repertoire. The result is that he kills two birds with one-half a program - Rossini's Thieving...Tags: Classical Music, Poetry, Vincent Price, Edgar Allan Poe, The Addams Family
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Symphony provides artistic magnificence
Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra have done it again ("Despite flaws, BSO's 'Mass' is compelling," Oct. 17). They have provided our region the opportunity to experience an artistic magnificence seldom achieved even in the world's greatest...Tags: Marin Alsop, Leonard Bernstein
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