The Kingston Symphony (KS) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

based in

Kingston, Ontario Kingston is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is located on the north-eastern end of Lake Ontario, at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of the Cataraqui River (south end of the Rideau Canal). The city is midway between To ...

. Since 2014 the principal conductor of the symphony has been Evan Mitchell. The ensemble performs most of its concerts at The Grand Theatre."Kingston Symphony"
''The Canadian Encyclopedia''.

History

The orchestra was founded in 1953 under the name the New Symphony Association of Kingston. The first principal conductor was

Graham George Graham Elias George (11 April 1912 – 9 December 1993) was a Canadian composer, music theorist, organist, choir conductor, and music educator of English birth. An associate of the Canadian Music Centre, his compositional output consists larg ...

; he led the orchestra's debut concert of Joseph Haydn's '' The Creation'' on 12 April 1954 at The Grand Theatre with the

Kingston Choral Society Kingston Choral Society is a large mixed-voice choir based in Kingston upon Thames in the UK. Originating in 1949, the choir in 2016 had around 140 auditioned members. It stages four concerts each year with professional musicians and soloists ...

and baritone James Milligan. For its first three years the orchestra performed only two concerts a year, but the number of concerts increased steadily beginning in 1957. Principal conductors for the next few years were William Hill (1957–1959), and Edouard Bartlett (1960–1965). The ensemble was renamed the Kingston Symphony in 1963 with the formation of a new umbrella organization the Kingston Symphony Association. Some of the concerts were held at the Kingston Gospel Temple.

Alexander Brott Alexander Brott, , born Joël Brod (March 14, 1915April 1, 2005),

was brought in as conductor in 1965, and during his tenure the orchestra was able to hire a number of professional string and wind players. Kingston's newly renovated Grand Theatre became the orchestra's main concert venue. Brian Jackson was hired as conductor in 1982, and remained in this post until 1991. By this time the Symphony was performing about twelve concerts per year. In 1992 Glen Fast took over as conductor. Under his direction, the KS made a change towards playing new works by Canadian composers. The orchestra has given the world premieres of

Chan Ka Nin Chan Ka Nin (born 3 December 1949) is a Canadian composer and music educator of Chinese descent. He became a naturalized Canadian citizen in 1971. He has been commissioned to write works for the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the CBC Radio O ...

's Violin Concerto (1998); Marjan Mozetich's Piano Concerto (2000); Srul Irving Glick's last work, ''Isaiah ''(2002); John Burge's Clarinet Concerto (2004);

István Anhalt István Anhalt, (April 12, 1919 – February 24, 2012) was a Hungarian-Canadian composer. Anhalt served as a professor of music at McGill University and founded the McGill University Electronic Music Studio. He also served as head of music a ...

's ''The Tents of Abraham'' (2005); and Peter Paul Koprowski's ''Tapestries of Love: Symphony for Soprano and Orchestra'' (2007). Fast remained with the Symphony until 2014, at which time Evan Mitchell became conductor.

References

External links

Kingston Symphony Orchestra website

History

See also

References

External links

Further reading