The Louisville Orchestra is the primary

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 ...

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

. It was founded in 1937 by Robert Whitney (1904–1986) and

Charles Farnsley Charles Rowland Peaslee Farnsley (March 28, 1907 – June 19, 1990), a Democratic Party (United States), Democrat, served as mayor of Louisville, Kentucky and as a member of the United States House of Representatives. Life Farnsley was born in ...

, Mayor of Louisville. The Louisville Orchestra employs salaried musicians, and offers a wide variety of concert series to the community, including classical programs featuring international guest artists, pops performances, and education and family concerts. In 1942 the orchestra adopted the name of the former Louisville Philharmonic Society (founded in 1866), which it kept until 1977 before reverting to its original name. The orchestra is the resident performing group for the Louisville Ballet and the

Kentucky Opera The Kentucky Opera is an American opera company based in Louisville, Kentucky. The company is resident at the Brown Theatre, as part of Kentucky Performing Arts. The Louisville Orchestra is the accompanying orchestra for the company. Moritz von ...

, and presents several concerts across the Kentucky/Indiana area. The orchestra performs its concerts at

Whitney Hall The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, located in Louisville and currently branded as "The Kentucky Center", is a major performing arts center in Kentucky. It is one of three venues owned bKentucky Performing Arts Tenants include Broadway A ...

(named for its founder) in the

Kentucky Center for the Arts The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, located in Louisville and currently branded as "The Kentucky Center", is a major performing arts center in Kentucky. It is one of three venues owned bKentucky Performing Arts Tenants include Broadway A ...

and The Brown Theatre. The current Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra is Teddy Abrams, who began his tenure in 2014.

First Edition Recordings

Ten years after its origin, the Orchestra launched First Edition Records, becoming the first American orchestra to own a recording label. In 1953, the Orchestra received a Rockefeller grant of $500,000 to commission, record and premiere

20th-century music The following Wikipedia articles deal with 20th-century music. Western art music Main articles *20th-century classical music *Contemporary classical music, covering the period Sub-topics *Aleatoric music *Electronic music *Experimental music *Ex ...

by living composers, placing the Louisville Orchestra on the international circuit. Between 1955 and 1992 at least 170 LPs were released, containing more than 450 compositions by living 20th Century composers. Eight

Compact Disc The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then rele ...

s were compiled and released by First Edition Records between 1990 and 1994. Around 1999, the Louisville Orchestra was awarded grants from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music and the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

, both for the purpose of digitizing all of their master tapes and restoring the music scores for archiving the Orchestra's historic First Edition Records recordings. Between 2001 and 2006 some 55 of the recordings were compiled by composer and re-released on CD on the ''First Edition Music'' label, which was not part of ''First Edition Records''. The label ceased operations in 2006.

Awards and recognition

The Louisville Orchestra has earned nineteen ASCAP awards for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music. The history of commissioned works project is detailed in the documentary film ''Music Makes a City''. The Louisville Orchestra has performed for many events including "A Festival for the Arts" at the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

, the Inter-American Music Festival at the Kennedy Center, "Great Orchestras of the World" at

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...

, and toured Mexico City. In 2001, the Louisville Orchestra received the Leonard Bernstein Award for Excellence in Educational Programming, presented annually by

ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...

and the American Symphony Orchestra League to one orchestra in North America.

Music directors of the Louisville Orchestra

* Robert Whitney (1937–1967) * Jorge Mester (1967–1979) * John Nelson Artistic Advisor (1979-1980) * Akira Endo (1980–1982) *

Lawrence Leighton Smith Lawrence Leighton Smith (April 8, 1936 - October 25, 2013), was an American conductor and pianist. Smith was born in Portland, Oregon. He studied piano with Ariel Rubstein in Portland and Leonard Shure in New York. He earned bachelor's degrees fr ...

(1983–1994) *

Joseph Silverstein Joseph Harry Silverstein (March 21, 1932 – November 21, 2015) was an American violinist and conductor. Known to family, friends and colleagues as "Joey", Silverstein was born in Detroit. As a youth, Silverstein studied with his father, Bernard ...

Artistic Advisor (1994-1995) *Max Bragado-Darman (1994–1998) *Uriel Segal (1998–2004) * Raymond Leppard served as Artistic Advisor (2004–2006) * Jorge Mester (2006–2014) * Teddy Abrams (2014–present)

References

External links

*
Louisville Orchestra Musicians Association Website

Louisville Orchestra Collection
at

University of Louisville The University of Louisville (UofL) is a public research university in Louisville, Kentucky. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of ...

Archives and Records Center * http://www.musicmakesacity.com/
Music Makes a City IMDB
*

Listening