Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Biography
Ross Jungnickel organized the first Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, which gave its first season in 1890. Following the demise of Jungnickel’s orchestra in 1899, the Florestan Club, an élite group of local musicians and music lovers (including H.L. Mencken), made plans to found the city’s first resident orchestra. In 1916 Baltimore became the first city in the USA to found an orchestra on a municipal appropriation. The first conductor of the new Baltimore SO, Gustav Strube, remained in the post until 1930. Subsequent directors of the orchestra were George Siemonn (1930–35), Ernest Schelling (1935–7), Werner Janssen (1937–9) and Howard Barlow (1939–42). This orchestra played its last concert in 1942. The same year Reginald Stewart, also director of the Peabody Conservatory, devised a plan for the reorganization of the Baltimore SO. Stewart attracted superior musicians by offering them faculty appointments at the Peabody Conservatory, an arrangement based on Mendelssohn’s direction of the Leipzig Conservatory and the Gewandhaus Orchestra. Although Stewart was the only one to have held both positions, the relationship between the Baltimore SO and the Peabody Conservatory faculty remains strong. Subsequent conductors have included Massimo Freccia (1952–9), Peter Herman Adler (1959–68), Brian Priestman (1968–9), Sergiu Comissiona (1968–84), D.J. Zinman (1985–98) and Yury Temirkanov (since 1999).
Found in 1 Collection or Record:
Jean Martinon papers
The papers of composer/conductor Jean Martinon consist of materials created by Martinon himself (including published and unpublished manuscript scores and arrangements of compositions written between 1935 and 1975), and biographical and other materials produced or collected by the Jean Martinon Society and the Association Jean Martinon.