History
The Orchestra was founded in 1930 by Ferdinand Schaefer, a local violin professor. In 1937, Fabien Sevitzky was hired as the Orchestra's first music director, as the musicians became fully professional, paid a weekly salary for a 20-week season. The orchestra quickly ascended to national prominence, issuing a series of phonograph recordings on RCA in the 1940s and early 1950s.
In 1956, Izler Solomon was appointed to the post of music director. The orchestra toured nationally and produced a series of international salute concerts. This series won a US State Department Award.
John Nelson became the director in 1976, and established the orchestra's present home at the Hilbert Circle Theatre in downtown Indianapolis. Nelson brought the ISO back to the airwaves on NPR and PBS, as well as concerts in Carnegie Hall in 1989 and 1991 and at the Kennedy Center. He also took the orchestra on its first-ever foreign tour, to Germany in 1987, with concertmaster Hidetaro Suzuki.
Nelson was followed by Raymond Leppard in 1987. Under Leppard's direction, the orchestra began a 52-week season, and made a series of recordings on the Koss Classics label. Leppard returned the orchestra to Europe for two more tours in 1993 and 1997. Indianapolis On The Air, a weekly radio series begun in 1994, is produced by WFYI in Indianapolis and is syndicated to over 250 radio stations in 38 states.
The symphony announced on October 19, 2010, that Krzysztof Urbanski would become the seventh music director in the organization's eight-decade history, as well as the youngest musician to lead the orchestra.
Some of the orchestra's earliest recordings have re-appeared on the Historic Recordings.co.uk label in the UK.
Read more about this topic: Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra
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