The Louisville Orchestra is the primary orchestra in Louisville, Kentucky and has been called the cornerstone of the Louisville arts scene. It was founded in 1937 by Robert Whitney (1904–1986) and Charles Farnsley, 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 (originally founded in 1866), which it kept until 1977 before reverting to its original name (Korda 2001). The orchestra is the resident performing group for the Louisville Ballet and the Kentucky Opera, and presents several concerts across the Kentucky/Indiana area.
The orchestra performs its concerts at Whitney Hall in the Kentucky Center for the Arts (Korda 2001), The Louisville Palace, and at The Brown Theatre.
The Louisville Orchestra has performed for many prestigious events including "A Festival for the Arts" at the White House, the Inter-American Music Festival at the Kennedy Center, "Great Orchestras of the World" at Carnegie Hall, and toured Mexico City. In 2001, the Louisville Orchestra received the Leonard Bernstein Award for Excellence in Educational Programming, presend annually by ASCAP and the American Symphony Orchestra League to one orchestra in North America. The Louisville Orchestra has earned nineteen ASCAP awards for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music. The Orchestra was awarded large grants from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music and the National Endowment for the Arts, both for the purpose of digitizing the master tapes and restoring the music scores for archiving the Orchestra's historic First Editions Recordings collections. Some of the recordings were re-released on CD by Santa Fe Music on the First Edition Music label.
Read more about Louisville Orchestra: Music Directors of The Louisville Orchestra
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““Pop” Wyman ruled here with a firm but gentle hand; no drunken man was ever served at the bar; no married man was allowed to play at the tables; across the face of the large clock was written “Please Don’t Swear,” and over the orchestra appeared the gentle admonition, “Don’t Shoot the Pianist—He’s Doing His Damndest.””
—Administration in the State of Colo, U.S. public relief program. Colorado: A Guide to the Highest State (The WPA Guide to Colorado)