Origin
Many writers have labeled Charleston’s St. Cecilia Society the first musical society in the United States, but it would be more accurate to describe it as the earliest known private subscription concert organization in North America. Similar subscription concert organizations, such as the Academy of Ancient Music, abounded in mid-eighteenth-century Britain, and similar subscription series also appeared in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia in the mid-1760s. Unlike those northern examples that were founded as public commercial ventures run by professional musicians, however, Charleston’s St. Cecilia Society was established as a private organization that was incorporated and administered by gentlemen amateurs who contracted with professional musicians to present an annual series of private concerts. This arrangement not only endowed the society with a more secure financial base, but also ensured its survival beyond the initial generation of founders.
Since the loss of the society’s earliest records, its founding date has been the subject of a good deal of speculation and confusion. A wide range of dates, spanning from as early as 1732 to as late as 1784, has been published in various books and articles over the past century, but the year 1762 is most often cited in reference to the society’s origin. Unfortunately, this widely accepted date is grounded on inaccurate information taken from secondary sources, and the preponderance of the historical evidence, of which there is a considerable amount, clearly places the founding of Charleston’s St. Cecilia Society in the year 1766.
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