Orchestra

An orchestra (/ˈɔːrkᵻstrə/ or US /ˈɔːrˌkɛstrə/; Italian: [orˈkɛstra]) is a large instrumental ensemble used in classical music that contains sections of string (violin, viola, cello and double bass), brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. Other instruments such as the piano and celesta may sometimes be grouped into a fifth section such as a keyboard section or may stand alone, as may the concert harp and, for 20th and 21st century compositions, electric and electronic instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ὀρχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus. The orchestra grew by accretion throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, but changed very little in composition during the course of the 20th century.

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Its primary concert venue is Music Hall. In addition to its symphony concerts, the orchestra gives ‘pops’ concerts as the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. The Cincinnati Symphony is the resident orchestra for the Cincinnati May Festival, the Cincinnati Opera, and the Cincinnati Ballet.

History

Several orchestras had existed in Cincinnati between 1825 and 1872. The immediate precursor ensemble to the current orchestra was the Cincinnati Orchestra, founded in 1872. In 1893, Helen Herron Taft founded the Cincinnati Orchestra Association, and the name of the orchestra was formalised to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra gave its first concerts in 1895 at Pike's Opera House. A year later, the orchestra moved to Music Hall. Its first conductor was Frank Van der Stucken, a Texas-born musician of Flemish ancestry, who served until 1907. In the early years, the orchestra welcomed such composers as Richard Strauss and Edward McDowell. The orchestra also performed the U.S. premiere of the Symphony No. 5 of Gustav Mahler.

Cincinnati

Cincinnati (/sɪnsᵻˈnæti/ sin-si-NAT-ee) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio that serves as county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the north side of the confluence of the Licking with the Ohio River. The latter forms the border between the states of Ohio and Kentucky. Cincinnati is the third-largest city in Ohio and the 65th-largest city in the United States with a population of 296,945 people at the 2010 census. The larger Cincinnati metropolitan area had a population of 2,214,954 in 2010, making it the 28th-largest Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) in the United States and the largest centered in Ohio. The city is also part of the larger Cincinnati–Middletown–Wilmington Combined Statistical Area (CSA), which had a population of 2,172,191 in the 2010 census.

In the early 19th century, Cincinnati was an American boomtown in the heart of the country; it rivaled the larger coastal cities in size and wealth. Throughout much of the 19th century, it was listed among the top 10 U.S. cities by population, surpassed only by New Orleans and the older, established settlements of the Eastern Seaboard; at one point holding the position of sixth-largest city for a period spanning consecutive census reports from 1840 until 1860. It was by far the largest city in the west. Because it is the first major American city founded after the American Revolution as well as the first major inland city in the country, Cincinnati is sometimes thought of as the first purely "American" city.

Symphony

A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often written by composers for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning common today: a work usually consisting of multiple distinct sections or movements, often four, with the first movement in sonata form. Symphonies are scored for string (violin, viola, cello and double bass), brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments which altogether number about 30–100 musicians. Symphonies are notated in a musical score, which contains all the instrument parts. Orchestral musicians play from parts which contain just the notated music for their instrument. A small number of symphonies also contain vocal parts (e.g., Beethoven's Ninth Symphony).

Origins

The word symphony is derived from Greek συμφωνία (symphonia), meaning "agreement or concord of sound", "concert of vocal or instrumental music", from σύμφωνος (symphōnos), "harmonious". The word referred to an astonishing variety of different things, before ultimately settling on its current meaning designating a musical form.

Cincinnati Pops Orchestra

The Cincinnati Pops Orchestra is a pops orchestra based in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, founded in 1977 out of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Its members are also the members of the Cincinnati Symphony, and the Pops is managed by the same administration. Erich Kunzel, the Pops' founding conductor, continued to lead the Pops until his death in 2009.

In 1965, maestro Max Rudolf invited Erich Kunzel, a young conductor on the faculty of Brown University, to join the Cincinnati Symphony. That October, Kunzel, a Dartmouth graduate and assistant to French conductor Pierre Monteux, conducted his first "8 O'Clock" Pops concert. Over the next four decades, the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra regularly performed for packed houses in Cincinnati's Music Hall and established worldwide recognition through tours and critically acclaimed, best-selling recordings on the Telarc label.

An estimated 30 million people have viewed eight national telecasts of the Cincinnati Pops on PBS, and the Orchestra has more than 100 available recordings, 56 of which have appeared on the Billboard charts, a record unmatched by any other orchestra, and sales of over 10 million units. The Pops’ Copland: Music of America won a 1998 Grammy Award, and four other Pops recordings have been nominated for Grammy Awards.