American Symphony Orchestra
The American Symphony Orchestra (ASO) is a symphony orchestra in New York City , which was founded in 1962 by Leopold Stokowski and whose heart it was to demystify classical orchestral music and make it accessible to a wide audience. Leon Botstein has been music director and chief conductor of the orchestra since 1992 . The main venues are Carnegie Hall and Symphony Space in New York City, as well as the house orchestra of the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson . The concert master is the violinist Erica Kiesewetter.
history
For Stokowski, already 80 years old, after many positions as music director, chief and guest conductor at orchestras around the world, at the end of his foreseeable work it was time to take a different path than was usual with other orchestras. So he founded an ensemble in New York City in 1962 that was supposed to meet his own requirements. To this end, he formed an orchestra that consisted exclusively of young American musicians, including women and colored artists. He demystified certain elitist customs, such as those clinging to classical music, and made sure that his concerts could also be attended at affordable admission prices. More importantly, under his direction the orchestra played long-neglected old and new compositions for a young audience and gave early career soloists such as the trumpeter and later conductor Gerard Schwarz and the clarinetist Franklin Cohen the chance to practice their skills to prove. He engaged the beginning conductor Itzhak Perlman as well as the experienced and respected Karl Böhm and Igor Markevitch as guest conductors . The founding of the orchestra increased Stokowki's already existing reputation once again for the last decade of his work. With Amos Meller as his assistant, he headed the OSA for another ten years until he returned to his homeland in England in 1972 at the age of 90 .
After Stokowski had given up the baton in 1972, the OSA slipped into a minor crisis due to the unsuccessful search for a new, experienced leader. The members of the ensemble founded a cooperative management and in 1973 they were able to hire Kazuyoshi Akiyama as music director, who held this position until 1978. But even after that the orchestra did not calm down. Although the orchestra was able to engage Sergiu Comissiona as artistic advisor from 1978 to 1982 and John Mauceri as music director from 1985 to 1987 , Moshe Atzmon and Giuseppe Patanè had to take over the baton as chief conductors on an interim basis. In addition, Carnegie Hall was renovated in 1986, which meant that the ASO lost its main venue for a long time and the orchestra had to cut its repertoire from normal nine concerts per year to four concerts. In 1991, Catherine Comet took over the direction of the orchestra for one year, but it was not until the then inexperienced Leon Botstein was appointed music director that the ASO found itself in calmer waters.
present
With Botstein there was a breath of fresh air in the orchestra. It is precisely thanks to his inexperience that he led the ASO off the beaten path of manifest patterns in the management of an orchestra. So he always put his concerts of the Vanguard series in Carnegie Hall under a motto such as literature , politics or culture with a corresponding artistically designed visual background. With Botstein, the OSA looked for works from the 19th and 20th centuries that were seldom played and whose complete scores were available and in playable states, organized chamber music evenings for institutions of adult education in Lincoln Center and played for young people at universities in Manhattan and New Jersey .
The orchestra found a new venue for a series of Classics Declassified it created at Symphony Space and also became the house orchestra at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, where it hosted the annual Bard SummerScape Festival and the summer Bard Music Festival is responsible. In 2010 it became the permanent accompaniment orchestra of the Collegiate Chorale and played regularly to its appearances in the Chorale's New York concert series . The orchestra made several tours of Asia and Europe and played at charity concerts such as the Jerusalem Foundation and on the Public Broadcasting Service .
Sound carrier
In addition to the many sound recordings made by the orchestra and published by Telarc, New World, Bridge, Koch and Vanguard labels, there are a number of live performances available for download on the Internet. In many cases the rarely played works that are only part of the ASO's repertoire.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Leon Botstein, Music Director. OSA, accessed on April 5, 2017 .
- ↑ a b James Reel: History. AllMusic, accessed April 6, 2017 .
- ↑ a b Allan Kozinn: New Leader Looks To Past At American Symphony. New York Times, April 13, 1990, accessed April 6, 2017 .