Symphony of The Air
After the NBC Symphony Orchestra disbanded, some members went on to play with other orchestras, notably Frank Miller (principal cello) and Leonard Sharrow (principal bassoon) with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. However, many former NBC Symphony members, in an attempt to stay together and preserve the orchestra, regrouped as a new ensemble called the "Symphony of the Air". They made their first recording on September 21, 1954, and gave their first public concert at the United Nations 9th Anniversary Celebration on October 24. On November 14 they appeared on the acclaimed Omnibus TV program in which Leonard Bernstein, making his first television appearance, discussed Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and Bernstein led the Symphony of the Air during its first season. With an Asian tour under the auspices of the State Department and an attendance of 60,000 at concerts in the Catskills that summer, the first season was a huge success.
For nearly a decade, the Symphony of the Air performed many concerts led by Stokowski, the orchestra's music director from 1955. The orchestra recorded widely (on Columbia, RCA, United Artists and Vanguard) under leading conductors, including Stokowski, Bernstein, Monteux, Reiner, Bruno Walter, Kondrashin, Beecham, Alfred Wallenstein and Josef Krips. Only once more did they use their old name, in the 1963 telecast of Gian Carlo Menotti's written-for television opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, with an all-new cast. The orchestra disbanded in 1963.
Read more about this topic: NBC Symphony Orchestra
Famous quotes containing the words symphony and/or air:
“The truth is, as every one knows, that the great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable. No virtuous man—that is, virtuous in the Y.M.C.A. sense—has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading, and it is highly improbable that the thing has ever been done by a virtuous woman.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“Liberty is the air that we Americans breathe. Our Government is based on the belief that a people can be both strong and free. That civilized men need no restraint but that imposed by themselves against the abuse of freedom.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)