12 Facts About Cleveland Orchestra

Cleveland Orchestra, based in Cleveland, is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the "Big Five".

Cleveland Orchestra was founded in 1918 by music-aficionado Adella Prentiss Hughes, businessman John L Severance, Father John Powers, music critic Archie Bell, and Russian-American violinist and conductor Nikolai Sokoloff, who would become the Orchestra's first music director.

Second, the Women's Committee of The Cleveland Orchestra was founded, a group which focused largely on internal affairs, including organization and branding; the Women's Committee was the driving force behind the creation of the Orchestra's education-oriented Key Concerts series decades later.

In 1922, the Cleveland Orchestra again traveled to New York for its first concert at Carnegie Hall, a relationship between ensemble and venue that continues to this day.

Later that year, the Cleveland Orchestra performed its first radio broadcast and, in 1924, issued its first recording — a shortened version of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture for the Brunswick label under Sokoloff's direction.

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In 1935, the Cleveland Orchestra presented the United States' premiere of Dmitri Shostakovich's controversial Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at Severance Hall and, later in the season, took the production to New York's Metropolitan Opera.

However, Leinsdorf's tenure with The Cleveland Orchestra was brief: He was drafted into the United States Armed Forces shortly after his appointment, which diminished his artistic control.

Two days after Szell's death, the Cleveland Orchestra played its scheduled program at Blossom Music Center with Aaron Copland taking the podium as guest conductor.

Remarkably, the first time Maazel conducted the Orchestra was at the age of 13 in 1943, when he led the ensemble during a concert at Cleveland's Public Hall.

Cleveland Orchestra staged a large production of Mozart's The Magic Flute at Blossom Music Center in 1985, which was lauded as “the Ohio musical event of the summer” by The Columbus Dispatch.

Cleveland Orchestra leads the Orchestra's ongoing residencies at the Musikverein in Vienna and at the Lucerne Festival, both of which began with Welser-Most's first European tour in 2003.

Past assistant conductors of the Cleveland Orchestra include Matthias Bamert, James Levine, Alan Gilbert, James Judd and Michael Stern.