The National Symphony Orchestra (Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional, abbreviated OSN) is the state symphony orchestra of Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

; it is located in Lima

Lima

Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...

. It is one of the components of the Peruvian Instituto Nacional de Cultura. As of 2007, the orchestra had ninety members. Besides the traditional classical repertory, the orchestra also performs Latin American and Peruvian works, including numerous world premieres.

History

Before the formation of the National Symphony Orchestra, there was an amateur symphony orchestra, founded in 1907 under the auspices of the Lima Philharmonic Society (Sociedad Filarmónica de Lima). The National Symphony Orchestra was founded during the administration of Óscar R. Benavides

Óscar R. Benavides

Óscar Raymundo Benavides Larrea , prominent Peruvian field marshal, diplomat and politician, and was the President of Peru from 1914 to 1915 and from 1933 to 1939.- Early life :...

 by law of 11 August 1938. It initially consisted of sixty-four musicians, half of them native Peruvians, the other half foreigners then living in Peru or hired by contract from abroad. The orchestra gave its first concert on 11 December 1938 at the Teatro Municipal de Lima, under the baton of Theo Buchwald, as part of the eighth International Conference of American States. The program featured the National Anthem of Peru

National Anthem of Peru

The Peruvian National Anthem is the national anthem of Peru. This anthem was adopted in 1821.-History:After Peru declared its independence, the general José de San Martín began a public contest to select the National March, which was published on 7 August 1821 in the Gaceta Ministerial...

, plus works by Beethoven, Debussy, Manuel de Falla

Manuel de Falla

Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish Andalusian composer of classical music. With Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina he is one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century....

, Ravel, and Wagner.

The first director of the orchestra was the viennese conductor Theo Buchwald, who remained in that position until his death in 1960. This epoch of the orchestra's existence is considered its most brilliant period, since the orchestra had among her members many talented musicians who had come to from Europe to Peru when fleeing the Second World War, among them many Jews

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

http://www.lp.edu.pe/l_trahtemberg/otros/judio251102.htm. Visiting conductors who led the orchestra included Fritz Busch

Fritz Busch

Fritz Busch was a German conductor.Busch was born in Siegen, Province of Westphalia. He held posts conducting opera at Aachen, Stuttgart and Dresden. In 1933 he was dismissed from his post at Dresden because of his opposition to the new Nazi government of Germany...

, Carlos Chávez

Carlos Chávez

Carlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramírez was a Mexican composer, conductor, music theorist, educator, journalist, and founder and director of the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra. He was influenced by native Mexican cultures. Of his six Symphonies, his Symphony No...

, Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

, Antal Doráti

Antal Doráti

Antal Doráti, KBE was a Hungarian-born conductor and composer who became a naturalized American citizen in 1947.-Biography:...

, Erich Kleiber

Erich Kleiber

Erich Kleiber was an Austrian conductor.- Biography :Born in Vienna, Kleiber studied in Prague...

, Igor Markevitch

Igor Markevitch

Igor Markevitch was a Ukrainian, Italian, and French composer and conductor.- Origin :Igor Markevich was born in Kiev, to an old family of Ukrainian Cossack starshyna ennobled in the 18th century...

, Malcolm Sargent

Malcolm Sargent

Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works...

, Hermann Scherchen

Hermann Scherchen

Hermann Scherchen was a German conductor.-Life:Scherchen was originally a violist and played among the violas of the Bluthner Orchestra of Berlin while still in his teens...

, and Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

. Visiting soloists who performed with the orchestra included Claudio Arrau

Claudio Arrau

Claudio Arrau León was a Chilean pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning from the baroque to 20th-century composers, especially Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms and Debussy...

, Yehudi Menuhin

Yehudi Menuhin

Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...

, Artur Rubinstein, Andres Segovia

Andrés Segovia

Andrés Torres Segovia, 1st Marquis of Salobreña , known as Andrés Segovia, was a virtuoso Spanish classical guitarist from Linares, Jaén, Andalucia, Spain...

 and Nicanor Zavaleta. A period of decline began in the 1960s, due in part to the socio-economic problems of Peru and to government cultural policies. The orchestra is now passing through a period of financial crisis and managerial reorganization that has engendered much controversy, partly over the transfer of the management of the orchestra to the National Association of Musical Performing Arts Organizations (Asociación Nacional de Elencos Musicales).http://www.elcomercioperu.com.pe/edicionimpresa/html/2006%2D05%2D02/impopinion0498700.htmlhttp://www.elcomercioperu.com.pe/edicionimpresa/html/2006%2D05%2D05/impdominical0500828.html In August 2006, angered that they would not be paid for a performance of Mozart's Requiem with the National Chorus (Peru) (Coro Nacional), the union of musicians of the orchestra refused to play, and a substitute orchestra was hurriedly assembled instead.http://www.elcomercioperu.com.pe/edicionimpresa/html/2006%2D08%2D22/imecluces0563351.html

The orchestra has long promoted the work of Peruvian composers, and it has performed works by Daniel Alomía Robles

Daniel Alomía Robles

Daniel Alomía Robles was a Peruvian composer and ethnomusicologist. He is best known for composing the song El Cóndor Pasa in 1913 as part of a zarzuela, a musical play that alternates between spoken and sung parts, by the same name...

, Celso Garrido-Lecca, Roberto Carpio, Enrique Iturriaga, Armando Guevara Ochoa, Ernesto López Mindreau, Enrique Pinilla, Francisco Pulgar Vidal, Alfonso de Silva, Teodoro Valcárcel and Edgar Valcárcel, among others.

Locations

The orchestra's home for many years was the Teatro Municipal de Lima. The orchestra currently performs at the Auditorio Los Inkas at the Museum of the Nation

Museum of the Nation

The Museum of the Nation ' is one of two major museums of Peruvian history in Lima, Peru. It is much larger than the other main museum in Lima, the Peruvian National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology, and History....

 and in the Concha Acústica del Campo de Marte, but it also gives educational concerts elsewhere in Lima and throughout Peru.

Music Directors

• Theo Buchwald (1938–1960)
• Carmen Moral
  Carmen Moral
  Carmen Moral is an orchestra conductor and also teaches conducting at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.She holds master's degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and Columbia University and a master's degree and a DEA in Musicology from the Sorbonne...
  
   (on two separate occasions; the first woman to be a music director of an orchestra in Latin America; she has been named "Conductor Emeritus" of the orchestra)
• Leopoldo La Rosa
• Luis Herrera de la Fuente
  Luis Herrera de la Fuente
  Luis Herrera de la Fuente is a Mexican conductor, pianist, violinist, composer and writer of the 20th century. De la Fuente has gained many recognitions and awards in Mexico and worldwide. He conducted the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional of Mexico for 18 years. He was also conductor of the Orquesta...
  
  
• José Malsio
• José Santos
  José Santos
  Jose Abon Santos is a retired Chilean thoroughbred jockey who has been honored by the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in the United States.-Career:...
  
  
• Armando Sánchez
• Guillermina Maggiolo (September 2006-July 2009)
• Matteo Pagliari (since July 2009; incumbent)

External links

Official page Summary of the cultural institutions of Peru