Richmond Symphony Orchestra - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Richmond Symphony is based in Richmond, Virginia

Richmond, Virginia

Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...

. One of the nation's leading regional orchestras, it employs 72-85 musicians who give over 100 performances each season to over 125,000 audience members. Its music director (since 2010) is Steven Smith; its associate conductor (since 2007) is Dr. Erin Freeman. Previous music directors were Edgar Schenkman (1957-71), Jacques Houtmann (1971-86) and George Manahan (1987-98). Previous associate conductors include William Henry Curry (the first), Peter Bay

Peter Bay

Peter Bay is Music Director and Conductor of the Britt Festival Orchestra in Oregon, and Music Director of the Austin Symphony Orchestra.-Life:He graduated from the University of Maryland and the Peabody Institute....

, Marin Alsop

Marin Alsop

Marin Alsop is an American conductor and violinist. She is the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.In 2012, Alsop will replace Yan Pascal Tortelier as principal conductor of the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra....

, Thomas Wilkins, Eckart Preu

Eckart Preu

Eckart Preu is an East German-born conductor.At the age of 10 he became a member, soloist and assistant conductor of the Boys Choir Dresdner Kreuzchor In Germany he earned a Masters Degree in Conducting from the Hochschule für Musik in Weimar studying under Gunther Kahlert and Nicolás Pasquet...

, and Sarah Hatsuko Hicks (the most recent).

The Symphony has performed alongside internationally renowned musicians such as 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"...

, William Grant Still

William Grant Still

William Grant Still was an African-American classical composer who wrote more than 150 compositions. He was the first African American to conduct a major American symphony orchestra, the first to have a symphony performed by a leading orchestra, the first to have an opera performed by a major...

, Isaac Stern

Isaac Stern

Isaac Stern was a Ukrainian-born violinist. He was renowned for his recordings and for discovering new musical talent.-Biography:Isaac Stern was born into a Jewish family in Kremenets, Ukraine. He was fourteen months old when his family moved to San Francisco...

, Leonard Rose

Leonard Rose

Leonard Rose was an American cellist and pedagogue.Rose was born in Washington, D.C., his parents were immigrants from Kiev, Ukraine...

, Pierre Fournier

Pierre Fournier

Pierre Fournier was a French cellist who was called the "aristocrat of cellists," on account of his elegant musicianship and majestic sound....

, Aldo Ciccolini

Aldo Ciccolini

Aldo Ciccolini , is an Italian-French pianist.-Biography:Aldo Ciccolini was born in Naples. His father, who bore the title of Marquis of Macerara, worked as a typographer. He took his first lessons with Maria Vigliarolo d'Ovidio, and entered Naples Conservatory in 1934 at the age of 9, by special...

, Yefim Bronfman

Yefim Bronfman

Yefim "Fima" Naumovich Bronfman is a Soviet-born Israeli-American pianist.-Biography:He was born in Tashkent, Uzbek SSR, and emigrated to Israel at the age of 15...

, 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...

, Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...

, Julian Lloyd Webber

Julian Lloyd Webber

Julian Lloyd Webber is a British solo cellist who has been described as the "doyen of British cellists".-Early life:Julian Lloyd Webber is the second son of the composer William Lloyd Webber and his wife Jean Johnstone . He is the younger brother of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber...

, Jessye Norman

Jessye Norman

Jessye Norman is an American opera singer. Norman is a well-known contemporary opera singer and recitalist, and is one of the highest paid performers in classical music...

, Jean-Pierre Rampal

Jean-Pierre Rampal

Jean-Pierre Louis Rampal was a French flautist. He has been personally "credited with returning to the flute the popularity as a solo classical instrument it had not held since the 18th century."-Early years:...

, Jean-Yves Thibaudet

Jean-Yves Thibaudet

-Early life:Jean-Yves Thibaudet was born in Lyon, France, to non-professional musical parents. His father played the violin, and his mother, of German origin and a somewhat accomplished pianist herself, introduced the instrument to Jean-Yves....

, Joshua Bell

Joshua Bell

Joshua David Bell is an American Grammy Award-winning violinist.-Childhood:Bell was born in Bloomington, Indiana, United States, the son of a psychologist and a therapist. Bell's father is the late Alan P...

, Elmar Olivera, Itzhak Perlman

Itzhak Perlman

Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-born violinist, conductor, and instructor of master classes. He is regarded as one of the pre-eminent violinists of the 20th and early-21st centuries.-Early life:...

, Joseph Silverstein

Joseph Silverstein

Joseph Silverstein is an American violinist and conductor.As a youth, Silverstein studied with his father, Bernard Silverstein, who was a public school music teacher...

, Dmitry Sitkovetsky

Dmitry Sitkovetsky

Dmitry Sitkovetsky is a Russian violinist and conductor.- Early life :Dmitry Sitkovetsky was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, to violinist Julian Sitkovetsky and pianist Bella Davidovich. His father died in 1958, when Sitkovetsky was just three years old and the family moved to Moscow where Dmitry...

, Jubilant Sykes

Jubilant Sykes

Jubilant Sykes is an American baritone. He has performed with Christopher Parkening and other artists, and has appeared in such venues as the Metropolitan Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, London's Barbican Centre, the Apollo Theater, Hollywood Bowl, New Orleans Jazz...

, André Watts

André Watts

André Watts is a classical pianist and professor at the Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University.-Life and early performances:...

, Ani Kavafian

Ani Kavafian

Ani Kavafian is a classical violinist and professor at the Yale School of Music.Kavafian was born in Istanbul to parents of Armenian descent. In 1956 she moved with her family to Detroit, by which time she had begun playing piano. She began on violin at age nine, studying under Ara Zerounian and...

, Joanne Kong, the Shanghai String Quartet, the Emerson String Quartet

Emerson String Quartet

The Emerson String Quartet is a New York–based string quartet in residence at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Previously the Quartet was in residence at The Hartt School. Formed in 1976, they have released more than twenty albums and won nine Grammy Awards. Both violinists...

, Ray Charles

Ray Charles

Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...

, Tony Bennett

Tony Bennett

Tony Bennett is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz....

, Cleo Laine

Cleo Laine

Dame Cleo Laine, Lady Dankworth, DBE is a jazz singer and an actress, noted for her scat singing and vocal range...

, the Dave Matthews Band

Dave Matthews Band

Dave Matthews Band, sometimes shortened to DMB, is a U.S. rock band formed in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1991. The founding members were singer-songwriter and guitarist Dave Matthews, bassist Stefan Lessard, drummer/backing vocalist Carter Beauford and saxophonist LeRoi Moore. Boyd Tinsley was...

, Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...

, Bruce Hornsby

Bruce Hornsby

Bruce Randall Hornsby is an American singer, pianist, accordion player, and songwriter. Known for the spontaneity and creativity of his live performances, Hornsby draws frequently from classical, jazz, bluegrass, folk, Motown, rock, blues, and jam band musical traditions with his songwriting and...

, and Marvin Hamlisch

Marvin Hamlisch

Marvin Frederick Hamlisch is an American composer. He is one of only thirteen people to have been awarded Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, and a Tony . He is also one of only two people to EGOT and also win a Pulitzer Prize...

.

The Richmond Symphony was founded in 1957. The Symphony performed only three concerts in its inaugural season. The Richmond Symphony Chorus, founded in 1971, gave its first performance under the direction of Robert Shaw

Robert Shaw (conductor)

Robert Shaw was an American conductor most famous for his work with his namesake Chorale, with the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Shaw received 14 Grammy awards, four ASCAP awards for service to contemporary music, the first Guggenheim Fellowship...

; its directors have been Dr. James Erb

James Erb

James "Jim" Erb is an American composer, arranger, musicologist, and conductor.-Career:Erb is best known for his various arrangements of the Folk song "Oh Shenandoah", and among musicologists of the Renaissance for his work on the magnificats of Orlando Di Lasso. He conducted the Richmond Symphony...

(1971-2007) and Dr. Erin R. Freeman (since 2007). The Richmond Symphony Young Performers Program includes four ensembles of elementary to secondary school students.

As a nonprofit corporation, the Richmond Symphony is partially supported by the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

.

The orchestra performs five series of Concerts: The Masterworks Series of traditional symphonic repertoire; The Bach Festival Series (chamber orchestra); The Kicked Back Classics Series - selected Masterworks repertoire in a more casual and interactive format; The Symphony Pops Series - lighter popular and classical music; and the Richmond Symphony Family Concert Series - less formal, family-oriented events.

The Festival Series highlights the music of one particular composer, complemented by other composers' works. Mozart was the featured composer in 2005/06 (celebrating the 250th anniversary of his birth); Beethoven was featured in 2006/07, and Bach in 2007/08.

See also