St. Louis Symphony

The St. Louis Symphony (SLS) is the second-oldest orchestra in the United States. It was founded in 1880 by Joseph Otten so as to make the great musical repertoire accessible to a wide public through outstanding performances. A total of twelve music directors have shaped the SLS’s profile since then. It is above all since the era of Leonard Slatkin (1979–96) that these musicians have developed a strong international reputation through regular appearances at Carnegie Hall in New York, tours to Europe and Asia, and numerous recordings which have won a total of six Grammy Awards. In 2005 David Robertson became Music Director of the St. Louis Symphony. He has introduced contemporary music series and brought a fresh approach to repertoire, garnering awards for the SLS from the American Society of Composers and the League of American Orchestras. In the summer of 2012 the St. Louis Symphony is undertaking its first European tour in fourteen years, giving concerts at the BBC Proms in London, the Musikfest ­Berlin, the Salle Pleyel in Paris, and ­LUCERNE FESTIVAL. Each season the musicians give an average of 250 performances in St. Louis and the surrounding region, including subscription concerts in Powell Hall (which has a capacity of more than 2,600), the Pulitzer Series Concerts of contemporary music, family concerts, and the interdisciplinary series Live at Powell Hall, which bridges the gap between jazz, musicals, and film music. The St. Louis Symphony participates in the E. Desmond Lee Fine Arts Education Collaborative, a cultural project in collaboration with 140 schools in the region that enables musicians to interact with young audiences. The St. Louis Symphony’s 2012 European Tour is sponsored
by Monsanto. This engagement is supported by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation through USArtists International in partnership with the National ­Endowment for the Arts and the ­Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

For further information on this ensemble, visit their homepage at: www.slso.org

August 2012