Company Profile
New Haven Symphony Orchestra
Company Overview
Mission Statement
The mission of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra is to increase the impact and value of orchestral music for our audiences through high quality, affordable performances and educational programming. Our musicians aspire to inspire, delight, challenge, and unite larger and more diverse communities.
Vision Statement
The Vision of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra is to celebrate our classical music heritage, enriched through new American compositions, by expanding opportunities for symphonic performances and music education. We will celebrate this Vision through:
1. Artistically excellent and diverse performances by orchestra members and guest artists to wider audiences centered in symphony and pops concerts and performances by chamber orchestras and ensembles;
2. Promotion of a wider appreciation of American music through commissions, performances, and educational programs in multiple venues that feature the rich diversity of cultural influences on American music;
3. Support of classical music education, especially through partnerships with school music programs, integrated curriculum development, and youth and community orchestras;
4. Performances that introduce to children and families our classical music heritage and the major forms of its presentation; and
5. Social networks, recordings, broadcasts, and new media that celebrate the rich heritage and variety of classical music.
Company History
In 1894 Morris Steinert, an immigrant from Germany, was persuaded by a group of New Haven amateur musicians to form a symphony orchestra. Steinert was a music merchant and an instrumentalist, who played piano, organ, flute, cello, and violin. Many of the men who approached Steinert to form an orchestra were also German-Americans seeking to continue the traditions of their native country in their new land, where classical music was less appreciated. Steinert consented and the group started rehearsals upstairs above his piano store.
The first performance of the fledgling orchestra took place in January 1895 at a now-defunct theater on Chapel Street near the present Union League Café. The program included works by Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Schubert, as well as two solos performed by Isidore Troostwyk, a Dutch-born violinist who had recently arrived as a Professor of Music at Yale. Troostwyk served as concertmaster of the new orchestra. The conductor was Horatio William Parker, also newly arrived at Yale and already a composer of some reputation. It was through Parker’s leadership and commitment over more than two decades that the Symphony was gradually transformed from a local band into an accomplished symphony orchestra.