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Old York Road Symphony records
Notifications
Held at: Old York Road Historical Society [Contact Us]
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Old York Road Historical Society. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
"The Old York Road Symphony was founded in 1932-33 by Stanley Chute of the theater orchestra of the Old York Road Players, Suzanne C. Meder of the Jenkintown School of Cultural Arts, and Louis Angeloty, who had been first chair of the Philadelphia Orchestra. In the spring of 1933 twenty members of the orchestra gave their first concert in the Keswick Theatre in Glenside. In September 1934 the Symphony received its charter as a nonprofit organization, and has been in continuous operation ever since.
"[In 2013, its] mission is to provide an outlet for the interests and talents of serious musicians of all ages, while enriching the cultural life of suburban Philadelphia. To that end, the orchestra is comprised of the full range of instrumentalists, all volunteer musicians from the Delaware Valley, primarily from the areas just north of Philadelphia. [It averages] about 65 playing members, ranging in age from high school through senior citizen, having diverse ethnic backgrounds."
The Old York Road Symphony Society is one of the oldest of Philadelphia's suburban amateur orchestras.
Bibliography:
Old York Road Symphony. "History." Accessed May 8, 2013. http://www.oldyorkroadsymphony.org/history
This collection includes various administrative and financial records of the Old York Road Symphony Society, as well as programs, clippings, and ephemera. The administrative and financial records include: minutes, 1934-1959; by-laws; Society membership lists, 1940s-1980s; orchestra membership lists, circa 1970s-1980s; annual report drafts, 1947-1954; a small amount of correspondence, 1960s-1970s; records of music rentals; concert program listings; and financial records, 1940s-1980s. The ephemera include: programs, 1934-2007; newsletters, 1950s; clippings; and scrapbooks, comprised mostly of newspaper clippings and programs, 1954-1960. There are also narrative histories of the Old York Road Symphony and several photographs in the collection. Many materials seem to have come from Louis Angeloty, one of the Society's founders.
Summary descriptive information on this collection was compiled in 2012-2014 as part of a project conducted by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to make better known and more accessible the largely hidden collections of small, primarily volunteer run repositories in the Philadelphia area. The Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories (HCI-PSAR) was funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This is a preliminary finding aid. No physical processing, rehousing, reorganizing, or folder listing was accomplished during the HCI-PSAR project.
In some cases, more detailed inventories or finding aids may be available on-site at the repository where this collection is held; please contact Old York Road Historical Society directly for more information.
People
Organization
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- Old York Road Historical Society
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Celia Caust-Ellenbogen and Faith Charlton through the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories
- Sponsor
- This preliminary finding aid was created as part of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories. The HCI-PSAR project was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
- Access Restrictions
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Contact Old York Road Historical Society for information about accessing this collection.