Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra

The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra stands as Indiana’s foremost performing arts ensemble, drawing roughly 350,000 listeners each year to some two hundred concerts. Its recordings—more than three dozen in total—have circulated widely across both classical and pops markets, while the ensemble itself began reaching listeners beyond U.S. borders at an early stage. Established in 1930 by German-born violin instructor Ferdinand Schaefer, the group is younger than most major American orchestras; its charter members initially served as volunteers who divided box-office proceeds. Professional status arrived by 1937, the same year Fabien Sevitzky—nephew of Boston Symphony music director Serge Koussevitzky—assumed leadership and broadened the orchestra’s visibility through coast-to-coast radio programs and discs issued by RCA Victor and Capitol. Izler Solomon followed, directing the internationally staged, government-sponsored “salute” concerts whose outdoor pops format remains a summertime fixture in the Indianapolis region. During his tenure from 1976 to 1987, John Nelson led the first complete European tour, presented the ensemble at New York’s Carnegie Hall, and secured its permanent residence at the Hilbert Circle Theatre. England’s Raymond Leppard, the first non-American to hold the post, served as music director from 1987 to 2001 and thereafter as Conductor Laureate; he arranged two additional overseas tours and launched the syndicated weekly series Indianapolis on the Air, which eventually reached as many as 250 stations. Krzysztof Urbański became the seventh music director in 2011, at that moment the youngest person leading any major American orchestra. The ensemble returned to the studio for the 2016 Naxos release of Mohammed Fairouz’s large-scale cantata Zabur and, the next year, accompanied Marc-André Hamelin in Claude Baker: Piano Concerto and additional works. Beyond its downtown season, the orchestra presents a thriving suburban pops series each summer, previously shaped by Erich Kunzel during his concurrent Cincinnati Pops tenure and by Jack Everly.