Akron Symphony Orchestra
Symphony orchestra in Akron, Ohio
The Akron Symphony Orchestra is a professional orchestra based in Akron, Ohio. The ASO was founded in 1949. In 2006, the ASO appointed Christopher Wilkins music director. Wilkins has agreed to serve as director through 2021.
The Akron Symphony Orchestra is operated by the Greater Akron Musical Association (GAMA).
History
The founding of the orchestra dates to 1949, when John Barry, "business manager of the Akron Beacon Journal, present[ed] Mabel Graham with $500 to start a symphony orchestra."
The first performance of the Akron Symphony Orchestra was on Feb. 24, 1953, in a concert "led by John Francis Farinacci, a high school teacher and band director," at Central-Hower High School.
On October 9, 1973, "E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall opened with a world premiere by Mexican composer Carlos Chavez" and performed by the Akron Symphony.
Conductors
Past conductors have included Laszlo Krausz (starting in 1954), Louis Lane (starting in 1959), Margaret Hillis (starting 1971; first woman to conduct the Akron Symphony), Alan Balter (starting 1983), Keith Lockhart (starting 1988 as Assistant Conductor; Lockhart later went on to become music director of the Boston Pops Orchestra), and Ya-Hui Wang (starting 2000).
Benjamin Zander has guest conducted the Akron Symphony on multiple occasions, including in January 2019 (to conduct Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony), January 2017 (to conduct Beethoven's Ninth Symphony), and February 2008 (to conduct Mahler's Second Symphony).
“Akron Symphony Orchestra” enters the record as symphony orchestra in Akron, Ohio. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Akron, Symphony and Orchestra can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4701697. VIAF identifies the subject as 139853639. The Library of Congress control number is no96003564. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1949, 2006, 2021 and 1953.
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This entry incorporates text from “Akron Symphony Orchestra” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.