Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra

Founded in 1880 by Joseph Otten as the St. Louis Choral Society, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra is the second-oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, preceded only by the New York Philharmonic.

The St Louis Choral Society performed in the auditorium of the St. Louis Mercantile Library. During the 1881–82 season the 80-member chorus was joined by an orchestra of 31 members. It remained largely a choral organization through its performances at the 1904 World's Fair under Alfred Ernst when it expanded to a 200-member chorus and an orchestra of 55. Under Max Zach's tenure (1907 to 1921), it changed its name to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

The national prestige of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra grew most prominently during the music directorship of Leonard Slatkin, from 1979 to 1996. During his tenure, the orchestra made many recordings for the EMI and RCA Victor labels, and toured to Europe and the Far East, as well as concerts at Carnegie Hall. However, this growth in prestige was not matched by stabilization of long-term finances. In 2000, the executive director and President of the SLSO at the time, Don Roth, had secured a US$40 million challenge grant from the Taylor family to help the organization's money situation. However, in that same year, he revealed the situation of severe financial problems with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra finances, which nearly led to the orchestra's bankruptcy in 2001.

In January 2005, a labor dispute led to a cancellation of concerts for two months. After a two-month contentious and unproductive period of negotiations, the musicians agreed to a ten-week reduction from a 52-week season, and 30% wage reductions.

Since September 2005, the American conductor David Robertson has been the Music Director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

In December 2007, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra announced the appointment of Fred Bronstein as the orchestra's new president and executive director. Faced with declining ticket sales and deficits, Bronstein immediately launched an aggressive new revenue plan with audience development at the core of its actions. Bronstein has also taken steps to broaden and diversify the symphony's programming through popularly-oriented programming series. Since 2008, because of new programming and marketing strategies, ticket revenues have grown 39%, the highest revenues in over a decade, while seats sold grew by 16% and more than 31,000 new people were added to the customer base. Wikipedia