An exhibition of some of the orchestra's best posters over the years is currently on display at Yale.
Yale Symphony Orchestra alumni return to campus this weekend for a series of events. It's part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the orchestra.
The Yale Symphony Orchestra got its start at Calhoun College, when a group of chamber musicians there decided to include student players from other residential colleges. The group was first known as the Yale Symphonic Society, and later the Yale Symphony Orchestra.
When the ensemble's first conductor Richmond Browne left Yale in 1968, they chose YSO assistant conductor and graduate student John Mauceri to lead the group. Mauceri would later go on to become a world famous conductor, including a long stint as the conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in Los Angeles.
Mauceri said he had some lofty goals for this group of undergraduate musicians.
"I wanted to move the orchestra from a small hall to the big hall, to Woolsey Hall, which seats 2,300," Mauceri said. "And to make a program of the biggest orchestral works ever written, as well as works by contemporary composers. And that, of course was impossible, since no orchestra like that existed. It was like [the 1989 movie] 'Field of Dreams.'"
Mauceri said an important part of the "build it and they will come" philosophy was to utilize the talents of students from the Yale School of Art to create visually stunning posters, a tradition that continues to this day.
"I thought -- make the concert look like it's the greatest thing in the world. We'll take care of the audience once they're in, but we've got to get them in in the first place. So I used half of the budget we were given on posters," Mauceri said.
An exhibition of some of the best posters over the years is currently on display at The Study at Yale.
One of the YSO 's triumphs during Mauceri's tenure was being chosen by Leonard Bernstein for the European premiere of his new work "Mass." Mauceri used his ties with the famous composer and conductor to get his permission to perform the work at Yale.
"We did it in Woolsey Hall," Mauceri said, "Leonard Bernstein, and his wife, and his younger daughter came. And he loved it enough so that a month later I got a call saying that the mayor of Vienna would like to invite the Yale Symphony to come to Vienna for the European premiere of 'Mass.'"
The Vienna premiere was filmed by the BBC. Alumni from that performance will return to Yale this weekend for a screening of the BBC footage.
The YSO's50th anniversary celebration this weekend also includes a recital by YSO alumni, and culminates with a performance by the orchestra, conducted by Mauceri, Saturday night at 8:00 pm in Yale's Woolsey Hall.
