Under the leadership of Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, The Cleveland Orchestra has become one of the most sought-after performing ensembles in the world. In concerts at its winter home at Severance Hall and at each summer’s Blossom Festival, in residencies from Miami to Vienna, and on tour around the world, The Cleveland Orchestra sets standards of artistic excellence, creative programming, and community engagement.

The Cleveland Orchestra’s educational programs, a cornerstone of the Orchestra’s original mission, have introduced nearly four million Cleveland-area schoolchildren to symphonic music since 1918. During the 2009-10 season, the Orchestra launches a Community Music Initiative that begins with orchestral performances led by Franz Welser-Möst in Cleveland Metropolitan School District public schools. Designed to provide greater access to orchestral music for more of Northeast Ohio’s citizens than ever before, the Community Music Initiative introduces new programs throughout the year for students of all ages. The season closes in June 2010 with a free retrospective concert celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow program, featuring new works created through this ongoing program.

The partnership with Franz Welser-Möst, now in its eighth season, has earned The Cleveland Orchestra unprecedented residencies in the United States and in Europe, including one at the Musik­verein in Vienna, the first of its kind by an American orchestra. The Orchestra returns to Vienna during the 2009-10 season for its fourth Musikverein Residency as part of a ten-concert tour. The Orchestra regularly appears at European festivals, including an ongoing series of biennial residencies at the Lucerne Festival (featuring Roche Commissions, a project involving the Orchestra, the Festival, and Carnegie Hall). In the United States, Mr. Welser-Möst and the Orchestra have toured from coast to coast, including regular appearances at Carnegie Hall, and in January 2007 began an unprecedented long-term residency project in Miami, Florida, where they perform annually at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County and provide a wide array of community and educational activities. In addition, the 2009-10 season marks the beginning of a new, ongoing residency for the Orchestra at Indiana University and the announcement of a residency at New York’s Lincoln Center Festival.

The Cleveland Orchestra was founded in 1918 by a group of local citizens intent on creating an ensemble worthy of joining America’s ranks of symphony orchestras. Over the next decades, the Orchestra grew from a fine regional organization to being one of the most admired symphonic ensembles in the world. Seven music directors (Nikolai Sokoloff 1918-33, Artur Rodzinski 1933-43, Erich Leinsdorf 1943-46, George Szell 1946-70, Lorin Maazel 1972-82, Christoph von Dohnányi 1984-2002, and Franz Welser-Möst from 2002) have guided and shaped the ensemble’s growth and sound. Touring performances throughout the United States and, beginning in 1957, to Europe and across the globe have confirmed Cleveland’s place among the world’s top orchestras. Year-round performances became a reality with the first Blossom Festival in 1968, presented at an award-winning, purpose-built outdoor facility located just south of the Cleveland metropolitan area near Akron, Ohio. Today, touring, residencies, radio broadcasts, and recordings available by internet download and on DVD and CD provide access to the Orchestra’s music-making to a broad and loyal constituency around the world.

Revised September 2009

The Musical Arts Association is grateful to the following organizations for their ongoing generous support of The Cleveland Orchestra: National Endowment for the Arts, State of Ohio and the Ohio Arts Council, and the residents of Cuyahoga County through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

The Cleveland Orchestra is proud of its long-term partnership with Kent State University, made possible in part through generous funding from the State of Ohio.