The Kansas City Symphony ( KCS ) is an American symphony orchestra based in Kansas City, Missouri . The orchestra is a regular resident at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts . The orchestra performs a 42-week season, and is also the accompanying orchestra for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and the Kansas City Ballet .
14-578: The Concert Companion was a hand-held device intended to enhance concert experiences by presenting information that complements the music while the music is being performed. Using wireless technology, the Concert Companion delivered explanatory text, program notes and video images in real time with the music. The Concert Companion was developed under the auspices of the Kansas City Symphony by former executive director Roland Valliere. Testing of
28-441: Is also featured on the recording Britten's Orchestra (2009), a Vaughan Williams and Elgar disc from 2013, and a Hindemith, Prokofiev, and Bartók in 2014 also with Reference Recordings. In 2023, controversy arose after the orchestra denied tenure to Josh Jones, the orchestra’s first Black tenure-track musician who had originally been appointed to the orchestra effective with the 2020-2021 season. Stern concluded his tenure with
42-792: Is housed in New York City in the expanded former offices of the Bollingen Foundation , another educational philanthropy once supported by Paul Mellon. Poet and scholar Elizabeth Alexander is the foundation's current president. Her predecessors have included Earl Lewis , Don Randel , William G. Bowen , John Edward Sawyer and Nathan Pusey . In 2004, the foundation was awarded the National Medal of Arts . Mellon's research group has investigated doctoral education, collegiate admissions, independent research libraries, charitable nonprofits, scholarly communications, and other issues to ensure that
56-629: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Funding for the Concert Companion was received from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation , John S. and James L. Knight Foundation , the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation . Kansas City Symphony The orchestra's current music director is Matthias Pintscher , as of the 2024-2025 season. Michael Stern ,
70-521: The Lyric Theatre . William McGlaughlin was music director from 1986 to 1997. During McGlaughlin's tenure, the orchestra released its first compact disc, American Voices , in 1995. From 1999 to 2003, Anne Manson was music director of the orchestra, the first female conductor to hold the post. During her tenure, in 2002, the orchestra participated in the development of the ' Concert Companion ', led by then-executive director Roland Valliere. Funded by
84-634: The Mellon Foundation , is a New York City -based private foundation with wealth accumulated by Andrew Mellon of the Mellon family of Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania. It is the product of the 1969 merger of the Avalon Foundation and the Old Dominion Foundation. These foundations had been set up separately by Ailsa Mellon Bruce and Paul Mellon , the children of Andrew Mellon. The foundation
98-612: The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation , John S. and James L. Knight Foundation , the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation , the Concert Companion was tested by the Kansas City Symphony, as well as the New York Philharmonic , Philadelphia Orchestra , Pittsburgh Symphony , Aspen Music Festival , and Oakland East Bay Symphony . The orchestra released a further album, The Sound of Kansas City , in 2004, derived from live performances by
112-584: The Concert Companion appeared across the United States in The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , USA Today , San Francisco Classical Voice, Orlando Sentinel , Gizmodo , The Baltimore Sun , PC World Magazine , and internationally in The Guardian , and Heise Online. Feature segments aired on National Public Radio All Things Considered , and internationally on BBC News and
126-707: The Concert Companion took place with the New York Philharmonic , Philadelphia Orchestra , Pittsburgh Symphony , Aspen Music Festival , Kansas City Symphony and Oakland East Bay Symphony . It was featured at The Wall Street Journal ' s "D: All Things Digital" executive conference in Carlsbad, California in June 2004, and at the Association of British Orchestras Conference in Birmingham , England in February 2005. Feature articles about
140-697: The foundation's grants would be well-informed and more effective. Some of the recent publications of this effect include Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education , Reclaiming the Game: College Sports and Educational Values , JSTOR: A History , The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values , and The Shape of the River . Mellon's endowment fluctuates in the range of $ 5 to $ 6 billion, and its annual grant-making amounts to about $ 300 million. According to Alexander, Mellon supports
154-543: The orchestra at the close of the 2023-2024 season, and now has the title of music director laureate of the orchestra. In March 2023, Matthias Pintscher first guest-conducted the orchestra. On the basis of this appearance, in May 2023, the orchestra announced the appointment of Pintscher as its next music director, effective with the 2024-2025 season, with an initial contract of five seasons. Andrew W. Mellon Foundation The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation , commonly known as
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#1732855311942168-645: The orchestra recorded in 2002 and 2003. In 2005, Michael Stern became music director of the orchestra. During Stern's tenure, the orchestra moved to the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in 2011. The orchestra and Stern have made several commercial recordings. These include a recording of Gordon Chin's Formosa Seasons on the Naxos label, and two settings for Shakespeare's Tempest (by Arthur Sullivan and Jean Sibelius) with Reference Recordings. The orchestra
182-447: The orchestra's music director from 2005 to 2024, is music director laureate of the orchestra. Since July 2019, the orchestra's current executive director is Danny Beckley. In 1911, the first iteration of the Kansas City Symphony was formed for Carl Busch . The city's first symphony orchestra, it ceased operations at the start of World War I, as many of the musicians were sent to military service. Kansas City's second symphony orchestra
196-506: Was the Kansas City Philharmonic, founded in 1933 and dissolved in 1982. In the same year, businessman and philanthropist R. Crosby Kemper, Jr. and other Kansas City businessmen, including Hallmark Cards chairman and chief executive officer Donald J. Hall, Sr. and H&R Block co-founder Henry W. Bloch , provided funds for the formation of the second iteration of the Kansas City Symphony. The orchestra gave its concerts at
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