New York Philharmonic history

Ticket sales grew when it decided to admit women as subscribers in 1847, and then to allow single ticket sales for friends of season subscribers.

Eisfeld's first concert with the New York Philharmonic Society was March 17, 1848.

In 1852, for its 11th season, he became the first conductor to lead an entire season single-handedly.

Thomas made his New York solo debut on the violin at age 15, and in 1854 he joined the first-violin section of the New York Philharmonic Society.

Bergmann began his two-decade association with the Philharmonic as a replacement for the ailing Theodore Eisfeld on April 21, 1855.

Eisfeld, later along with Carl Bergmann, would be the conductor until 1865.

That year Eisfeld returned to Europe, and Bergmann continued to conduct the Society until his death in 1876.

Because of the desperate financial circumstances, the Philharmonic offered Theodore Thomas the conductorship without conditions, and he began conducting the orchestra in the autumn of 1877.

But failing to win support from the Philharmonic's public, he left to create the rival Symphony Society of New York in 1878.

The orchestra first toured the United States in 1882 under Leopold Damrosch.

In 1879 it hired conductor Theodore Thomas, who brought some stability to the group by remaining its head until 1891. It moved to better quarters in the just-built Metropolitan Opera House in 1886.

By the time Seidl took the reins of the New York Philharmonic Society from Theodore Thomas in 1891, he had won an enthusiastic following in the concert hall as well as the opera house.

The orchestra had found a new home in the concert hall Carnegie endowed, Carnegie Hall, in 1893 (after the Metropolitan Opera House was destroyed by fire.) Under Carnegie's leadership, the Philharmonic Society began to invest in European celebrity conductors.

Another celebrated conductor, Anton Seidl, followed Thomas on the Philharmonic podium, serving until 1898.

Gustav Mahler first visited New York in 1907 and conducted more than 70 concerts at Carnegie Hall in the three years that followed.

The first president of the newly reorganized New York Philharmonic in 1909 was the worldly and audacious Mary Seney Sheldon, a Manhattan-based socialite whose father was president of Metropolitan Bank.

In 1911 Mahler died unexpectedly, and the Philharmonic appointed Josef Stránský as his replacement.

Under his baton, audiences experienced more types of concerts than ever before, including the Orchestra's first Young People's Concert in January 1914.

In 1920 Walter Damrosch led the Symphony Society on a European tour.

In 1921 the Philharmonic merged with New York's National Symphony Orchestra (no relation to the present Washington, D.C. ensemble). With this merger it also acquired the imposing Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg.

For the 1922/23 season Stránský and Mengelberg shared the conducting duties, but Stránský left after the one shared season.

In 1924, the Young People's Concerts were expanded into a substantial series of children's concerts under the direction of American pianist-composer-conductor Ernest Schelling.

Toscanini, universally admired in later years as "The Maestro," made his Philharmonic debut in January 1926.

Mengelberg's most successful recording with the Philharmonic was a 1927 performance in Carnegie Hall of Richard Strauss' Ein Heldenleben.

The orchestra performing was the New York Symphony, an ensemble that eventually merged with the New York Philharmonic—which had been its rival—in 1928.

1930: Philharmonic takes first tour of Europe.

Yet by 1934, the Philharmonic's financial position had grown so precarious that the group started an emergency fundraising campaign.

By the 1936 sessions Victor, now owned by RCA, began to experiment with multiple microphones to achieve more comprehensive reproductions of the orchestra.

The following year Barbirolli was given the full conductorship, a post he held until the spring of 1941.

Leonard Bernstein, who had made his historic, unrehearsed and spectacularly successful debut with the Philharmonic in 1943, was Music Director for 11 seasons, a time of significant change and growth.

The orchestra instituted a formal pension plan in 1944, which was a model for orchestras across the nation.

The summer broadcast concerts featured some of the leading soloists and guest conductors of the time, and led to a grand tour of 17 states in the summer of 1947.

During the 1949-50 season he shared the position of Principal Conductor with Dimitri Mitropoulos.

In 1957, Mitropoulos and Leonard Bernstein served together as Principal Conductors until, in the course of the season, Bernstein was appointed Music Director, becoming the first American-born-and-trained conductor to head the Philharmonic.

The former program, launched in 1958, made television history, winning every award in the field of educational television.

In 1960, the centennial of the birth of Gustav Mahler, Bernstein and the Philharmonic began a historic cycle of recordings of eight of Mahler's nine symphonies for Columbia Records. (Symphony No.

In 1962 the orchestra moved into Philharmonic Hall, now David Geffen Hall, at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and it now plays some 200 concerts each year.

Finally a three-month, $1.25 million renovation in 1969 made the hall, now Avery Fisher Hall, a satisfying place to play and hear music.

In 1971, Pierre Boulez became the first Frenchman to hold the post of Philharmonic Music Director.

When Mehta resigned, so did the Philharmonic's managing director, who had been with the orchestra since 1975.

The hall was redesigned yet again in 1976.

Boulez presided until 1978.

In 1980 the Philharmonic, always known as a touring orchestra, embarked on a European tour marking the 50th anniversary of Toscanini's trip to Europe.

He enjoyed a very long stay as principal conductor, leaving in 1991, when he was replaced by Kurt Masur.

In 1993, to celebrate its 150th anniversary season, the orchestra commissioned works by 36 composers and also made a European tour.

Yet he has been grossly underappreciated here, by his own management, his own players, and the city's critics." Masur was first scheduled to leave in 1998, apparently because of friction between the conductor, the Philharmonic's board, and the players.

In 2000, Lorin Maazel made a guest-conducting appearance with the New York Philharmonic in two weeks of subscription concerts after an absence of over twenty years, which was met with a positive reaction from the orchestra musicians.

In his first subscription week he led the world premiere of John Adams' On the Transmigration of Souls commissioned in memory of those who died on September 11, 2001.

"New York Philharmonic's New Conductor Says Sales Up," Europe Intelligence Wire, October 21, 2002.

In June 2003, the Philharmonic announced that it was leaving Lincoln Center and moving back to Carnegie Hall.

In 2006 the New York Philharmonic was the first major American orchestra to offer downloadable concerts, recorded live, and followed this with a self-produced digital recording series.

The Philharmonic performed in Pyongyang at the invitation of the North Korean government on February 26, 2008.

In October 2009 the Orchestra, led by then Music Director Alan Gilbert, made its debut in Hanoi, Vietnam, in the Hanoi Opera House.

On May 5, 2010, the New York Philharmonic performed its 15,000th concert, a milestone unmatched by any other symphony orchestra in the world.

The Philharmonic was scheduled to remain at Lincoln Center until at least 2011, and Avery Fisher Hall would undergo extensive refitting.

In September 2016 the Philharmonic, which has the most Facebook fans of any American orchestra, produced its first-ever Facebook Live concert broadcast, and reached more than one million online viewers through three broadcasts that season alone.

The post is currently held by Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden, who has led the orchestra since 2018.

In March 2020, in response to the cancellations of concerts due the COVID-19 pandemic, the Philharmonic launched NY Phil Plays On, a portal hosting video and audio of performances, free, on its website and social media platforms; the next year marked the launch of NYPhil+.