The Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1949. Former concertmaster, the late Olive Short, mother ofTony and Emmy Award winning comic actorMartin Short, was the first female concertmaster in North America. She died in 1970, five years after being diagnosed with cancer.
The Hamilton plan
In the late 1960s, Betty Webster, Marnie Paikin and Larry Paikin developed a plan to bring music to the community from in-school children's concerts to international superstars appearing with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. They organized concerts at which all school children in a 60-mile radius of Hamilton centre would hear a brass ensemble, woodwind ensemble, string quartet and percussion ensemble in their school, followed by a trip to the orchestra hall at the end of the school year to hear a full symphony orchestra concert. The ensembles seeding the orchestra were headlined by Canadian Brass and the Czech String Quartet. The programme was studied by the American Symphony Orchestra League, and Chuck Mangione engaged the HPO for his Grammy Nominated album "Friends In Love." To carry out the plan, Boris Brott was hired as music director in 1969. Under his direction, attendance at HPO concerts rose to about 225,000 throughout the early 1970s.
Professional
Under Brott, the orchestra developed to the point where it could accompany well-known international artists, including Phillipe Entremont and Maureen Forrester, and began to develop an international reputation. However, the changein focus from a community orchestra to a full-time professional orchestra led to financial difficulties, and concert attendance began to recede. Canadian Brass, which in 1979 was the first brass ensemble to play the main stage of Carnegie Hall, developed much of its repertoire and style while performing in front of thousands of Hamilton area school children as part of the Hamilton Plan. In 1984 Michael Quigley published a book about the orchestra, A Centenary History of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. Brott remained conductor of the orchestra until 1990. From 2007 to 2015, the orchestra performed under the direction of James Sommerville. In 2015 New Zealand-born Gemma New was hired as the orchestra's director. The orchestra gave its first performance under her direction in February 2016. The orchestra continues to perform along with school and community groups and to participate in local community events.
