The Leicestershire County School of Music was the first of its kind, founded in 1948 by the county's first Music Adviser, Eric Pinkett O.B.E., with the backing of the Leicestershire education committee headed up by the visionary Director of Education, Stuart Mason. By the mid 1960s, Eric Pinkett - supported by the patronage of Sir Michael Tippett - had managed to put the LSSO on the UK musical map. The orchestra also established an international reputation due to its regular concert tours of major European cities, an annual tradition that started with visits to Essen in 1953, The Hague in 1954, Aarhus in 1955 and Oslo in 1956.
The orchestra has broadcast regularly on radio and television both at home and abroad, including an appearance in the BBC Omnibus programme The Other LSO with André Previn rehearsing them in works by Glinka, Beethoven and Rachmaninov and a series of programmes for BBC television in the mid 1980s called Music Time. Several television programmes have featured Sir Michael Tippett and the orchestra and in 1968 a chamber group drawn from the LSSO appeared in the television series Sounds Exciting to perform Herbert Chappell's Dead in Tune with the composer conducting and Robin Ray narrating. In 1970 a studio recording of Dead in Tune was also released by Argo. Other commercial recordings by the LSSO have been issued on Pye, Argo, CBS, Unicorn, Cameo Classics, Virgin and Performance labels.
Concerts
The orchestra has given concerts in some of Europe's major concert halls including the Musikverein in Vienna, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Beethovenhalle in Bonn, the Haydnsaal in Esterhazy Palace, the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, the Philharmonie in Berlin, the Robert Schumann Saal in Düsseldorf, the Hans Sachs Haus in Gelsenkirchen, the Fairfield Hall in Croydon and London's Royal Festival Hall. In a press review of one of the concerts given by the orchestra during their 1969 tour of Germany with Sir Michael Tippett and Richard Rodney Bennett the LSSO was hailed as "Britain's best cultural export". Press Review: Berliner Zeitschrift 15/9/69
The LSSO made the very first commercial recording of Havergal Brian's music for the Unicorn and CBS labels in 1972 and 1974 respectively. To read more about these recordings please refer to the Havergal Brian Wikipedia article.
The LSSO following Eric Pinkett's retirement
Eric Pinkett retired from his post in 1976 and died in 1979. His memorial concert, held at the De Montfort Hall, Leicester in 1980, was conducted by Norman Del Mar, who had worked regularly with the orchestra since 1966 at home and abroad, notably their concert in the Vienna Musikverein in 1968. Eric Pinkett was followed by Peter G. Fletcher, Stuart Johnson, Don Blakeson, Russell Parry Andrew Bound, Peter Dunkley and . The orchestra is currently conducted by . To find out about upcoming performances by the LSSO or any other performance group run by Leicester-Shire Schools Music Service, please visit https://leicestershiremusichub.org/events
