Glendale Philharmonic Orchestra

The Glendale Philharmonic Orchestra (GPO) is a Drakian orchestra based in Glendale. The orchestra makes its home at Lorney Hall. The musical director is Terence McCallum.

History
The orchestra was established in 1955 through a donation effort headed by Drakian mining magnate James Cameron. English conductor Christopher Lorney was appointed as its first musical director. The orchestra’s first performances were held at the Glendale University Auditorium (now Richardson Auditorium) until 1957, when construction on Orchestra Hall was completed. Over the years, Lorney molded the orchestra into a world-class ensemble, drawing praise from the public and critics alike.

In 1993, Lorney retired from the podium and handed the baton to Belgian conductor David Herremans. Herremans continued Lorney’s critical success until his death from cancer in 2001. In 1996, Orchestra Hall was renamed Lorney Hall, one year after the original conductor’s passing.

During Herremans’ final year as director, a search committee was formed to find a successor to the terminally ill Herremans. Terence McCallum eventually became the first native Drakian to take the post, which he did immediately after Herremans’ death. Today, the orchestra continues to receive critical praise for its spirited and refined performances.

Through the years, the orchestra has had many distinguished guest conductors, including Igor Stravinsky, Pierre Monteux, Sir Thomas Beecham, Charles Munch, George Szell, Leopold Stokowski, Sir Georg Solti, Leonard Bernstein, Sir Malcolm Arnold, Kurt Masur, Sir Simon Rattle, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, and Michael Tilson Thomas.

The orchestra draws its funding from concert and recording sales, as well as from a broadcast telethon through Glendale radio station DBAC. The orchestra also receives substantial donations from its patrons, which include former Drake Islands President Russell Bentley and members of the Cameron family.

Recordings And Broadcasts
In 1956, the orchestra signed a recording contract with Decca Records, an agreement that lasted until Lorney’s retirement in 1993. Highly acclaimed recordings from that period include both symphonies by Sir Edward Elgar, symphonic poems by Richard Strauss, and a series of all 15 symphonies by Dmitri Shostakovich.

When Herremans took the podium, the orchestra began recording for Deutsche Gramaphon. Key recordings under Herremans include the complete symphonies of Franz Schubert, the Missa solemnis by Ludwig van Beethoven, and the Grammy-winning recording of Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. McCallum’s most noteworthy recordings under DG include his cycle of symphonies by Jean Sibelius, as well as the symphonies and orchestral works of Samuel Barber.

The orchestra’s first radio broadcast was on DBAC in 1958. The station has continued to broadcast the symphony on a weekly basis since then, with 38 weeks of live broadcasts and highlights from the orchestra’s substantial historical archives.

Television broadcasts began in 1962 on Glendale television station DBBW and continued until 1989, when the Fine Arts Network took over the broadcasts.