National Symphony Orchestra
The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO), founded in 1931, is an American symphony orchestra based in Washington, D.C.. Its principal performing venue is the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Music of Minnesota
The Minnesota Orchestra was founded in 1903 as the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. Although it was among the first to perform on the radio and to record, it initially was not known as one of the country's great orchestras. In the 1930s, Eugene Ormandy transformed it into an excellent ensemble and expanded its repertory, making it the most-recorded orchestra in the United States, and giving it an international reputation. Other illustrious conductors included Dimitri Mitropoulos and Antal Dorati. Osmo Vänskä, a Finnish conductor, music director since 2003, took the orchestra into its second century. Its live performances and recordings in a program of the complete works of Ludwig van Beethoven have been received with enthusiasm, the group has been called "brilliant", and a critic has stated the musicians are enjoying "their first golden age" since the days of Ormandy and Mitropoulos. Another critic wrote for "The New Yorker" of a concert in 2010 and its "uncanny, wrenching power, the kind you hear once or twice a decade" and thought that that day the Minnesota Orchestra was "the greatest orchestra in the world". The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra is the only full-time professional chamber orchestra in the country, and also tours and records. Professional orchestral ensembles outside the Twin Cities include the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra and the Rochester Symphony Orchestra and Chorale.