The Chicago Orchestra‘s founder and first music director Theodore Thomas was passionately devoted to bringing music to people of all means, and following the inaugural concerts at the Auditorium Theatre on October 16 and 17, 1891, he and his new ensemble first traveled to Rockford, Illinois for a concert at the Grand Opera House on October 19. By the end of May 1892, they had performed nearly sixty concerts in eighteen different cities throughout the Midwest and the South.
Read more: On the Road with the Chicago Orchestra, part 1
TOP: Detail of the program page for the Chicago Orchestra’s first run-out concert, given on October 19, 1891, at the Grand Opera House in Rockford, Illinois.