Our History.
"The music you love by the people you know." — Helen & Sam Gordon, founding ambition, 1952
What began in a Gloucester living room with thirty friends and a borrowed auditorium has, three quarters of a century later, become an all-professional regional orchestra. This is the story of how Cape Ann Symphony got from there to here.
An East Gloucester couple, an idea, and thirty willing musicians.
The Cape Ann Symphony had its beginnings in February 1952, when Sam and Helen Gordon, an East Gloucester couple — both devoted amateur musicians — conceived the idea of a local orchestra, using the talents of local people. Their goal was simple, and it has never changed: to offer Cape Ann the music you love by the people you know.
Beginning as a volunteer group, thirty or so individuals pooled their talents — serving not only as musicians but as a board of officers as well. Calling themselves the Gloucester Civic Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra delighted some 800 concert-goers on July 10th, 1952 in the high school auditorium with a presentation of Beethoven's First Symphony.
years
For nearly three decades, Sam Gordon paid for the music himself.
Sam Gordon presided over what soon became known as the Cape Ann Symphony Orchestra. Performances were free to the public. Any expenses not covered by Sam's constant efforts to glean support from friends and local businesses were dealt with by Sam himself — paying, as he put it, out of pocket.
He died in 1980, having handed the next generation an orchestra already a quarter-century old.
New by-laws, a paid model, and a path to professional standing.
After Sam's death, new by-laws were adopted in December of 1980 stating that a professional conductor, printing, music, hall rental, insurance, postage, soloists, and additional instrumentalists would all be paid for — as in other community orchestras — by charging admission to performances. It was the moment Cape Ann Symphony stopped being a labour of love sustained by one couple, and started being an institution sustained by its audience.
A lineage of music directors.
Seven conductors across seventy-five seasons. The current chapter is the longest.
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1952 · foundingBertram Whitman · John Murray · Armand VorceInaugural music directors
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1980sRoyston Nash & Kay George RobertsMusic directors
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1990s · nearly a decadeRichard VanstoneMusic director
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2000 – presentCurrentArtistic director & conductor. Led the 50th anniversary; leads the 75th this season.
All-professional, and reaching beyond Cape Ann.
Photos by Jeph Ellis.
Today, the Cape Ann Symphony is an all-professional orchestra, evolved from all-volunteer over many years, and with a performance level to rival any regional symphony in the country. The quality of the orchestra is such that the organization is now working to bring Cape Ann Symphony concerts to venues throughout Boston's North Shore — and beyond.
Seventy-five years on, the Gordons' founding promise still fits: the music you love, by the people you know.