Its home venue is the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in downtown Portland's Cultural District.

Orchestra members shared ticket revenues as a cooperative, and elected their conductors in the early years.

Royal Academy of Music-trained musician Carl Denton was a major force in helping the Portland Symphony Society enter a new era.

Following fourteen rehearsals, the first concert of this new-era Portland Symphony Orchestra was held at 2:30 p.m. November 12, 1911, at the newly opened Heilig Theater at SW Broadway and Taylor street.

Harold Bayley, Carl Denton, and Mose Christensen also served as rotating concertmasters when they weren't conducting.

Spiering was unable to begin his first season as conductor because of his untimely death in Munich (where he was searching for new scores for the orchestra).

At the suggestion of artist manager Arthur Judson, the symphony board next appointed Dutch conductor Willem van Hoogstraten.

A farewell concert on February 28, 1938, featured van Hoogstraten conducting the symphony and chorus in Brahms' German Requiem.

An orchestra billed as the Portland Philharmonic, with 40 musicians provided by the federal music project, held its debut concert on January 16, 1940, with Hodge conducting.

Each of these early principal conductors in the reorganized symphony era left after only a few years because the orchestra lacked financial backing.

Bellugi also refused to return for a scheduled guest conductor engagement in the spring of 1962, citing the programs lacked sufficient scope for his talents.

[2][3] During 1965–1967, the orchestra performed in a leased 1927 movie house, the Oriental Theatre on SE Grand Avenue between Morrison and Belmont Streets, while the Civic Auditorium was being rebuilt.

In 1973, Lawrence Leighton Smith was selected as music director, the first conductor born in Portland to lead the orchestra.

James DePreist's arrangement of the theme for The Cosby Show was recorded by the orchestra in May 1988 for use in the fifth season of that television program.

The first out-of-state tour outside of the Pacific Northwest was made in September 1992, to the Hollywood Bowl at the invitation of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

A collection entitled Bravura, includes works by Witold Lutosławski, Ottorino Respighi, and Richard Strauss.

[11] Subsequent recordings were This England (2012), Spirit of the American Range (2015), Haydn Symphonies (2017), and Aspects of America (2018).