Princeton University Orchestra

[1] The roots of music performance at Princeton can be traced back to 1791, when a group of student musicians filled the belfry of a candle-lit Nassau Hall and serenaded the guests of President Witherspoon's second wedding.

[2] Student groups calling themselves the "Instrumental Club" existed in the late 1800s,[2] and precisely one century after the 1791 wedding ceremony, the name "Princeton University Orchestra" made its first-ever appearance in the 14 January 1891 publication[3] of the New York Times.

The official founding date of the ensemble recognized by Princeton's Department of Music is 13 February 1896, when professional musicians from New York orchestras performed several concerts in Alexander Hall.

For its first 25 years of history, the Princeton University Orchestra was relatively small and largely student-led; after the conclusion of the first World War, however, Richard L. Weaver was appointed as the symphony's first proper music director.

Over the subsequent forty years, PUO grew to as many as sixty students,[4] and music directors of the ensemble included Harold Berkeley, Mortiz von Bomhard, Russell Ames Cook, Nicholas Harsanyi, Robert S. Freeman, Peter T. Westergaard, Mordechai Sheinkman, and Bruce Ferden.

Through the fifties and sixties, the ensemble shrank down to as few as thirty students amid "music-is-better-seen-than-heard" mentalities in music academia, as well as insufficient rehearsal and performance spaces on campus.

The other undergraduate full-orchestra is the Princeton University Sinfonia, which is led by the associate conductor of PUO, Ruth Ochs PhD, and features a less-demanding rehearsal and concert schedule.

Auditions for both orchestras, which are held in early September before Department of Music faculty, are open to all University students, and all returning members are required to re-audition.

All musicians in the Princeton University Orchestra receive discounted music lessons with department faculty in these rooms and are granted access to them for free.