The Symphony gave its debut concert on 6 May 1965 at Carnegie Hall, conducted by Benjamin Steinberg, who said of the orchestra: "We have a lot of talent in this city, and we have to create the opportunities to present it to the public".

[1] Ebony magazine pronounced it, "for both artistic and sociological reasons, a major development in the musical history of the United States".

Financial difficulties, caused by the general economic situation and by a delay in receiving $100,000 of scheduled grants led to the rest of the 1971–72 concert season being cancelled.

In 1940, Steinberg had begun to work with conductors Dean Dixon and Everett Lee to establish the first fully integrated professional symphony orchestra in the U.S.

"[4] The series of meetings produced the mission statement for the Symphony of the New World, an orchestral expression of the Civil Rights Movement.

[8] Among the orchestra's original sponsors were Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Paul Creston, Ruby Dee, Langston Hughes, Hershy Kay, Gian Carlo Menotti, Zero Mostel, Ruggiero Ricci, and William Warfield.

[6] A gift of $1000 from the Equitable Life Assurance Society, a grant from the fund of Martha Baird Rockefeller,[9] and many small donations from Black supporters provided the initial backing for the Symphony of the New World.

Soprano Evelyn Mandac sang Francesco Cilea's aria "Iu son l'umile ancella" from his opera, Adriana Lecouvreur and "Depuis le jour" from Louise by Gustave Charpentier.

Under the direction of the noted conductor and music director Benjamin Steinberg, the Symphony consists of 36 Negro and 52 white musicians.

Following its Carnegie Hall debut concert, the Symphony of the New World will repeat its program in Harlem on Sunday afternoon, May 9, at the High School of Music and Art, 135th Street and Convent Avenue.

In May 1964, Mr. Steinberg and a group of 13 prominent musicians organized a founding committee to create a symphony in which the principle of racial integration would find complete expression.

[12]On October 11, 1965, Leonard Bernstein wrote to Donald L. Engle, Director of The Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music.

The success of this project will certainly stimulate more of the same, and may provide us with our first big step out of the unfair and illogical situation in which we now find ourselves with the Negro musician.

Thinking back on her days with the Symphony of the New World, Jones remembers, "The legitimacy of our organization was not acceptable until we had people who were supporting us.

"[11] In 1968, the Symphony of the New World performed the premiere of Address for Orchestra, composed by concert pianist and Smith College professor George Walker, at the High School of Music & Art in Harlem.

[11] In a special concert for Black History Month in 1974, the Symphony premiered Wade Marcus' A Moorish Sonata and also, with Ruggiero Ricci, the 1864 Concerto for Violin and Orchestra by the Cuban composer Joseph White that had been rediscovered by Paul Glass, a professor at Brooklyn College.

[15][16] In a 1969 concert, Mostel occasioned hilarity, including reportedly among the orchestra players, in his conducting debut with Rossini's overture to Semiramide.

"[11] Jazz writer Ed Berger's biography of Joe Wilder also quotes founding member and violist Alfred Brown: "There were some people – not the majority – who had a problem with him.

It said: "It is with sincere regret that we must advise that, due to an internal controversy as well as unforeseen financial difficulties arising from the current general economic situation, the Symphony of the New World is canceling the rest of the 1971–1972 concert season.

Over the following few years, the orchestra persevered with an ambitious series of concerts, making its debut in Washington, D.C., in October 1975[8] and returning to Carnegie Hall as its home base the same month.

In March 1977, a New York Times reviewer praised the performers' "technical security", judging the twelfth season the orchestra's best.

The New York Times Arts and Leisure section lists a Symphony of the New World concert for Sunday, April 9, 1978, and no dates beyond that.

In an article for National Sawdust magazine, he wrote: "In many American cities you’ll find two communities of classical musicians and organizations: one Black and one white.

A focal point in Concert Black is a moment when those two communities came together in New York in the 1960s to form the first professionally integrated orchestra in the country.