An orchestra performed for two seasons at the Paramount Theater, including a gala concert in May 1940 featuring Lily Pons.

The orchestra began formally three years later as the "Friends of Music", giving its first concert on September 28, 1943, at Macomber Vocational High School; Edgar Schenkman was its first conductor, leading 22 musicians in a three-concert season.

He returned to the podium again in April 2017 with Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, and in June 2017, the orchestra announced the appointment of Trudel as its next Music Director, effective with the 2018-2019 season, with an initial contract of 3 years.

Although only an abridged score was permitted outside Russia at that time, more and more of the score would be released over time, and Toledo Ballet continued to grow its production, so that, to this day, the company holds the record for the longest consecutively running production of this famous work in the nation.

In 2007 Toledo Ballet moved to expanded studio space at Franklin Park Mall, and alumna Lisa Mayer-Lang was appointed school director.

After decades-long collaboration, notably on the Nutcracker, the symphony orchestra and ballet company realized more synergies in 2017, in marketing and ticketing.