Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra

The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra (TSO) is a symphony orchestra based in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. It is the smallest of the six orchestras established by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra was established in 1948, and gave its first concert on 25 May in the Hobart Town Hall, under the baton of Joseph Post. The soloist was the Tasmanian-born pianist Eileen Joyce, who performed the Piano Concerto in A minor by Edvard Grieg. From 1973 to 1998 its home was the ABC Odeon, a renovated former cinema built in 1916 as a replica of New York's Strand Theater. It has now moved to the Federation Concert Hall. In 1998, a 50th anniversary concert was held in the original venue, the Town Hall, under its then chief conductor David Porcelijn. The TSO was the first Australian orchestra to have its own radio program, "Journey into Melody", which was broadcast weekly from 1956 to 1969. By the late 1960s, there were far more subscribers per head of the state population in 144) than in any of the other capital-city based ABC orchestras. In 1995, when funding cuts threatened to downsize the orchestra from 47 players, a petition was launched by the Friends of the TSO that gathered 35,000 signatures, the largest petition in Tasmanian history.