Photo Credit: Robert Cummerow
The musicians of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra (TSO) are thrilled to rejoin ICSOM after over 30 years with the Regional Orchestra Players Association (ROPA). Our return to ICSOM is a milestone in an era of growth for the orchestra.
Led by Music Director Alain Trudel, the TSO presents regular Masterworks (mainstage classical), Pops, Family, and Chamber concert series, as well as various neighborhood and regional concerts around Toledo and throughout Northwest Ohio. The TSO’s main performance venue is the Peristyle Theatre at the Toledo Museum of Art, a Grecian-inspired space that opened in 1933.
The Toledo Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1943 as the Friends of Music, comprised of just twenty-two part-time musicians. The Toledo Orchestra Association was incorporated in 1951 to manage the TSO. Over time, the organization expanded to include music education with the Toledo Symphony School of Music and the Toledo Symphony Youth Orchestras. The TSO was a member of ICSOM from 1977 until 1987, when it joined the then-nascent ROPA. During this first period of membership, ICSOM supported the musicians in bargaining higher pay, expanded service guarantees, and protections against musician non-renewal.
The Toledo Symphony Orchestra’s sixth Music Director, Yuval Zaliouk, who led the orchestra from 1980 to 1989, conducts the orchestra in this archival photo from the 1985–86 season, during the TSO’s previous ICSOM membership.
Photo Credit: Toledo Symphony Orchestra
Recent artistic endeavors of the TSO include a Carnegie Hall performance in 2011 and a complete cycle of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies, completed in 2015. TSO musicians have performed in a series of chamber music marathons, including the complete Shostakovich String Quartets, a Bach Around the Clock 24-hour marathon, and most recently the complete Beethoven String Quartets performed over a single day. In 2024, the TSO celebrated the total solar eclipse that passed over Toledo with The Orchestra’s Guide to the Galaxy, which paired Gustav Holst’s The Planets with a commissioned work from the ADJ•ective Composers’ Collective titled …of the spheres…. This commission was supported by a National Endowment for the Arts grant and the University of Toledo Department of Physics and Astronomy, which consulted with the composers on scientific aspects of the planets to inspire their work.
The Toledo Symphony Orchestra maintains many local and regional community connections, including Young People’s programming for the Toledo Public Schools and other local schools. The TSO has featured many Ohio-native artists, including Jan Dan, Girl Named Tom, and Oliver Hazard, and starting in 2012, the TSO has partnered with Bowling Green State University to hold annual readings of student compositions. Orchestral composers are invited to observe the reading and give masterclasses to the students—past guest composers include Chen Yi and Christopher Theofanidis.
In 2019, the TSO’s managing organization, the Toledo Orchestra Association, merged with the Toledo Ballet to form a new multi-disciplinary arts organization called the Toledo Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA). TAPA administers the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, Toledo Symphony School of Music, Toledo Symphony Youth Orchestras, Toledo Ballet, and, starting in 2024, the Toledo Jazz Orchestra. This year marks the opening of the Toledo Center for Live Arts, a state-of-the-art building which brings TAPA’s administrative and education operations under one roof. Also in 2025, TAPA rebranded with a new name, Live Arts Toledo.
Today, the TSO is an ensemble of 71 professional musicians, represented by the Toledo Federation of Musicians, AFM Local 15-286. Several current and retired musicians of the TSO serve as officers and board members of our Local. Rejoining ICSOM became a shared goal between musicians and management, with eligibility clinched in a historic five-year agreement signed in 2024, with wage increases totaling 40% and expansion of the core complement.
The Toledo Symphony Orchestra peforms under the direction of current Music Director Alain Trudel in the Peristyle Theater during the 2023–2024 season.
Photo Credit: Robert Cummerow
From the Friends of Music to an expansive organization in Live Arts Toledo, the Toledo Symphony Orchestra’s story is one of growth, renewal, and transformation. Returning to ICSOM is powerfully symbolic of the TSO musicians’ own growth as a body of working professionals. We are very grateful to ICSOM for the warm welcome back, and we know ICSOM will be an invaluable resource as we continue forward.
Special thanks to 3rd Horn Emeritus Alan Taplin, Principal Second Violin and Artistic Administrator Merwin Siu, and Marketing Manager Emily McCready for their assistance researching this article.
