Thread: Local Ensembles

I'm a proud native of Philly(-delphia), so I'm lucky to have the Philadelphia Orchestra as a "house band", as it were. But I recently went to a small recital with a local (northwest Philly) choral group who sung Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with a local orchestra- and it was really good. I was particularly surprised to see a small neighborhood group perform a work of that scale- which made me curious about local groups in other parts of the world.

So, what local groups are in your area (excluding "city orchestras", like the Philly Orc, the Minneapolis Orc, etc) and what kind of repertoire do they perform? Are there good neighborhood opera companies in your area? I'd like to hear about some other local scenes.

Well... even though I'm a 40-something (for a while longer, anyway), I've been in the Philadelphia area for less than a decade. Therefore, if you're Philly-born/raised, you've been around these parts longer than I have! Consequently, you may be more aware of these groups than I am. Still, in my time here, I've noted-
Curtis Institute Orchestra- I saw that Eschenbach put out a recording with them, on Ondine.
Symphony in C (fka Haddonfield [NJ] Symphony Orchestra). A certain statuesque lady once played low-brass in that band, and wound up marrying a certain message-board dilettante.
some wouldn't forgive me if I failed to mention Philly-based Orchestra 2000, an ensemble with the mission of featuring contemporary works.

Casting the net a little wider, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra sometimes plays at the War Memorial in Trenton... and the Delaware Symphony Orchestra is based in Wilmington.

On the college scene, I noticed that Rowan University (Glassboro, NJ) put on Carmen this year... and Opera New Jersey is playing at the venerable McCarter Theatre on the campus of Princeton University.

It's been a long while since I had a handle on the Chicago local scene... but here are some of my memories (don't know which ones still apply):

Musicians of the Lyric Opera orchestra used to play under the name Illinois Philharmonic. I remember they had concerts in the University Park (Governors State University) area.
Of course, the Grant Park Orchestra performed outdoor concerts at the band-shell.
A while back, the Lake Forest Symphony Orchestra and Gutierrez put out a recording of Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto that was esteemed right up there with the 'big boys.'
A little further from the LOOP, I mentioned earlier that the (no-longer-active) Vermeer Quartet had a stint as "Faculty-Artists-in-Residence" at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb (about 1½ hours drive from downtown Chicago).

I've heard many of the groups Chi mentioned... but I think the Philadelphia Bach Festival deserves a mention (even though it is technically an event, not a group). And I might mention the Philadelphia Chinese Opera Society, for the sake of multicultural-ness. There are a couple European opera companies that opera-te out of Mount Airy, but I forget their names. And, in New Jersey, we also have the Sinfonietta Nova.

I'm sure more will come later.