Music
Weston Gales
1877–1939 · conductor, organist
Boston church organist hired in 1914 as the first music director of the refounded Detroit Symphony Orchestra, which he led until 1917–1918.
- Born
Elizabeth, New Jersey- Died
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
aged 61- Detroit years
- 1914–1918
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Detroit had had a symphony orchestra since 1887, but it folded in 1910. In 1914 ten society women each put up $100 and pledged to find a hundred more subscribers to start it again, and they hired Weston Gales, a church organist from Boston, as conductor. Gales had studied composition with Horatio Parker at Yale and organ in New York and with Charles-Marie Widor and Louis Vierne in Paris. On February 26, 1914, he led the first concert of the refounded orchestra at the Detroit Opera House on Campus Martius. He built the ensemble over three seasons, laying the ground for the arrival of Ossip Gabrilowitsch in 1918, who turned it into a major orchestra with its own hall. Gales later became associate conductor of the New York State Symphony and worked as a coach at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany.
Highlights
- First music director of the refounded DSO, 1914–1917
- Led its first concert on February 26, 1914, at the Detroit Opera House
- Hired by ten Detroit women who revived the orchestra
- Studied organ with Widor and Vierne in Paris
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Performed here · 1914–1917
Detroit Opera House (Campus Martius)
Demolished · 1869–1966
The downtown opera house (rebuilt 1898 after a fire) where Gales led the revived orchestra's first concert on February 26, 1914; demolished in 1966, the site is now One Campus Martius.