Theodore Thomas in 1898
Alfred J. Cox
Wishing a very happy birth anniversary to our founder and first music director, Theodore Thomas, on the occasion of his 191st birthday!
"Thomas managed to be both great and popular — beloved by the public and also held in the highest esteem by intellectuals and fellow musicians. It is safe to say of Thomas something that could scarcely be said of any other conductor, with the possible exception of Leonard Bernstein more than a half century later: The public’s understanding and knowledge of symphonic music in the United States during his lifetime was largely his doing. But of all Thomas’ gifts, perhaps the most profound was his knack for making Americans feel that this art form, largely the product of men who lived in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was our art, its history part of our story."
— excerpt from Passing the Baton: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra
and the Music Directors Who Shaped Its Greatness
by Phillip Huscher, 2026
