Tanglewood Festival Chorus performing in Boston, New York and Tanglewood. In 1970, John Oliver proposed to the management of the Boston Symphony Orchestra that he would create a permanent chorus for the orchestra, which had relied on various area choruses for much of its history. In Oliver's words, "To my utter amazement now--I wasn't amazed then, because I was just a brash young man--they said, 'Go! Form a chorus.'" The TFC's first concert was a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at Symphony Hall in April 1970 when Leonard Bernstein substituted for William Steinberg who had fallen ill. Bernstein had been engaged to conduct
Iceland Symphony Orchestra his Symphony no. 16 includes motifs from Icelandic folk melodies he considered the ISO an ideal performer for the piece. Jón Leifs is the single composer whose works have been recorded most often by the ISO, spanning twelve albums in all. The first major work was "The Saga Symphony", recorded in 1975 and conducted by Jussi Jalas. Jalas had conducted the orchestra several times in concert and served as its first-ever guest conductor on 27 June 1950. "The Saga Symphony" was recorded again in 1996 and conducted by Osmo Vänska. Between 1996 and 2002 the orchestra recorded many of Leifs’