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
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Martindale Williams around 1979. In 1981, Previn renewed his contract with the symphony orchestra. During this time, Victoria Bond served as affiliate conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra from 1978 to 1980. Bond was the first woman to earn a doctoral degree in orchestral conducting from the Juilliard School and is a prolific composer. While at the Pittsburgh Symphony, she also served as the music director of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony and the New Amsterdam Symphony in New York City. Previn often brought jazz to the concert hall. In February 1977, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Previn made their national