From Interlochen's archives: The first National High School Orchestra

The idea for a national high school orchestra summer camp first came to Joe Maddy following the first performance of the National High School Orchestra.

In 1926, Maddy and T.P. Giddings assembled the first National High School Orchestra (NHSO). This orchestra included 230 high school orchestral musicians from 25 states.

These students met in Detroit and rehearsed for four days. They performed for the national meeting of the members of the Music Supervisors National Conference (later the Music Educators National Conference, today the National Association for Music Education).

Despite skepticism from many of the assembled educators and even the music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the students' performance was a smashing success.

Maddy was inspired by what they had accomplished in just four days. He began to think about what heights young musicians could reach if they were together for a longer period of time.

Like for several weeks at a summer camp, for example.

Music Supervisors National Conference Proceedings 1926 program book

The program and rehearsals

The students in this first National High School Orchestra were assigned a program of repertoire to learn independently and told to arrive in Detroit ready to play. They received strict instructions to come ready and were warned that they would have to try out upon arrival.

The organizers chose repertoire from editions for school orchestras that had been donated by publishers to be used at the conference.

Upon arrival in Detroit on a Sunday morning, all of the young musicians had to audition for the orchestra in front of a committee. (They were all accepted.)

They began rehearsals together on a Monday morning to prepare for their Friday concert. The J. L. Hudson Department Store donated a large auditorium space on an upper floor of their building for the orchestra to rehearse.

The musicians rehearsed diligently every day in preparation for their concert, which took place at 11 a.m. on Friday, April 16, 1926.

The skeptics

Because the conference was being held in Detroit and the National High School Orchestra was going to perform in Orchestra Hall, the conference organizers approached the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and its music director Ossip Gabrilowitsch about opportunities to collaborate. In particular, they wanted Gabrilowitsch to conduct the National High School Orchestra's performance.

Gabrilowitsch was initially resistant, offering only to conduct the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in a performance for the assembled educators. (This Detroit Symphony Orchestra performance did happen on the Wednesday evening of the conference, two days before the National High School Orchestra was scheduled to perform.)

Gabrilowitsch balked at the idea of conducting the high school musicians for their performance, though.

"I have never conducted an amateur ensemble in all my career," he reportedly said. "I can't imagine what agonies I'd have to endure."

Gabrilowitsch tentatively agreed to conduct a small student ensemble of strings only.

When the National High School Symphony Orchestra's rehearsals were underway, Gabrilowitsch sent his assistant Victor Kolar to investigate how these high school musicians sounded. If the rehearsal was a disaster, Gabrilowitsch had planned to create an excuse to get out of conducting the ensemble.

Instead, Kolar is said to have run to Gabrilowitsch's office after hearing just on movement and reported: “A modern miracle! You never heard such spirit.”

The music educators attending the conference were also skeptical about what might happen with this orchestra.

An observer wrote, "When the curtain went up, disclosing some 230 boys and girls, each holding an orchestral instrument, packed almost too closely to play that instrument, many an old timer gasped, dropped his jaw, and gazed open mouthed with eyes bulging, wondering what could possibly happen."

The success

The National High School Orchestra took the stage at 11 a.m. on Friday, April 16, 1926 for their concert.

As one reporter said, “To tell of the final concert is a desecration of the emotions of which packed Orchestra Hall. When Mr. Maddy left the conductor’s stand after conducting the first eight numbers of the program, to give Ossip Gabrilowitsch an opportunity to have the rare privilege of conducting the last three numbers, the audience rose to its feet to pay tribute to the genius of the man who had conceived and carried through such a marvelous thing of beauty.”

Gabrilowitsch himself said of the concert that "the young players were splendidly prepared and full of enthusiasm and eagerness to do their best." He also reported that conducting these musicians was "a great thrill."

He reportedly said that he never would have believed it if he hadn't seen and heard it with his own eyes: "Many were in tears, and everyone recognized that an epoch-making event had taken place."

Perhaps nobody realized how epoch-making this event was than Joe Maddy himself. He started thinking about how he could build on what had begun in Detroit.

Music Supervisors' Journal

"Just an Idea"

Soon after the NHSO's performance at the music educators conference, Maddy published an essay titled "Just an Idea."

The essay's subtitle was "A National Orchestra Summer Camp." In it, Maddy laid out his initial idea for a summer music camp that would last eight weeks.

Invited musicians would rehearse for three to four hours a day and spend the rest of the time swimming, boating and doing other outdoor recreational activities.

Students would receive instruction from "the highest type of instructors" and guest orchestra conductors might include some of the biggest stars of the day like Frederick Stock, Walter Damrosch and, of course, Ossip Gabrilowitsch.

In this essay, Maddy laid the groundwork for what would become the National High School Orchestra and Band Camp (renamed to the National Music Camp in 1932 and to Interlochen Arts Camp in 1991). This camp at Interlochen launched in the summer of 1928.

This first National High School Orchestra performance in 1926 gave Joe Maddy "just an idea" to start the camp that would become Interlochen Center for the Arts.

The Role of Radio

This 1926 National High School performance in Detroit was broadcast on radio.

From his earliest days as a music educator, Joe Maddy saw great value in radio as a medium for sharing classical music education and performances with listeners far and wide.

People were able to hear the NHSO perform live on Detroit's WWJ radio from hundreds of miles away.

That listening audience included people in Tipton, Indiana, about 250 miles southeast of Detroit, who tuned in to hear a local high school musician perform in the orchestra.

Interlochen Center for the Arts archives; Tipton (IN) Daily Tribune (April 16, 1926)

Before there was an Interlochen Center for the Arts, before there was a National Music Camp, before there was a National High School Orchestra Camp, there was radio.

Radio would also be an integral part of Joe Maddy's vision for the National Music Camp, and the first national radio broadcast from the camp happened in its third summer (1930).

Lisa Sheppley, Shelby Eppich and Eileen Ganter provided additional support for this article.

Additional sources (some may be paywalled)
Philip Hash, "The National High School Orchestra 1926-1938" (link)

Edgar B. Gordon, "The First National High School Orchestra" (link)

Henry Root Austin, "History of Broadcasting at the National Music Camp. Interlochen, Michigan, 1929-1958" (print only)

J.E. Maddy, "Just an Idea (A National Orchestra Summer Camp)" (link)

More from Classical IPR

• 
  Animation and devisors: Imagine US tour update with Sydney Kassekert
• 
  Music by Request - February 14 & 15, 2026
• 
  Metropolitan Opera: 'Idomeneo'