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

In 1926, Maddy and fellow music educator T. P. Giddings assembled the first National High School Orchestra.

This orchestra included 230 high school 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.

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 so inspired by what they had accomplished in just four days that 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.

On this episode of the Interlochen Collection, we reconstruct that first National High School Orchestra program from 1926 with recordings from Interlochen’s archives and featuring Interlochen alumni and friends.

Read more about this first concert and how it inspired Joe Maddy to found the music camp at Interlochen in the story linked below.

Archival recordings featured in this episode

Georges Bizet, "L'Arlesienne" (incidental music)
Graham T. Overgard conducting the National High School Band
August 15, 1937, Interlochen Bowl

Georges Bizet, "L'Arlesienne" (incidental music)
Alexander Schneider conducting the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra
February 4, 1980, Corson Auditorium

Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony no. 3 "Eroica" (third and fourth movements)
Joe Maddy conducting the Youth Symphony Orchestra
August 15, 1965, Interlochen Bowl

Additional recordings featured in this episode

Giovanni Bolzoni, Minuet
Neeme Järvi conducting the Detroit Symphony Orchestra
Encore!

Franz Schubert, March Militaire
Ludwig van Beethoven, Turkish March
Frederick Fennell conducting the Eastman Rochester Pops Orchestra
Frederick Fennell: Fabulous Marches for Orchestra

The archival recordings heard on this program are available thanks in part to The Association for Recorded Sound Collections' Classical Music Preservation Grant, generous support from IPR listeners and the Hamer D. and Phyllis C. Shafer Foundation.

Lisa Sheppley and Eileen Ganter provided additional research support for this episode.

April 2026 marks 100 years since the concert that gave Joe Maddy "Just an Idea" to start a summer camp for high school musicians.

In April 1926, Joe Maddy assembled 230 high school musicians from 25 states in Detroit. This National High School Orchestra performed in Orchestra Hall, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's music director Ossip Gabrilowitsch conducted some of the pieces.

Maddy was inspired by what the National High School Orchestra 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.

Soon after the National High School Orchestra's first performance, Maddy published an essay titled "Just an Idea," where he laid out his initial idea for a summer music camp that would last eight weeks. 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 April 16, Classical IPR is celebrating "Just an Idea" Day, which marks 100 years since the National High School Orchestra concert that gave Joe Maddy "just an idea" to start an arts camp at Interlochen.

Our friends at Performance Today are joining the "Just an Idea" celebration.

During the first hour of the program on Wednesday, April 15, Performance Today will broadcast the Overture to "Nabucco" by composer Giuseppe Verdi.

The concert recording features musicians of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra performing side by side with Interlochen's World Youth Symphony Orchestra. DSO Music Director Jader Bignamini led the performance.

Listen on Classical IPR at around 10:06 a.m. Episodes are also available on the Performance Today website for 30 days after broadcast.

The performance took place in Kresge Auditorium at Interlochen Center for the Arts in July 2024. Michael Culler engineered the recording.

Classical IPR invites listeners to join a special day of programming titled “Just an Idea,” commemorating the 100th anniversary of the first performance by the National High School Orchestra (NHSO). This historic 1926 event served as the spark for founder Joe Maddy’s vision to create a permanent summer home for young artists at Interlochen.

In April 1926, Joe Maddy assembled 230 high school musicians from 25 states in Detroit. Despite skepticism from established music directors and educators, these students—who had rehearsed together for only four days—delivered a performance that stunned the National Music Supervisors Conference. Inspired by what those students achieved in such a short window, Maddy began to wonder: if they could reach those heights in four days, what could they accomplish with weeks of dedicated study?

“Joe Maddy believed in the limitless potential of young musicians, and this National High School Orchestra performance in 1926 helped him show others what students could accomplish when given the opportunity,” says Amanda Sewell, IPR’s music director. “He, T.P. Giddings and others took the momentum and excitement from that first concert and created the camp at Interlochen, whose legacy endures a century later.”

All day on Classical IPR on April 16, 2026, celebrate “Just an Idea” Day with:

• Historical Retrospectives: Stories of the 1926 rehearsals at the J.L. Hudson Department Store and the journey from the first camp in 1928 to today.
• Archival Music: Selections reflecting the repertoire performed by the original 1926 orchestra, including recordings of student performances from Interlochen’s archives
• The Interlochen Legacy: Features on how Maddy’s belief in the potential of young artists continues to define the Interlochen Arts Group today.

Listeners are encouraged to tune in to celebrate a century of musical ambition, belief in the passion and potential of young artists and Joe Maddy’s “just an idea” that changed the landscape of arts education forever.

Classical IPR's FM signals
88.7 FM, Interlochen
94.7 FM, Traverse City
88.5 FM, Mackinaw City

Use your smart speaker, stream on your smart TV or download IPR's mobile app on your phone or tablet.

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.

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 one 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.

"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.

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)