City in Wisconsin, USA. Even before incorporation as a city in 1846, the community had a Beethoven Society (established 1843) performing choral and orchestral concerts of music by Haydn, Rossini and others. The Milwaukee Musical Society was founded in 1850 with Hans Balatka as its first conductor; the following year they gave the first complete oratorio in the city, Haydn's Creation, and later they mounted opera productions.
During the next half century the city developed into the musical centre of the northern part of the American Midwest, due to the presence of a large German immigrant population who fostered appreciation of the arts. Milwaukee saw the American premières of Lortzing's Zar und Zimmermann and Waffenschmied (1853) and the world première of Mohega, die Blume des Waldes (1859) by the local composer Eduard Sobolewski (a pupil of Weber), and many early performances and American premières of music by Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Wagner. During the 1899 tour by the Metropolitan Opera Company, Milwaukee was one of only five cities to hear a complete Wagner Ring cycle. The only Polish opera company in the country was located in Milwaukee and presented the American première of Moniuszko's Halka in Polish in 1924.
By 1870 there were 14 music publishers, over a dozen private music teachers, and acoustically excellent halls where international performers were heard, including Vieuxtemps, Thalberg, Jenny Lind and Ole Bull. Concert halls include the Pabst Theater (cap. 1820), the Fine Arts Recital Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (cap. 334), Alverno College Auditorium and the hall at Wisconsin Lutheran College. Choral music was represented by 49 separate groups by the end of the century, of which several, notably the Arion Musical Club (founded 1876) and the Milwaukee Liederkranz (1878), are still active. John Singenberger, who emigrated from Regensburg, introduced Renaissance polyphony to the local Roman Catholic population through his involvement in the Cecilian movement. Christopher Bach (1835–1927) composed more than 350 works and had considerable musical influence for over 30 years, during which time he introduced a wide assortment of operatic and symphonic music through concerts in the city parks.
Although efforts to form a Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra date back to 1892, the Milwaukee SO as a full-time professional group was officially established in 1958. It plays a 44-week season and has become one of the leading orchestras in the USA, with Uihlein Hall (cap. 2331) at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, constructed in 1969, as its home. Conductors have been Harry John Brown, Kenneth Schermerhorn, Lukas Foss, Zdeněk Mácal and Andreas Delfs; there is an affiliated symphony chorus. Other local orchestral groups are the Festival City SO, founded in 1922 as the Milwaukee Civic Orchestra, and the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra (founded 1974). Early Music Now and the Historical Keyboard Society present historically informed performances of music from before 1800. The Florentine Opera Company (founded 1933 by John Anello sr) and Skylight Opera (started 1960), both professional companies, give excellent presentations of both traditional and modern repertory, the former group using the Milwaukee SO.
The first school for music instruction was established in 1874, and by the end of the 19th century six such schools had been founded, the most prominent of which was the Luening Conservatory (founded 1888 by Eugene Luening, father of Otto Luening), which merged with Wisconsin College of Music in 1899 and later became the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music (a conservatory with this name had already existed, 1878–91). The School of Fine Arts of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee was founded in 1962 and offers undergraduate and postgraduate music degrees. In 1963 the Fine Arts Quartet of Chicago was appointed quartet-in-residence, and in 1983 the Institute of Chamber Music was founded. Undergraduate music instruction is also offered at Alverno College and Cardinal Stritch College.
The folksingers Mailton Lobell (b 1854) and Dan Tanner (b 1865) are frequently mentioned in contemporary accounts, and around the turn of the century the city became an important centre for the mandolin orchestra movement. Christopher Bach wrote many polkas, marches, quicksteps and galops in a popular style, and Charles K. Harris, the composer of hundreds of popular parlour songs, moved to the city around 1883 as a banjo teacher and songwriter.
R.A. Koss: Milwaukee (Milwaukee, 1871) [in Ger.]
H.L. Conard, ed.: History of Milwaukee from its First Settlement to the Year 1895 (Chicago, 1895)
O. Burkhardt: Der Musikverein von Milwaukee 1850–1900 (Milwaukee, 1900)
J.G. Gregory: History of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Chicago, 1931)
J.J. Schlicher: ‘Hans Balatka and the Milwaukee Musical Society’, ‘The Milwaukee Musical Society in Time of Stress’, Wisconsin Magazine of History, xxvii (1943–4), 40–55, 178–93
T. Schleiss: Opera in Milwaukee, 1850–1900 (diss., U. of Wisconsin, Madison, 1974)
A.A. Suppan: A Climate of Creativity (Milwaukee, 1979)
A.B. Reagan: Art Music in Milwaukee in the Late Nineteenth Century, 1860–1900 (diss., U. of Wisconsin, Madison, 1980)
P. Ruppa: The Mandolin in America and the History of Mandolin Orchestras in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (thesis, U. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, 1988)
FRANKLIN S. MILLER