Both the Fargo-Moorhead and the Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestras are celebrating 75th anniversaries this season. I guess 1931 and '32 were banner years for making music across state lines.
The coincidence made me curious. Do our other "regional" orchestras date from that same time? Well, basic Web research tells me the South Dakota Symphony is about a decade older. And the Rochester Symphony was founded a little earlier than that, in 1919. (For the record, the Minneapolis Symphony gave its first concert in 1903.)
So we're not left to wonder about some kind of seismic shift in the Upper Midwest's symphonic landscape during the early 1930s. Still, it's remarkable enough that the Twin Ports and Fargo-Moorhead had the faith and gumption to get these organizations going just a couple of years into the Great Depression.
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