11 things you might not know about the Minnesota Orchestra's 110-year history

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Here are 11 things you might not know about the Minnesota Orchestra — one for each of the orchestra's 11 decades.

1. The orchestra was founded as the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. Its first performance was on November 5, 1903 — six weeks before the Wright Brothers' first flight.

2. The orchestra's founder was Emil Oberhoffer, a German immigrant who had great success with the orchestra before leaving the organization in 1922 due to disagreements with the orchestra's management. He died in San Diego in 1933, then returned to Minneapolis for his eternal rest: he's buried in Lakewood Cemetery.

3. Oberhoffer was succeeded by Henri Verbrugghen, a Belgian conductor who was so beloved in his preceding tenure with the New South Wales State Conservatorium that there's a Verbrugghen Street named for him in a suburb of Australia's capital city, Canberra.

4. In the 1930s, orchestra musicians were signed to contracts that committed them to work for a set number of hours each week. Since the musicians thus performed at no cost to the Victor record label, the label was able to splurge on technical quality, making the orchestra's recordings among the era's best.

5. In 1954, the orchestra — under the baton of Antal Dorati — made the first recording of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture to feature actual cannon fire.

6. The orchestra has been conducted by composers including Igor Stravinsky (1966) and Aaron Copland (a 1976 American bicentennial celebration).

7. Orchestra Hall, built in 1974, is actually two separate buildings: the auditorium is separated from the rest of the structure — containing the lobby and administrative offices — to minimize interference with the hall's acoustics.

8. The archives of the Minnesota Orchestra have been stored since 1977 at the University of Minnesota, where they constitute one of the most complete archival records of any American orchestra.

9. The orchestra's annual summer festival, founded in 1980 by Leonard Slatkin, was known as "Viennese Sommerfest" for its first 20 years. It was then renamed "MusicFest" from 2001 to 2002, after which it went back to simply "Sommerfest."

10. Sarah Hicks, the orchestra's current principal conductor of pops and presentations, is a Harvard graduate whose 1993 senior thesis was an oratorio set to writings by people with AIDS.

11. In 2013, Peavey Plaza — the plaza adjacent to Orchestra Hall — was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in recognition of architect M. Paul Friedberg's important modernist design. Initial plans to replace the plaza have now been cancelled; the plaza will instead be renovated to improve its accessibility.