History of the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra

Founded in 1959 | Penticton, BC

1964 – 1996

The Camplin Era

From community orchestra to professional ensemble

Leonard Camplin was appointed music director and conductor in 1964. His 32-year tenure became one of the longest of any symphony conductor in Canadian history. During that time, the OSO was transformed from a community ensemble into a professional regional orchestra.
The shift from amateur to professional happened gradually. Early in Camplin’s tenure the orchestra engaged a paid concertmaster and began bringing in professional musicians from the Lower Mainland as section reinforcement. A landmark moment came when cellist George Kiraly was appointed artist in residence — the OSO’s first full-time professional musician, funded through a Canada Council grant. His appointment strengthened the string section and helped pave the way for a fully professional orchestra.

The orchestra also joined forces with the CBC Orchestra, led by conductor John Avison, for touring concerts through the valley, and with the Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra for joint concerts that included a performance of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with VSO principal cellist Ernst Friedlander.

Building an Okanagan institution

In 1970 the orchestra dropped the word “Valley” from its name and became the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra. The same year Joycelyn Pritchard of Vernon founded the OSO Symphony Choir, bringing large choral-orchestral works to Okanagan audiences. Repertoire included Handel’s Messiah, Mozart’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Verdi’s Requiem and Mendelssohn’s Elijah, among many others.

Between 1976 and 1977 Camplin also accepted a brief term as the orchestra’s general manager — on the condition, he noted, that he would serve only long enough to accomplish a specific set of goals. He used that period to recruit a core of professional contract musicians — woodwind players, string players and others who would also join the teaching staffs of the valley’s three community music schools — helping transform the orchestra into a professional ensemble.

He organized the Kelowna Women’s Symphony Committee, which went on to raise between $10,000 and $15,000 per year through Victoria Nights dinners, ski-a-thons, golf tournaments and subscription campaigns. He also established the OSO Sinfonia, a chamber orchestra of 14 professional players that toured the region, gave school concerts and candlelight dinner concerts in Kelowna and Penticton, and appeared in CBC Radio and television broadcasts. He then sought and secured the OSO’s first Canada Council operating grant, personally travelling to Ottawa to confirm the funding.

The orchestra grows

The orchestra continued to grow. Kamloops was added as a performance city from 1976 to 1980. In 1982 Salmon Arm took its place, bringing 350 new subscribers. Denis Letourneau was appointed concertmaster in 1978, a position he held for many years. The early 1980s saw five concert series running simultaneously. By the mid-1990s the OSO was presenting 32 subscription concerts in a single season, with more than 100 total services, including school programs, special concerts and Sinfonia tours.

The 1984 Silver Jubilee was a milestone. Founding conductor Willem Bertsch returned to conduct part of the program; three former concertmasters played together in the first violin section; and founding board directors performed in Haydn’s Toy Symphony, conducted by Bertsch. That year, the OSO also received a national award for imaginative programming of contemporary music from the Performing Rights Organization of Canada.

British Columbia and Canadian composers featured regularly on OSO programs, among them Imant Raminsh, whose works appeared almost every season from 1983 onward, as well as Jean Coulthard, Michael Conway Baker, Dale Reubart, Malcolm Forsyth and Ernst Schneider.

In the late 1980s the Okanagan Symphony Youth Orchestra was formed with conductor Imant Raminsh. A five-year run of The Nutcracker, staged in Kelowna from 1989 through 1994, became a seasonal tradition. A CBC television broadcast of an OSO Sinfonia concert was aired nationally. In 1993 OSO musicians voted to join the American Federation of Musicians, formalizing the orchestra’s professional standing under a collective master agreement.

Legacy

Camplin retired after his final concert in May 1996 and was honoured with the title of conductor laureate. The depth of what he had built was reflected in the numbers: 32 subscription concerts and more than 100 services in his final season alone. He died on Oct. 14, 2024. His legacy was further honoured through the establishment of the Leonard Camplin Fund at the Community Foundation of the South Okanagan Similkameen.

1997 – 2005

The Sanford Years

Douglas Sanford joined the OSO as music director and conductor in 1997 and led the orchestra until 2005. His tenure raised the OSO’s professional standards and national profile. Sanford introduced open dress rehearsals and pre-concert lectures in 1998, giving audiences a deeper connection to the repertoire, and established a mentoring program for emerging musicians seeking experience in a professional orchestral setting.

The Sanford years were marked by ambitious programming. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in 2000, Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 in 2001, Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin in 2002 and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in 2003 each represented significant milestones for the orchestra and its audiences.

In 2004 the OSO hosted the National Arts Centre Orchestra in a performance of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, featuring Pinchas Zukerman as both soloist and conductor. A companion educational concert, led by conductor Boris Brott, interpreted Vivaldi through the perspectives of Canadian First Nations communities for school audiences.

The 2005–06 season was organized in part as a music director search, with six candidates — including Pierre Simard and Rosemary Thomson — each conducting audition concerts to allow musicians and audiences to participate in the selection process.

2006 – 2023

The Thomson Era

In 2006–07 the two finalists, Pierre Simard and Rosemary Thomson, shared programming and conducting duties through an extended audition season that gave Okanagan audiences an opportunity to hear both candidates. In March 2007 the Okanagan Symphony Society announced that Thomson — then a conductor with the Calgary Philharmonic — had been selected as music director.

Thomson led the OSO for 16 seasons, the second-longest tenure in its history. She deepened the orchestra’s commitment to choral works and young guest soloists. Notable firsts included the OSO’s first complete performance of Holst’s The Planets in 2009 and a pairing of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Raminsh’s Ad Astra, a new work commissioned by the Canada Council, in 2010. The OSO also recorded their first commercial CD recording under Thomson’s leadership; Canadian Soundscapes was released in 2022.

Growing the OSO Family

Thomson founded the current Okanagan Symphony Chorus in 2010 and brought the Okanagan Symphony Youth Orchestra under the OSO’s organizational umbrella in 2012, co-conducting it with Dennis Colpitts through 2023.

Reaching the community

Her tenure also saw the creation of several community programs that broadened the orchestra’s reach: Symphony Storytime, interactive concerts for toddlers and families; the Middle School Band Clinic; Your Symphony at the Library; and the Okanagan Symphony Youth Chorus.

2024 – Present

A New Chapter

The search for a new music director drew 30 applicants. Four finalists — Nadège Foofat, James Sommerville, Grant Harville and Julian Pellicano — each conducted a Mainstage concert during the 2024–25 season. In June 2025, the OSO announced that Julian Pellicano had been appointed music director.

Pellicano is a conductor with the National Ballet of Canada and previously served as music director of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. He also spent more than a decade as associate conductor of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. He made his debut as OSO music director with Julian Conducts Tchaikovsky, a three-concert series in Kelowna, Penticton and Vernon in February 2026, opening a new chapter in the orchestra’s history.