rehearsal orchestra (the)
London
The Rehearsal Orchestra was founded — as the Edinburgh Rehearsal Orchestra (ERO)
— at the Edinburgh International Festival in 1957. Harry Legge, a viola-player
in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra working with such legendary conductors as
Beecham, Rodzinski, Gui, Giulini and Klemperer, had regularly enjoyed the RPO's
visits to the Festival and noticed the number of players about during the day
waiting for evening concerts. To ‘keep them out of the rain’ he came up with the
brilliant idea of forming a rehearsal orchestra to enable them to study the
major works they would then hear performed by major orchestras in the evenings!