The Los Angeles Doctor’s Symphony Orchestra is one of the oldest community orchestras in the United States with its origin in the health professions. It was founded in 1953, by Dr Reuben Straus, and was originally made up of around 35 doctors, dentists, veterinarians, nurses, other medical staff and two doctors’ wives. By the first concert, performed at the old Philharmonic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles in 1954, the membership had increased to over 70 members. In subsequent years the orchestra went from strength to strength, playing to sold-out audiences and hosting guests including Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds and comedian Jerry Lewis.

Over the years, other conductors and guest soloists have included Henri Temianka, Felix Slatkin, Jeffrey Kahane, David Weiss, James Walker, Stephen Prutsman, Tamaki Kawakubo, Elizabeth Pitcairn, Sam Fischer, Rufus Choi and Paul Wiancko.

For many years, the orchestra has done popular concerts in Beverly Hills for the Fourth of July and at other outdoor venues. It has worked with the Nevada State Opera Company, in full productions of Don Giovanni and Carmen. The orchestra feels strongly that its mission includes the performance of new music, and recently has done premieres of works by local composers such as Adrienne Albert, David Avshalomov, Karim Elmahmoudi and Andrew Feazelle.

As the years have passed, medical professionals with musical talents have been harder to find and recruit to the orchestra. In more recent years, the orchestra has broadened its membership to include people from many different professions. In fact, it is now a popular joke that if you are a musician who has ever been to the doctor, you are now qualified to play in the Doctors Symphony! In this respect we consider ourselves a true “community” orchestra. However, many of our members are still in the medical profession and we retain close ties to the medical community frequently by raising funds for medical charities.