Going Home
Posted on September 19, 2008, by Danielle Lennon
Filed Under Events, Music
The renovations at The Grand Theatre have been done for some time now and a few shows have gone on since it’s reopening. Beauty and the Beast marked the official reopening back in May. I was fortunate enough to be playing in the pit orchestra that night so I witnessed a huge celebration with speakers including the mayor, the architect behind the design and a Sir John A. MacDonald impersonator (really). It was a big deal. Another big deal is happening this weekend. The Kingston Symphony is playing its first concert of the season and its first concert back in The Grand in three years tomorrow night. This is a big deal because the theatre has been home to the KSA for decades.
The roots of the Kingston Symphony go back as far as 1914 when it was known as The Kingston Symphony Orchestra. In the following decades it went through many changes from smaller ensembles to larger ones with varying names. In 1963 the many ensembles, including the Kingston Choral Society , came together to form the Kingston Symphony Association, also known as the KSA.
Before the Association was formed, the group, then known as the Kingston Symphony, gave it’s first performance on April 12 1953 at Grant Hall. Conducted by Graham George , the symphony’s debut concert was a performance of Haydn’s Creation along with the Choral Society. This work was performed again in 2003, also in Grant Hall to commemorate the 50th anniversary. I was lucky enough to be a part of that concert too as was Bob Clark, a violinist in the symphony who was there for the first performance and still plays every concert.
Now, the Grand Theatre is a little older than the symphony. It was first known as The Grand Opera House and was built in 1901-02 on the site of what was Martin’s Opera House before it burnt down in 1898. The Grand opened in 1902 and was bought by Ambrose J. Small, an owner of a chain of theatres. In 1936 he sold it to Famous Players who turned it into a movie house before it was closed down in 1961. After this closure the Kingston Arts Council rallied for its reopening as a civic theatre and mission was accomplished in 1966. The new mandate for the theatre at this time was to accommodate touring shows and to be the home of The Kingston Symphony.
Over the years the Grand and the Symphony have gone hand in hand. Both are very important pieces of Kingston’s cultural history. It is such a wonderful thing for Kingston to have such time pieces still in tact and working - and improving - together. As a member of the KSA I suppose I could be seen as biased but I think it also gives me an honest and thoughtful point of view. I truly believe the symphony gets better and better with every concert and now with the new theatre, well, we’re set for some magical musical moments for sure.
The concert is tomorrow and begins at 8:00pm. It will be an evening of operatic favourites featuring world famous tenor Richard Margison and his friends Joni Henson , Julie Nesrallah , and Bruce Kelly . Although the KSA is extremely grateful to the venues who provided performance space during the renovation (The Kingston Gospel Temple, Sydenham United Church and St. George’s Cathedral), it sure will be nice to come home again.
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By the way, check out our flickr for pics of the theatre during and after renos.
“The Grand opened in 1902 and was bought by Ambrose J. Small, an owner of a chain of theatres. In 1936 he sold it to Famous Players…”
Nope. Ambrose disappeared in 1919. Very famous unsolved case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Small
Cool….unsolved mysteries rock! Nice job with the fact checking. SO I suppose his estate simply sold it off in 1936?
“On December 1, 1919, Ambrose sold all his theatrical holdings, at a profit of $1.7 million CAD. On December 2, Small met with lawyer F. W. M. Flock in Small’s office at the Grand Opera House House. Flock left at 5:30 p.m. and was the last person to see Small alive.”
That’s from Wiki, but another website also states “Ambrose sold his theatres to a company in Montreal”.