Conductor History

The board of directors recruited Canadian Gregory Millar to become the orchestra's first professionally trained conductor. Millar studied violin at the University of California, Berkeley and later performed with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. He returned to the Bay Area and founded the Little Orchestra of San Francisco in 1951, based at the Little Theater in Berkeley from which it regularly broadcasted its concerts live on the nation's first, listener-supported radio station, KPFA. During Millar's time, the quality of the ensemble, its programming, and its soloists improved to such a degree that ticket sales in both Carmel and Salinas doubled his first year on the podium. Millar also guided the creation of the Symphony Guild (now known as the Friends of the Symphony).