In 1825, Manuel Garcia, a Spanish tenor, came to New York with his family of singers, including his daughter, who afterwards became the famous Mme. Malibran. He gave _The Barber of Seville_ and ten other Italian operas which were a revelation to the new world. They called Garcia the “Musical Columbus.” After this, New York was never without some opera venture. One company followed another, and although the people seemed to enjoy the novelty for a while, they never gave it whole-souled patronage. The first opera written (1845) by an American was _Leonora_ by William H. Fry (1813–1864). It was performed in Philadelphia, and thirteen years later in New York. It was in the Balfe and Donizetti style. He composed symphonies and wrote for the New York _Tribune_ on musical subjects, and did much to make people realize the benefit of music. In 1855 George Bristow composed the second American opera, _Rip Van Winkle_. He and Fry started a crusade against the German musicians who had come over to America after the revolution of 1848, fearing that they would extinguish the feeble American flame of composing. ORCHESTRAS The father of American orchestras was a German oboe player, Gottlieb Graupner. When Haydn went to London to direct the largest orchestra formed, up to that time, Graupner played with him. Graupner went to Boston (1799), and at once formed the first American orchestra. About the same time in New York, a society called the “Euterpian” was founded; it gave one concert a year for thirty years! From 1820 to 1857 there was in Philadelphia, a “Musical Fund Society”; its object was to improve musical taste and to help needy musicians. It gave the first performance in America of Beethoven’s _First Symphony_, as well as choral works. In Boston the last concert of the Philharmonic Orchestra as Graupner’s band was called, took place in 1824, and another more important orchestra was formed sixteen years later. Before the Boston Symphony came, an orchestra was given to the city by the Harvard Musical Association. It was controlled by a group of people brought up on Handel, Haydn and Beethoven, who would not permit their idols to be replaced by such anarchists as Berlioz and Wagner! Many of the young foreign orchestral players wanted the new works by the “anarchists,” so they seceded from the Harvard Musical Association and called themselves the Philharmonic Society. As there were not enough people interested in classical music to support two orchestras they were soon replaced by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which was put on a permanent basis by Colonel Henry L. Higginson, who founded it and supported it during his lifetime. Georg Henschel conducted the first concert in 1881, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra has always been one of the greatest musical institutions in America. The conductors have been Wilhelm Gericke, Arthur Nikisch, Max Fiedler, Karl Muck, Henri Rabaud, Pierre Monteux, and Serge Koussevitzky.