The Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1949. Its first concert took place on 16 January 1950, at the Memorial School Auditorium. Jan Wolanek was the first music director of the orchestra, from 1949 to 1958. During the orchestra's history, Olive Short served as its concertmaster, the first female concertmaster in
North America. In the late 1960s, Betty Webster, Marnie Paikin, and Larry Paikin developed a plan, known as "The Hamilton Plan", to bring music to the community from in-school children's concerts to international artists appearing with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. They organized concerts at which all school children in a 60-mile radius of Hamilton centre (excluding Toronto) would hear a brass ensemble, woodwind ensemble, string quartet and percussion ensemble in their school, followed by a trip to the orchestra hall at the end of the school year to hear a full symphony orchestra concert. The ensembles seeding the orchestra were headlined by
Canadian Brass and the Czech String Quartet. The programme was studied by the American Symphony Orchestra League, and
Chuck Mangione engaged the HPO for his Grammy Nominated album
Friends In Love. To carry out the plan,
Boris Brott was hired as music director in 1969. Under his direction, attendance at HPO concerts rose to about 225,000 throughout the early 1970s. Under Brott, the orchestra developed to the point where it could accompany well-known international artists, including Phillipe Entremont and
Maureen Forrester, and began to develop an international reputation. In 1984, Michael Quigley published a book about the orchestra,
A Centenary History of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. However, the change in focus from a community orchestra to a full-time professional orchestra led to financial difficulties, and concert attendance began to recede. James Sommerville was music director of the HPO from 2007 to 2015. In 2015, the HPO named
Gemma New as its music director, the first female conductor to hold the post. The orchestra gave its first performance under her direction in February 2016. New was music director of the HPO through the 2023–2024 season. In October 2023,
James S. Kahane first guest-conducted the HPO. In May 2024, the HPO announced the appointment of Kahane as its next music director, effective with the 2024–2025 season. ==Music directors==