Our History

The Kings Symphony Orchestra was initiated by Mr. Van Lowe, a Hanford businessman with a love for classical music. One day while he was cleaning one of his businesses, a laundromat, he overheard two ladies speaking with a British accent. He discovered that the ladies were originally from England and that the husband of one of them, Mr. Hutchinson, had been a bandmaster in England. Through contacts in the Kings County Office of Education and the City of Hanford, the orchestra was formed and then incorporated in 1963.

The orchestra has grown in size and includes musicians from Kings, Tulare, Merced and Kern counties. Over the years the orchestra has developed a high level of musicianship due to the skills of the orchestra members and the guest soloists under the guidance of talented conductors such as Dr. Colleen Snyder, Leonard Ingrande, Tom Fritz, & Jeffrey Fritz.