The Louisville Civic Orchestra is Louisville's premier volunteer community orchestra. Founded in 1915 as the Young Men's Hebrew Association Orchestra, the LCO has been a part of Louisville history for over 100 years. Throughout its century-long history, the LCO has had many notable achievements. In 1931, the LCO (then the Louisville Civic Symphony Orchestra) gave the Louisville premiere of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. In 1937, a faction of the orchestra's musicians spun off a professional group under Robert Whitney, a group that would go on to become today's Louisville Orchestra.

Today, the Louisville Civic Orchestra exists to provide an outlet for local musicians of all skill and experience levels to join together and celebrate the great symphonic repertoire, all while providing five free concerts to the public annually. The 65-piece orchestra rehearses on the campus of Bellarmine University, our Organizational Sponsor, and performs at Bellarmine's Cralle Threater and at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Butchertown.

Since all LCO concerts are free to the public, we rely on the generosity of our individual donors to help us fund our concert programming. All of our musicians, conductors, and administrative personnel are volunteers, which means that the most of your donation directly funds LCO concerts. We will use the funds from your donations to purchase and rent music, hire professional guest artists and soloists, and purchase needed equipment such as music stands, percussion instruments, and other equipment.