SWR Symphonieorchester

The SWR Symphony Orchestra was formed in September 2016 from the merger of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra and the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg. The orchestra‘s homes are two major German concert halls: the Liederhalle Stuttgart and the Konzerthaus Freiburg. Its artistic profile combines various interpretive elements, including historically informed performance practice, the Classical-Romantic core repertory and contemporary music. Teodor Currentzis, one of the world’s most renowned conductors, has been chief conductor of the SWR Symphony Orchestra since the beginning of the 2018/19 season. François-Xavier Roth will take over this position from the 2025/26 season.

Annual fixtures in the SWR Symphony Orchestra’s concert calendar include its own series in Stuttgart, Freiburg and Mannheim, as well as appearances at the Donaueschingen Music Festival and the Schwetzingen SWR Festival. The SWR Symphony Orchestra has been the resident orchestra at the Baden-Baden Whitsun Festival since 2020 and is regularly invited to appear at the Salzburg Festival, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Konzerthaus in Vienna and the Philharmonie in Cologne. The SWR Symphony Orchestra has made guest appearances in cities such as Berlin, London, Frankfurt, Madrid, Dortmund, Salzburg, Essen, Edinburgh, Barcelona and Warsaw.

Internationally sought-after conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Peter Eötvös, Christoph Eschenbach, Jakub Hrůša, Eliahu Inbal, Ingo Metzmacher, Kent Nagano, Roger Norrington, Michael Sanderling, Pablo Heras-Casado, Jonathan Nott, Dima Slobodeniouk and David Zinman have worked with the SWR Symphony Orchestra. Among various leading soloists, the Orchestra’s artists in residence include Gil Shaham, Antoine Tamestit, Nicolas Altstaedt, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Vadym Kholodenko and Martin Grubinger, as well as many other celebrated guests such as Hilary Hahn, Sabine Meyer, Julia Fischer, Yulianna Avdeeva, Renaud Capuçon, Anna Vinnitskaya, Janine Jansen, Mischa Maisky, Vilde Frang and Fazıl Say.

The SWR Symphony Orchestra reaches around 15,000 children, young people and adults every year through its wide range of music education programmes. Music lovers around the world can also experience the Orchestra’s concert recordings via the SWR2 radio programme and the SWRClassic.de web portal