Utopia Orchestra

Utopia is an international festival orchestra, led by the conductor Teodor Currentzis, which brings together outstanding musicians from across the world. It was founded in 2022 and operates independently of other ensembles and institutions in its structure, funding and organization. It is not so much an orchestra in the usual sense of the word, but rather a special creative collective of people brought together by their shared musical ideology and the aim to implement their artistic visions to the highest standards. The orchestra unites musicians from numerous different countries — from Canada to Japan, from France to Venezuela — who come together specifically to create each new programme.

Utopia’s first concerts took place in October 2022, when the orchestra performed works by Stravinsky and Ravel at the Philharmonie Luxembourg, the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, the Vienna Konzerthaus and the Berlin Philharmonie.

Each year Utopia develops four new programmes, which it presents at the most renowned European concert venues and at leading festivals. Works the orchestra has performed to date include Mahler’s Third and Fifth Symphonies, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony, Bach’s St Matthew Passion and Brahms’s Violin Concerto.

In 2023 Utopia made its debut at the Salzburg Festival with Purcell’s The Indian Queen and Mozart’s Mass in C minor. Don Giovanni in a production by Romeo Castellucci and the St Matthew Passion followed in 2024. For the performance of these works Teodor Currentzis formed the Utopia Choir, whose 40 singers come from 14 countries and are members of leading European opera choruses and vocal ensembles.

In 2025 Teodor Currentzis conducted Utopia in Peter Sellars’s new production of Rameau’s Castor et Pollux at the Paris Opéra and in a unique concert for an audience of 14,000 in the ancient theatre of Epidaurus. In the autumn Utopia will perform Ring ohne Worte, after Wagner’s tetralogy, at leading European concert halls. A tour of Mahler’s First Symphony and Berg’s Violin Concerto is planned for May 2026.