During the 2023-2024 season, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra will welcome its new chief conductor, Sir Simon Rattle. As the sixth chief conductor, he follows in a line of distinguished orchestra leaders starting with Eugen Jochum, Rafael Kubelik, Sir Colin Davis, Lorin Maazel and Mariss Jansons, who passed away in December 2019.
The BRSO developed into an internationally renowned orchestra soon after it was founded in 1949. In addition to interpretations of the classical-romantic repertoire, the orchestra’s central concerns from the outset included the cultivation of contemporary music within the framework of musica viva, founded by Karl Amadeus Hartmann in 1945.
Since its beginnings, many renowned guest conductors such as Erich and Carlos Kleiber, Otto Klemperer, Leonard Bernstein, Günter Wand, Georg Solti, Carlo Maria Giulini, Kurt Sanderling and Wolfgang Sawallisch have left their mark on the symphony orchestra. Today, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Riccardo Muti, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Herbert Blomstedt, Franz Welser-Möst, Daniel Harding and Andris Nelsons are important partners.
Tours take the orchestra regularly throughout Europe, to Asia, and to North and South America. Japanese music critics named the BRSO’s concerts under the direction of Zubin Mehta as the best concerts of 2018.
The BRSO’s many CD recordings continue to win national and international awards. In 2006, the BRSO was honored with a Grammy Award for its recording of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13. Most recently, in September 2022, the BRSO was awarded the Edison Klassiek, the oldest music prize in the Netherlands, for its recording of Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem, conducted by Riccardo Muti, together with the Bavarian Radio Choir. In the same month, the recording “Follow me, where are yours?” by Ondrej Adámek (BRSO, Sir Simon Rattle, with Magdalena Kožená) was awarded the Italian Critics’ Prize. In 2023 the BRSO won a Diapason d’Or for its recording of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 with Sir Simon Rattle.
Please note: Biographies are based on information provided to the CSO by the artists or their representatives. More current information may be available on websites of the artists or their management.
