räsonanz – Lucerne 2021
Bamberg Symphony
The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra celebrates its 75th birthday in 2021. It was founded in the spring of 1946, when former members of Prague’s German Philharmonic Orchestra
reunited in the historic city on the Regnitz River to form a new orchestra. The first principal conductor was Joseph Keilberth, who led the Bambergers until his death in 1968; he was followed by Eugen Jochum, James Loughran, and Horst Stein; Jonathan Nott took over artistic responsibility in January 2000 for 16 years. Jakub Hrůsa has been at the helm of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra since the 2016-17 season. Alongside him, Herbert Blomstedt and Christoph Eschenbach hold prominent positions as honorary conductors.
In the course of its history, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra has given more than 7,000 concerts in over 60 countries. They have performed at the Salzburg Festival, the Edinburgh Festival, the BBC Proms in London, and New York’s Lincoln Center and have toured to North America, China, Japan, and Taiwan. Hrůsa is building a wide repertoire with the musicians, accentuating Czech composers and hearkening back to the orchestra’s historical roots. Since 2014, the Encore Project has been commissioning contemporary composers to write “popular” pieces. The Bambergers are moreover active supporters of the emerging generation: they have hosted the Mahler Conducting Competition since 2004 and, since 2010, have had an in-house orchestra academy. The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra has earned numerous awards for its recordings; in 2020, it received the Bavarian State Prize for Music.
July 2021