About SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg

The Southwest German Radio (SWR) Symphony Orchestra in Baden-Baden and Freiburg always makes room for new artistic impulses, guests, and musical works, both in its broadcasting area and on tour through the important concert halls throughout the world.

The orchestra has been closely associated with the Donaueschingen Music Festival since its re-establishment in 1950. More than 400 compositions have been premiered there by the orchestra, and it has made history with works by Hans Werner Henze, Bernd Alois Zimmer mann, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Olivier Messiaen, Helmut Lachenmann, and Wolf gang Rihm. Both in Donaueschingen and abroad, the SWR Symphony Orchestra has become an essential partner for contemporary composers.

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The orchestra stands “at the center of European culture” – as its longtime chief conductor Sylvain Cambreling put it – not only for performances of New Music. Since it was founded in 1946, it has been a magnet for internationally renowned conductors and soloists and has functioned as a musical ambassador both in Germany and abroad. The orchestra has recorded more than 600 works drawn from the repertoire of three centuries.

Animating these diverse activities were and are the distinguished chief conductors who have led the orchestra: Hans Rosbaud, Ernest Bour, Michael Gielen, Sylvain Cambreling, and – since the closing concert of the 2011 Donaueschingen Music Festival – François-Xavier Roth. They directed and formed an orchestra which over a period of six decades has achieved a unique degree of flexibility and mastery. In 2013, the orchestra was honored with the Certificate of Special Merit of the German Music Critics’ Award for its lifetime achievement in New Music, and in 2014, the orchestra was awarded the ECHO Klassik prize for ist recording of Hans Zender’s “Logos-Fragmente”.