NDR Radiophilharmonie

As an innovative symphony orchestra that combines high artistic quality with exceptional programme diversity, the NDR Radiophilharmonie enjoys a national and international reputation. Experienced in the fields of classical-romantic symphonic music, early music and opera, the NDR Radiophilharmonie also succeeds in appealing to a broad audience with new concert ideas and venues, attracting new listeners and setting contemporary accents in cultural life. A particular focus is on developing concert formats that arouse the audience's curiosity in a variety of ways. The orchestra is also intensively dedicated to its young audience. The "Discover Music!" education programme offers children and young people specially designed concerts as well as a wide range of music education and hands-on activities. In total, the NDR Radiophilharmonie performs around 100 concerts per season, almost all of which are broadcast on NDR and are available to listen to online worldwide.

The NDR Radiophilharmonie, which was founded in Hanover in 1950 and whose home venue is the Large broadcasting hall of the NDR Landesfunkhaus Niedersachsen, has worked with renowned names on the music scene such as András Schiff, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Midori, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Philippe Jaroussky and Christoph Eschenbach. There have been long-standing collaborations with Frank Peter Zimmermann, Igor Levit, Maurice Steger and Christian Tetzlaff, as well as in the crossover field with artists such as the King's Singers, Brad Mehldau and Johannes Oerding. Over the past 20 years, the NDR Radiophilharmonie has secured its place among the leading symphony orchestras with its chief conductors Eiji Oue, Eivind Gullberg Jensen and Andrew Manze. Concert tours have taken the orchestra to Asia and South America, among other places, and it has repeatedly performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the Vienna Musikverein and the Grosses Festspielhaus Salzburg, while the intensive collaboration with Andrew Manze as chief conductor from 2014 to 2023 in particular has had a decisive artistic impact on the NDR Radiophilharmonie and caused a sensation and great resonance in international music life. In addition, a number of CDs have been produced, some of which have been honoured with prestigious awards, such as the recording of the Mendelssohn symphonies, which won the 2017 German Record Critics' Award.

From the 2024/25 season, Stanislav Kochanovsky will take over the position of Chief Conductor of the NDR Radiophilharmonie. The Russian conductor is one of the most interesting musical personalities of the younger generation. Stanislav Kochanovsky can already be heard several times with the NDR Radiophilharmonie in the 2023/24 season: in March 2024 at concerts in the Large broadcasting hall of the NDR Landesfunkhaus Niedersachsen in Hanover and before that in the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg as part of the NDR festival "Kosmos Bartók" and at other joint guest appearances in the NDR broadcasting area.

For the first time, the NDR Radiophilharmonie has also appointed a Principal Guest Conductor: Jörg Widmann will take over this position with the orchestra from the 2023/24 season. As one of the most sought-after composers and conductors of our time, he will curate and conduct a number of programmes at the NDR Radiophilharmonie over the next three years. In his concerts, he will combine works from the 18th and 19th centuries with his own and other contemporary compositions, shedding light on the orchestra's familiar core repertoire from a contemporary perspective.