Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR

Founded in Stuttgart in 1945, the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR played around 80 concerts per season in Stuttgart and in the broadcasting area of the Südwestrundfunk and produced for SWR radio and television as well as for the recording market; since its founding it has given the first performances of more than 500 works. Hans Müller-Kray and Carl Schuricht were the first conductors to work regularly with the orchestra. Sergiu Celibidache was artistic director from 1972 to 1983, Sir Neville Marriner principal conductor from 1983, Georges Prêtre artistic director from 1996, Sir Roger Norrington from 1998 to 2011 and, from September 2011, Stéphane Denève principal conductor. The repertoire combined the classical and Romantic orchestral tradition with contemporary music and rarely played works. Under Bernhard Kontarsky the orchestra recorded Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s “Musique pour les soupers du Roi Ubu” and “Stille und Umkehr” in the SWR’s radio studio in June and July 2012. With the beginning of the 2016/17 season it was merged with the SWR-Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg to form the newly constituted SWR Symphonieorchester.