Beethoven Festival Orchestra with Krzysztof Penderecki / Szymon Nehring / Marek Sedivy

Beethoven Festival Orchestra

The Beethoven Festival Orchestra is one of Poland’s leading symphony orchestras of the young generation. It is made up of the most outstanding students and graduates of European higher musical education institutions, including the Academy of Music in Krakow, Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart, Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe, Royal Music Conservatoire in Brussels, Conservatoire International de Musique in Paris, and Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Graz. The ensemble started its activity in 2003, following the success at the 53rd Festival Junger Künstler Bayreuth.

In 2005, on the initiative of Elżbieta Penderecka, the orchestra debuted at the 9th Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival in Warsaw, which resulted in excellent reviews and invitations to prestigious festivals at home and abroad. Since November 2013, by invitation of the BAO artists, the post of the orchestra’s principal conductor has been held by maestro Jacek Kaspszyk.

The orchestra has worked with some of the greatest authorities of the art of conducting, composers and soloist, including Krzysztof Penderecki, Gabriel Chmura, Michał Dworzyński, Wolfgang Seeliger, Andreas Spering, Łukasz Borowicz, Cristiano Vasquez, Michał Klauza, Piotr Sułkowski, Paweł Przytocki, Steven Isserlis, Kaja Danczowska, Krzysztof Jabłoński, Aleksandra Kurzak, Łukasz Długosz, Gautier Capuçon, Małgorzata Walewska, Aleksander Kobrin, Kolja Blacher, Wibi Soerjadi, Thomas Quasthoff, Konstantin Scherbakov, Ingolf Wunder, Christian Lindberg, Oystein Baadsvik, Kevin Kenner, Bartosz Koziak, So-Ock Kim, Edita Gruberova, Iwona Sobotka, Rafał Bartmiński, as well as the winners and participants of the 17th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw: Charles Richard-Hamelin, Szymon Nehring, Dmitry Shishkin, and Krzysztof Książek. These names by all means testimony to the ensemble’s top class.

The BFO has been a regular guest in prestigious concert halls in Europe and overseas such as Alte Oper Frankfurt, Musikverein in Vienna, Great Hall of People in Beijing, Xinhai Concert Hall, Sanat Concert Hall in Istanbul or Konzerthaus in Berlin. The orchestra appears regularly at the Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival, the Polish Music Festival in Moscow, the Last Night of the Proms in Krakow, International Music Festival „Chopin and his Europe”, and the Film Music Festival in Krakow, where in 2014, it had the honour to perform during the 100th anniversary international gala of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). In May 2017, the Beethoven Festival Orchestra has appeared again during the Film Music Festival in Krakow, this time featuring the jubilee gala celebrating the 10th anniversary of the event.