Orchestra of a new world

With a history steeped in tradition, the courage to take its own stance and an enduring joy of discovery, the Wiener Symphoniker are the beating heart of the classical metropolis of Vienna. For more than 120 years, the orchestra has been shaping and moulding the unique sound culture of its home city, managing to combine the past, present and future like no other. In 2025, the Wiener Symphoniker will celebrate their 125th anniversary.

It is no coincidence that the orchestra was born in 1900: the fresh wind of Viennese modernism blew around this new orchestra, which faced the challenges of life in the 20th century with confidence and vision.

This initially included a confident approach to its own past – the Wiener Symphoniker were the first orchestra in the Austrian capital to present all of Beethoven’s symphonies in one cycle. However, the pioneering spirit of the Wiener Symphoniker is also evident in the fact that they quickly became one of the most important premiere orchestras in Europe. Milestones in music history, such as Anton Bruckner’s 9th Symphony, Arnold Schönberg’s Gurre-Lieder, Maurice Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand and Franz Schmidt’s The Book with Seven Seals, were performed by the symphony orchestra for the first time: Concerts that paved the way for completely new worlds of sound and made them accessible to the masses. To this day, the Wiener Symphoniker attach great importance to collaborations with contemporary composers such as Olga Neuwirth, Wolfgang Rihm, HK Gruber, Thomas Larcher, Johannes Maria Staud, Michael Jarrell, Guillaume Connesson, Dieter Ammann and Jörg Widmann, and are one of the most important driving forces behind contemporary music, both in Vienna and internationally. Among the chief conductors of the past 120 years – including Wilhelm Furtwängler, Hans Swarowsky, Herbert von Karajan, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Georges Prêtre – there are also numerous visionaries who have had a lasting influence on the future of the global classical music scene.

For all their desire for progress, the Wiener Symphoniker have always been characterised by their extraordinary down-to-earth attitude and closeness to the audience. With the so-called “volksthümlichen Konzerten” in Vienna’s Volksgarten and the legendary Workers’ Symphony Concerts, they ensured from the very beginning that classical music was no longer withheld from a narrow elite. Today, the orchestra performs at unusual venues in all of Vienna’s neighbourhoods as part of the Grätzl Concerts, meets the Viennese at the Beisl Concerts in their traditional pubs and conquers new venues in the city. In the open air, in the centre of the vibrant city and with low-threshold access – this is how the Wiener Symphoniker present themselves at the Prater Picnic.

On the last day of school before the summer holidays, the orchestra delights all Viennese with a large open-air concert against the backdrop of the Giant Ferris Wheel. During Advent, the Wiener Symphoniker play pre-Christmas music from all over the world in the Christian heart of the city, St Stephen’s Cathedral. As Vienna’s official cultural ambassadors, the Wiener Symphoniker also like to showcase the unmistakable sound of their homeland outside their own city walls, and so they have long been welcome guests in major international concert halls. As Orchestra in Residence at the Bregenz Festival, the Wiener Symphoniker have also been delighting a colourful mix of opera audiences for many decades.

Petr Popelka

Chief Conductor Wiener Symphoniker
Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra

Petr Popelka has established himself as one of the most beloved and in demand conductors of his generation. He will become Chief Conductor of the Wiener Symphoniker with the 2024/2025 season and is currently Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. He previously held the position as Chief Conductor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra in Oslo.

From the 2023/2024 season, Popelka will, as Chief Conductor Designate, lead the Wiener Symphoniker in a new production of Weinberger’s Schwanda the Bagpiper at the MusikTheater an der Wien, in addition to joining the orchestra for multiple concerts in Vienna and on two European tours. Debuts in 2023/2024 include a production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Zurich Opera House, Gewandhausorchester, Munich Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de France and Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse. He also returns to the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Danish National Symphony Orchestra and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, among many other reinvitations.

Previous highlights include engagements with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, SWR Symphony Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Frankfurt Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, to name a few. He has also led the annual ORF TV concert “Spring in Vienna” and the ZDF Advent concert in Dresden. His new productions of Shostakovich’s opera The Nose at the Dresden Semperoper and Strauss’s Elektra at the Oslo Opera were received to critical acclaim.

Petr Popelka received his musical education both in his hometown of Prague as well as in Freiburg. Between 2010 and 2019, he was deputy principal double bass of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden. Alongside his conducting, he is an avid composer.

www.petrpopelka.com