Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
On 1 July 1949, Eugen Jochum was chosen as the musical director of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. He built an elite-orchestra, an orchestra of soloists, which in a very short time achieved an international reputation in both classical and romantic areas of music. The orchestra has had two principals since its establishment; one is the public concerts under the musical director and guest conductors, the other is what is called "Musica Viva" founded by Karl Amadeus Hartmann to incorporate contemporary music in the program most often conducted by the composers themselves. With this program, Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud and Paul Hindemith stood at the podium of this orchestra. Richard Strauss is also one of the composers to conduct this orchestra, shortly before his death.
Sir Colin Davis became the music director of this orchestra in 1983. Davis, himself born in England, placed emphasis on the English modern pieces by Edward Elgar, Micheal Tippett and Ralph Vaughan Williams in addition to the Viennese classics and of pieces by Hector Berlioz, and created a new genre of repertoire with the orchestra.
Since the season 1993/1994, Lorin Maazel became the musical director of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. Concert tours under his direction have lead to nearly all of the European countries, North and South America, China, and Japan.
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks has been welcoming the world's top conductors including Riccardo Muti, Carlos Kleiber. Claudio Abbado. Seiji Ozawa, Zubin Metha, Sir Georg Solti, Bemhard Haitink, and Wolfgang Sawallisch. Until his death in 1990, Leonard Bernstein also directed the orchestra regularly.
