The Gothenburg Symphony was formed in 1905 and today consists of 109 musicians. The orchestra's base is Göteborgs Konserthus, the funk gem at Götaplatsen that has gathered music lovers since 1935. Since the 2017-2018 season, Santtu-Matias Rouvali has been Chief conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony. Since the 2019-2020 season, Barbara Hannigan is Principal guest conductor. We are also a proud partner of Barbara Hannigan's Equilibrium mentoring program focusing on young singers at the start of their careers.
Wilhelm Stenhammar was the orchestra's chief conductor from 1907 to 1922. He gave the orchestra a strong Nordic profile and invited colleagues Carl Nielsen and Jean Sibelius to the orchestra. Under the direction of conductor Neeme Järvi from 1982-2004, the orchestra made a series of international tours as well as a hundred disc recordings and established themselves among Europe's leading orchestras. In 1996, the Swedish Riksdag appointed the Gothenburg Symphony as Sweden's National Orchestra.
In recent decades, the orchestra has had prominent chief conductors such as Mario Venzago and Gustavo Dudamel, following Kent Nagano as Principal Guest conductor. Anna-Karin Larsson is CEO and artistic director, Gustavo Dudamel honorary conductor and Neeme Järvi chief conductor emeritus. The orchestra's owner is the Västra Götaland Region.
The Gothenburg Symphony works regularly with conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Joana Carneiro, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Christian Zacharias and Anja Bihlmaier.
Since 2017, Santtu-Matias Rouvali is the chief conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. He also has a successful international career as a conductor and has been hailed by The Guardian as "the Finnish conductor tradition's senesta stortade påvning man bara muste lysna på". Since 2021, Santtu-Matias Rouvali is also the chief conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. He has toured with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and pianist Hélène Grimaud in Nordic capitals as well as with pianist Alice Sara Ott and percussionist Martin Grubinger in Germany. The years 2013-2022 Santtu-Matias Rouvali was chief conductor and artistic director of the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra in Finland.
During the 2023-2024 season, Santtu-Matias Rouvali will continue to collaborate with orchestras at the top level throughout Europe and the USA, such as the BBC Proms, the New York Philharmonic and many more. He collaborates with soloists such as Leif Ove Andsnes, Arabella Steinbacher, Nemanja Radulovic, Leonidas Kavakos, Bruce Liu, Alice Sara Ott, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Vadim Gluzman, Randall Goosby and Vilde Frang. With the Gothenburg Symphony, he is recording all of Sibelius' symphonies on disc and so far four albums have been released (Alpha Classics). When he is not conducting, he devotes himself to farming and fishing at his farm outside Tampere.
Pianist Bruce Liu is considered one of the most exciting talents of his generation. According to The Globe and Mail, his first prize win in the 2021 Chopin Competition in Warsaw helped him achieve "rock star status in the world of classical music".
Highlights of the 2023-2024 season include international tours with the Tonhalle-Orchester and Paavo Järvi, with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Santtu-Matias Rouvali, the Warsaw Philharmonic and Andrey Boreyko, and the Munich Chamber Orchestra. In addition, he makes long-awaited debuts with the New York Philharmonic, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Danmark Radio Orchestra, the Gothenburg Symphony and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. He works regularly with prominent conductors such as Gustavo Gimeno, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Gianandrea Noseda, Rafael Payare, Vasily Petrenko, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Lahav Shani and Dalia Stasevska.
Bruce Liu has performed with major orchestras such as the Wiener Symphoniker, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Orchester Philharmonique du Luxemburg, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchester symphonique de Montréal and NHK Symphony Orchestra.
As a soloist, he appears in major concert halls such as Carnegie Hall, Wiener Konzerthaus, BOZAR Brussels and Tokyo Opera City. The 2023-2024 season includes debuts in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philharmonie de Paris, Wigmore Hall, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Kölner Philharmonie and the Chicago Symphony Center.
He has become a regular guest at the Rheingau Musik Festival and has appeared at the La Roque-d'Anthéron Piano Festival, KlavierFestival Ruhr, Edinburgh International, Gstaad Menuhin and the Tanglewood Music Festival.
Liu's long-awaited debut album Waves (Deutsche Grammophon) spans two centuries of French piano music and was released in November 2023. Bruce Liu was born in Paris in 1997, grew up in Montreal, Canada, and studied with Richard Raymond and Dang Thai Son.