The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra is known worldwide as one of Europe’s most versatile orchestras with an exciting and varied repertoire and a constant striving to break new ground. The orchestra’s high-quality music making as well as its collaborations with internationally renowned composers, conductors and soloists have been rewarded with numerous prizes and accolades.

“The orchestra has a unique combination of humility, sensibility and musical imagination”, says Daniel Harding, chief conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra since 2007. “I have never had a concert with the orchestra where they haven’t played as though their lives depended on it!”

The first radio orchestra was formed in 1925, the same year that the Swedish Radio Service began its broadcasts. Since then, the orchestra’s concerts have always been broadcast by the Swedish Radio. The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra received its current name in 1967.

Through the years, the orchestra has had several distinguished chief conductors. Two of them, Herbert Blomstedt and Esa-Pekka Salonen, have since been appointed conductors laureate together with Valery Gergiev, a regular guest conductor and co-founder of the Baltic Sea Festival.

Since autumn 2018, the rising star Klaus Mäkelä has been the first guest conductor for the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He made his debut with the orchestra in September 2017 with Sibelius’s Symphony No. 7. “Every time I am here, the orchestra makes me feel at home”, Mäkelä says. “It’s always a pleasure to perform here. From the very start, there is always a very high standard and it just gets better, which is very inspiring.” In a short time, Mäkelä has had a tremendous impact at home in Finland as well as around Europe. In the autumn of 2017, he made his debut as an opera conductor with The Magic Flute at the Finnish National Opera, where he will soon assist Esa-Pekka Salonen in a production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelunge, which will continue until spring 2021. In the autumn of 2020, he will take up the position as Chief Conductor for the Oslo Philharmonic and he is also Artist in Association at the Tapiola Sinfonietta and Artistic Director of the Turku Music Festival. Mäkelä is also an award-winning cellist who has performed as concert soloist as well as chamber musician, and he plays a Giovanni Grancino from 1698 on loan from the OP Art Foundation.