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 multi-award-winning orchestra has been praised for its exceptional, wide-ranging musicianship as well as collaborations with the world’s foremost composers, conductors and soloists.

Permanent home of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra since 1979 is Berwaldhallen, the Swedish Radio’s concert hall. In addition to the audience in the hall, the orchestra reaches many many listeners on the radio and the web and through it´s partnership with EBU. Several concerts are also broadcast and streamed on Berwaldhallen Play and with Swedish Television, offering the audience more opportunities to come as close as possible to one of the world’s top orchestras.

“The orchestra has a unique combination of humility, sensibility and musical imagination”, says Daniel Harding, Music Director 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 founded in 1925, the same year that the Swedish Radio Service began its broadcasts. The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra received its current name in 1967. Through the years, the orchestra has had several distinguished Music Directors. Two of them, Herbert Blomstedt and Esa-Pekka Salonen, have since been appointed Conductors Laureate.

Conductor Ingo Metzmacher has distinguished himself through his innovative programming and profound dedication to twentieth and twenty-first century music; to make the new sound familiar and the familiar sound new has been Metzmacher’s focus since the beginning of his career. Metzmacher is Artistic Director of the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen in Hanover. He was General Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera from 1997 to 2005, Chief Conductor of the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam from 2005 to 2007 and Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin from 2007 to 2010.

Highlights of recent seasons include new productions of operas by Nono, Rihm and Enescu at the Salzburg Festival as well as the world premiere of Staud’s Die Weiden at the Vienna State Opera, new productions of Strauss‘ Salome at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Enescus OEdipe and Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk in Paris and Braunfelds Die Vögel (The Birds) at the Bavarian State Opera. He returned to The Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Wiener Symphoniker and Ensemble Modern among others. As part of the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen he conducted Schoenberg‘s Gurre-Lieder, Goebbels‘ Surrogate Cities, Berlioz‘ Requiem and the world premiere of Andre‘s rwḥ 1–4.

Metzmacher has led productions at many of the great international opera houses including the Berlin and Vienna State Operas, Covent Garden, Teatro Real, La Scala, Opéra de Paris and the Zurich Opera House, and has conducted leading orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Russian National Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Metzmacher’s wide-ranging discography includes live recordings of his legendary New Year’s Eve concerts in Hamburg from 1999 to 2004 entitled Who’s Afraid of 20th Century Music?, a complete recording of Hartmann’s symphonies with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the world premiere of Henze’s Ninth Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic, Messiaen’s Illuminations of the Beyond… with the Vienna Philharmonic. Most recently, he released two recordings with Ensemble Modern: Andre’s cycle riss and Beschenkt – 40 miniatures celebrating the ensembles 40th anniversary.

He is the author of two books: Keine Angst vor neuen Tönen [Don’t Be Afraid of New Sounds] and Vorhang auf! Oper entdecken und erleben [Curtain Up! Discovering and Experiencing Opera].

Julia Kretz-Larsson, violin, has studied with Marianne Boettcher and Thomas Brandis in Berlin and with Josef Suk in Prague. With the Julius Stern Piano Trio, she has won various awards at international competitions. She is a member of the chamber music ensemble Spectrum Concerts Berlin, which has its own concert series in the Berliner Philharmonie Kammermusiksaal and with which she also played in halls such as Carnegie Hall in New York and Concertgebouw Amsterdam. In 2006, Julia Kretz-Larsson became a member of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, led by Claudio Abbado, and since 2008 she has been a member of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, from 2011 as conductor. Julia has been the alternate first concertmaster in the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra since 2015 and is a teacher at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm.Julia has regularly played chamber music concerts with several international artists and has performed at festivals such as the Salzburger Festspiele, the International Chamber Music Festival Utrecht, Julian Rachlin and Friends, Schubertiade, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and the Winter Festival. She has recorded chamber music for, among others, BIS, NAXOS, dB Productions, Harmonia Mundi and has won the music award ” Grammis” for the recording with music by Amanda Maier.