The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra is renowned as one of Europe’s most versatile orchestras with a broad and exciting repertoire and a constant drive 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. 

Daniel Harding has been Music Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra since 2007, and also its Artistic Director in 2018.  The orchestra is also proud to have Klaus Mäkelä as its Principal Guest Conductor.  “The orchestra has an incredible humility towards the music and a wonderful feel for musical imagination and inventiveness”, says Daniel Harding.

---

The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra’s permanent home has, since 1979, been Berwaldhallen, the Swedish Radio’s concert hall.  In addition to the audience in the hall, the orchestra reaches many many listeners on Swedish Radio and on the web and through its partnership with the 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.  “I have never had a concert where the orchestra haven’t played as if their lives depended on it!” says Daniel Harding.

The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra has been a vital part of the Baltic Sea Festival since the festival’s inception twenty years ago.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Swedish Radio Symphony was one of the only orchestras in the world which never stopped playing.  Its innovative and creative approach to making music in these dark times helped its public to cope and even made the news itself.  Its original productions when the public was absent included a fully staged Don Giovanni, an art film featuring Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, and a poignant St John Passion, all with world-class soloists, conducted by Daniel Harding and directed by Andrew Staples.   

The orchestra is regularly invited to international festivals and concert halls.  In the 18/19 season, the orchestra undertook a major European tour with Daniel Harding and soloists Janine Jansen, Veronika Eberle and Alina Ibragimova.  The orchestra also gave two concerts at the Anima Mundi Festival in Pisa, one featuring Bruckner’s profound Fifth Symphony and another with Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem with the Swedish Radio Choir.  The orchestra will leave Sweden for a new important European tour in Autumn 2020 with Daniel Harding, Christian Gerhaher, Isabelle Faust and Johanna Wallroth.

Recent highlights of the orchestra’s extensive discography are acclaimed recordings of Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, Mahler’s Fifth and Ninth Symphonies and Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, the latter recorded with the Swedish Radio Choir and soloists Matthias Goerne and Christiane Karg, all with Daniel Harding conducting.

The Swedish Radio is Sweden’s foremost commissioner of new music and it is a fundamental part of the orchestra’s mission to perform works by living composers.  Most recently, these have included Thomas Adès, Sally Beamish, Harrison Birtwistle, Victoria Borisova-Ollas, Tobias Broström, Britta Byström, Anders Hillborg, Molly Kien, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Sven-David Sandström and Jörg Widmann.

The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra engages with new audience by giving concerts through the season with music from popular films and video games, and regularly create ground-breaking projects with prominent jazz, pop and rock artists, often led by Hans Ek.  The orchestra also leads a series of concerts for young people.

The first radio orchestra was founded in 1925, the same year as radio broadcasts began in Sweden and the orchestra’s concerts have been broadcast by Swedish Radio ever since.  The orchestra existed in various incarnations during its first forty years, but it assumed its ultimate form in 1965 under the baton of its first ever Music Director, Sergiu Celibidache.  Two years later, it was officially named the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.  The orchestra has continued to develop under the leadership of eminent conductors, in order, Herbert Blomstedt, Yevgeny Svetlanov, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Manfred Honeck.

Source: Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Born in Oxford, Daniel Harding began his career assisting Sir Simon Rattle at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, with which he made his professional debut in 1994. He went on to assist Claudio Abbado at the Berliner Philharmoniker and made his debut with the orchestra at the 1996 Berlin Festival.

He is the Music and Artistic Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He was Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris from 2016 – 2019 and Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 2007 – 2017. He is honoured with the lifetime title of Conductor Laureate of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. In 2018, Daniel was named Artistic Director of the Anima Mundi Festival. In 2020, he was named Conductor in Residence of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons.

---

He is a regular visitor to the Wiener Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic and the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala. In 2005 he opened the season at La Scala, Milan, conducting a new production of Idomeneo. He returned in 2007 for Salome, in 2008 for a double bill of Bluebeard’s Castle and Il Prigioniero, in 2011 for Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci, for which he was awarded the prestigious Premio della Critica Musicale “Franco Abbiati”, in 2013 for Falstaff, and most recently in 2018 for Fierrabras. He also conducted Ariadne auf Naxos, Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Figaro at the Salzburg Festival with the Wiener Philharmoniker; The Turn of the Screw and Wozzeck at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, Die Zauberflöte at the Wiener Festwochen and Wozzeck at the Theater an der Wien. Closely associated with the Aix-en-Provence Festival, he has conducted new productions of Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, The Turn of the Screw, La Traviata, Eugene Onegin and Le nozze di Figaro.

His recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, Mahler Symphony No. 10 with the Wiener Philharmoniker, and Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra both received widespread critical acclaim. For Virgin/EMI he has recorded Mahler Symphony No. 4 with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Brahms’ Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4 with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen; Billy Budd with the London Symphony Orchestra (winner of a Grammy Award for best opera recording), Don Giovanni and The Turn of the Screw (awarded the “Choc de l'Année 2002”, the “Grand Prix de l'Académie Charles Cros” and a Gramophone award) with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra; works by Lutosławski with Solveig Kringelborn and the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and works by Britten with Ian Bostridge and the Britten Sinfonia (awarded the "Choc de L'Annee 1998”). A regular collaborator with Harmonia Mundi, his latest recordings: ‘The Wagner Project’ with Matthias Goerne; and Mahler Symphony No. 9, recorded with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, were a huge critical success.

The 2021/22 season will see him in concert with Filarmonica della Scala, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchèstre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestre de Paris, Staatskapelle Dresden, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, and RAI Turin. Touring this season will include a summer festivals tour with Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and a European tour with Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. In summer 2022 he will return to Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome, and Sinfonia Grange au Lac in Evian.

In 2002 Daniel was awarded the title Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government and in 2017 nominated to the position Officier Arts et Lettres. In 2012, he was elected a member of The Royal Swedish Academy of Music. He is a qualified airline pilot.

Source: Askonas Holt