Here you can find almost anything about all the concerts Gothenburg Symphony has played over the years, both in the Concert Hall and on tour.
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Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Symphony No 7
Half Viennese classicist, half romantic, but mostly Beethoven. That's how we're used to seeing him, but he had other sides as well. In both the 6th and 7th symphonies, the folklorist Beethoven appears. In the former he depicts dancing peasants (third movement), and in the seventh symphony he delivers a finale built around a folk dance. Of course, in Beethoven's artful and powerful arrangement - he is incredibly driving, thrusting with weight and force into the chords at an accelerating pace. This restless, rhythmic rondo is one of his most explosive creations.
The symphony opens slowly, with upward movements (fast versus slow) contrasted with a pretty, dancing trio. Note Beethoven's orchestral dramaturgy as he strips away the score from the full orchestra until only a flute and an oboe remain.
Then the main theme takes over, heralding the 9th Symphony's An die Freude. In the thematic development work, one can often discern the struggle of the lonely against the many, a constantly recurring theme in Beethoven's music.
The well-known allegretto in movement two is definitely the symphony's pièce de résistance. This variation movement must have seemed like a very strange animal in Beethoven's time: an evocative passacaglia with a rhythmic figure - one long, two short, two long - pulsating throughout the movement. Above this, Beethoven weaves and develops new parts that increase in strength and scope and then thin out and tone down. The swells are crowned by a couple of solid climaxes. This is Bach and the future at once, the innovative polyphony that would blossom fully in the late string quartets and piano sonatas.
The third movement is a scherzo to everything but the name – never have boisterous male laughter (the low strings) and female laughter cascades (the woodwind) been depicted so vividly as here. Beethoven also achieves unusual harmonic effects when he lets the trumpets lie on pedal notes above (reversed!) the melody in the rest of the orchestra.
The symphony was first performed on 8 December 1813 together with the almost farcical commissioned work Wellington's Victory, including crevados, cannons and a fugato on God save the King. There is no doubt as to which work is the better.
Participants
The Gothenburg Symphony was formed in 1905 and today consists of 109 musicians. The orchestra's base is Gothenburg Concert Hall at Götaplatsen that has gathered music lovers since 1935. 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. The title Principal Guest Conductor is shared by Pekka Kuusisto from 2025.
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 Santtu-Matias Rouvali, 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.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Symphony No 7
Half Viennese classicist, half romantic, but mostly Beethoven. That's how we're used to seeing him, but he had other sides as well. In both the 6th and 7th symphonies, the folklorist Beethoven appears. In the former he depicts dancing peasants (third movement), and in the seventh symphony he delivers a finale built around a folk dance. Of course, in Beethoven's artful and powerful arrangement - he is incredibly driving, thrusting with weight and force into the chords at an accelerating pace. This restless, rhythmic rondo is one of his most explosive creations.
The symphony opens slowly, with upward movements (fast versus slow) contrasted with a pretty, dancing trio. Note Beethoven's orchestral dramaturgy as he strips away the score from the full orchestra until only a flute and an oboe remain.
Then the main theme takes over, heralding the 9th Symphony's An die Freude. In the thematic development work, one can often discern the struggle of the lonely against the many, a constantly recurring theme in Beethoven's music.
The well-known allegretto in movement two is definitely the symphony's pièce de résistance. This variation movement must have seemed like a very strange animal in Beethoven's time: an evocative passacaglia with a rhythmic figure - one long, two short, two long - pulsating throughout the movement. Above this, Beethoven weaves and develops new parts that increase in strength and scope and then thin out and tone down. The swells are crowned by a couple of solid climaxes. This is Bach and the future at once, the innovative polyphony that would blossom fully in the late string quartets and piano sonatas.
The third movement is a scherzo to everything but the name – never have boisterous male laughter (the low strings) and female laughter cascades (the woodwind) been depicted so vividly as here. Beethoven also achieves unusual harmonic effects when he lets the trumpets lie on pedal notes above (reversed!) the melody in the rest of the orchestra.
The symphony was first performed on 8 December 1813 together with the almost farcical commissioned work Wellington's Victory, including crevados, cannons and a fugato on God save the King. There is no doubt as to which work is the better.
Participants
The Gothenburg Symphony was formed in 1905 and today consists of 109 musicians. The orchestra's base is Gothenburg Concert Hall at Götaplatsen that has gathered music lovers since 1935. 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. The title Principal Guest Conductor is shared by Pekka Kuusisto from 2025.
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 Santtu-Matias Rouvali, 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.
At the beginning of 1786, Mozart worked most intensively on the opera buffa The Marriage of Figaro. But as always, the work was interrupted now and then by other commissions and by other works that were begging to be written down. Mozart himself probably premiered his 24th piano concerto on April 7 at the Burgtheater in Vienna. After this very personal and open-hearted music, he was able to return to the comedy in Figaro and complete the opera without further interruptions.
The main theme in the first movement is presented in unison in the orchestra and is allowed to play the role of a kind of chorus throughout the movement. When the piano enters, it takes up another theme, which nevertheless shows a certain kinship. Mozart had only used this method once before, and that was in the Piano Concerto in D minor, No. 20. He did not write any more concertos in minor! This first movement is more symphonic than concertante, and the orchestra is the largest that Mozart prescribed in both concerto and symphony contexts. To this challenge, the easy larghetto stands out as a bright contrast, even if the attentive listener notices the tears behind the smile.
The Gothenburg Symphony was formed in 1905 and today consists of 109 musicians. The orchestra's base is Gothenburg Concert Hall at Götaplatsen that has gathered music lovers since 1935. 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. The title Principal Guest Conductor is shared by Pekka Kuusisto from 2025.
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 Santtu-Matias Rouvali, 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.
In fact, this is Dvorák's second cello concerto. The first in A major (1865) was a youthful work that he never orchestrated. He filled his new concerto with an overwhelming romanticism, not only through the expressive use of the solo instrument, but also the colorful orchestral palette in which the winds play a major role.
The concerto is dedicated to his friend Hanuš Wihan, cellist of the Czech Quartet, who wanted to make some changes at the end. Dvorák wrote to the publisher: "I must insist that the work be printed as I wrote it!" Wihan took offense and entrusted the premiere in London on March 19, 1896 to Leo Stern.
Over time, Dvorák reconciled with Wihan and they often performed the concerto together. The reason why Dvorák did not want to change anything in the final movement was purely personal. Returning to Bohemia, he had been reached by the news that a dear sister-in-law had died. He remembered that he had quoted one of her favorite melodies in Four Songs, and he now also included parts of the song in the coda.
To emphasize the importance of the work, the cello concerto has sometimes been called "Dvorák's tenth symphony". And Brahms asked himself: "Why on earth did I not know that such a cello concerto could be written?" The musically mature and magnificent concerto is a real test of mastery for the soloist.
The Gothenburg Symphony was formed in 1905 and today consists of 109 musicians. The orchestra's base is Gothenburg Concert Hall at Götaplatsen that has gathered music lovers since 1935. 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. The title Principal Guest Conductor is shared by Pekka Kuusisto from 2025.
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 Santtu-Matias Rouvali, 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.
In fact, this is Dvorák's second cello concerto. The first in A major (1865) was a youthful work that he never orchestrated. He filled his new concerto with an overwhelming romanticism, not only through the expressive use of the solo instrument, but also the colorful orchestral palette in which the winds play a major role.
The concerto is dedicated to his friend Hanuš Wihan, cellist of the Czech Quartet, who wanted to make some changes at the end. Dvorák wrote to the publisher: "I must insist that the work be printed as I wrote it!" Wihan took offense and entrusted the premiere in London on March 19, 1896 to Leo Stern.
Over time, Dvorák reconciled with Wihan and they often performed the concerto together. The reason why Dvorák did not want to change anything in the final movement was purely personal. Returning to Bohemia, he had been reached by the news that a dear sister-in-law had died. He remembered that he had quoted one of her favorite melodies in Four Songs, and he now also included parts of the song in the coda.
To emphasize the importance of the work, the cello concerto has sometimes been called "Dvorák's tenth symphony". And Brahms asked himself: "Why on earth did I not know that such a cello concerto could be written?" The musically mature and magnificent concerto is a real test of mastery for the soloist.
The Gothenburg Symphony was formed in 1905 and today consists of 109 musicians. The orchestra's base is Gothenburg Concert Hall at Götaplatsen that has gathered music lovers since 1935. 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. The title Principal Guest Conductor is shared by Pekka Kuusisto from 2025.
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 Santtu-Matias Rouvali, 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.
Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967)
Galántai táncok
Ancient Hungarian peasant music, still unchanged in the villages, began to be recorded by Zoltán Kodály and Bartók around 1905. Both composers were captivated by the unique Romani verbunkos music. In the small Slovak town of Galánta, fifty kilometers from Bratislava, next to the train line between Vienna and Budapest, there was a famous Romani music chapel that gave Kodály his earliest taste for orchestral sound.
Dances from Galánta were written in 1933 for the 80th anniversary of the Budapest Philharmonic. The instrumentation for double flutes (plus piccolo), oboes, A-clarinets, bassoons, plus four horns, timpani, snare drum, glockenspiel, triangle and strings imitated such a verbunkos band with a solo clarinet in the lead role as the Romani tárogáto. The story goes that the Galánta pieces were originally composed during Hungary's struggle for independence under Turkish occupation. Verbunkos music began to be published in sheet music in the late 18th century, not least in Vienna, where both Mozart and Schubert were strongly influenced by it. Kodály uses the slow verbunkos introduction as a rondo theme in the following four dances as well as in the great final coda. It alone takes up more than half the length of the piece.
As a respected professor at the Budapest Academy of Music and president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and later an honorary doctor in Oxford and Berlin, Kodály would promote the importance of spontaneous folk music. This liberal orientation also permeated key earlier works such as the Háry János Suite of 1927 and the Dances from Marosszék of 1933, both of which, along with the Galánta Dances, were his most frequently performed works.
Participants
The Gothenburg Symphony was formed in 1905 and today consists of 109 musicians. The orchestra's base is Gothenburg Concert Hall at Götaplatsen that has gathered music lovers since 1935. 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. The title Principal Guest Conductor is shared by Pekka Kuusisto from 2025.
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 Santtu-Matias Rouvali, 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.
Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967)
Galántai táncok
Ancient Hungarian peasant music, still unchanged in the villages, began to be recorded by Zoltán Kodály and Bartók around 1905. Both composers were captivated by the unique Romani verbunkos music. In the small Slovak town of Galánta, fifty kilometers from Bratislava, next to the train line between Vienna and Budapest, there was a famous Romani music chapel that gave Kodály his earliest taste for orchestral sound.
Dances from Galánta were written in 1933 for the 80th anniversary of the Budapest Philharmonic. The instrumentation for double flutes (plus piccolo), oboes, A-clarinets, bassoons, plus four horns, timpani, snare drum, glockenspiel, triangle and strings imitated such a verbunkos band with a solo clarinet in the lead role as the Romani tárogáto. The story goes that the Galánta pieces were originally composed during Hungary's struggle for independence under Turkish occupation. Verbunkos music began to be published in sheet music in the late 18th century, not least in Vienna, where both Mozart and Schubert were strongly influenced by it. Kodály uses the slow verbunkos introduction as a rondo theme in the following four dances as well as in the great final coda. It alone takes up more than half the length of the piece.
As a respected professor at the Budapest Academy of Music and president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and later an honorary doctor in Oxford and Berlin, Kodály would promote the importance of spontaneous folk music. This liberal orientation also permeated key earlier works such as the Háry János Suite of 1927 and the Dances from Marosszék of 1933, both of which, along with the Galánta Dances, were his most frequently performed works.
Participants
The Gothenburg Symphony was formed in 1905 and today consists of 109 musicians. The orchestra's base is Gothenburg Concert Hall at Götaplatsen that has gathered music lovers since 1935. 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. The title Principal Guest Conductor is shared by Pekka Kuusisto from 2025.
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 Santtu-Matias Rouvali, 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.
The Gothenburg Symphony was formed in 1905 and today consists of 109 musicians. The orchestra's base is Gothenburg Concert Hall at Götaplatsen that has gathered music lovers since 1935. 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. The title Principal Guest Conductor is shared by Pekka Kuusisto from 2025.
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 Santtu-Matias Rouvali, 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.
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Symphony No. 5 D. 485
No great composer received as little international attention during his lifetime as Schubert. When he died, aged 31, he was practically unknown outside Vienna, and in Vienna he was best known for his songs. Schubert's vocal singing style is also found in his instrumental compositions.
Franz Schubert's Fifth Symphony, without trumpets and timpani, is a youthful masterpiece – written when he was 19. The work carries a lightness, elegance and luminosity. Mozart had been dead for 25 years and his music was more popular than ever. For a young composer, Mozart was the model to emulate. Symphony No. 5 is a chamber symphonic gem in which every instrument is allowed to breathe. Parts of the melody echo in the lower instruments as accompaniment, a technique that can be heard throughout the symphony's four movements. The opening Allegro movement bubbles with energy, and the finale after the minuet sparkles with playful brilliance. The slow second movement is perhaps the most original. The singable melodies (cantilenas) carry an operatic calm. The duet between violins and woodwinds has a dreamy sharpness.
A couple of months before the work was completed (1816), Schubert wrote in his diary: "O Mozart, immortal Mozart! What countless impressions, of a brighter and better life, you have stamped on our souls."
The Gothenburg Symphony was formed in 1905 and today consists of 109 musicians. The orchestra's base is Gothenburg Concert Hall at Götaplatsen that has gathered music lovers since 1935. 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. The title Principal Guest Conductor is shared by Pekka Kuusisto from 2025.
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 Santtu-Matias Rouvali, 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.
The Gothenburg Symphony was formed in 1905 and today consists of 109 musicians. The orchestra's base is Gothenburg Concert Hall at Götaplatsen that has gathered music lovers since 1935. 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. The title Principal Guest Conductor is shared by Pekka Kuusisto from 2025.
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 Santtu-Matias Rouvali, 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.