Göteborgs Konserthus Spring party with Santtu-Matias Rouvali

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.

Santtu-Matias Rouvali is Chief Conductor of Gothenburg Symphony since 2017, a position that runs until 2025. He also has a successful international conducting career and has been hailed by The Guardian as "the latest great talent of the Finnish conducting tradition that you just have to listen to". He has toured with the Gothenburg Symphony and pianist Hélène Grimaud in Nordic capitals and with pianist Alice Sara Ott and percussionist Martin Grubinger in Germany. In autumn 2023, he guest-performed with the Gothenburg Symphony and the violinist Arabella Steinbacher in Salzburg and Vienna. Concerts in Gothenburg in the 2023-2024 season included music by Boulanger, Saariaho, Tchaikovsky and Beethoven. Santtu-Matias Rouvali also led the Gothenburg Symphony in the European premiere of Julia Wolfe's choral drama Fire in My Mouth as well as sold-out concerts with Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto. Santtu-Matias Rouvali also continued his collaborations with top-level orchestras and concert halls across Europe and the US, including the BBC Proms and the New York Philharmonic. He collaborates with soloists such as Leif Ove Andsnes, Nemanja Radulovic, Leonidas Kavakos, Bruce Liu, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Vadim Gluzman, Randall Goosby and Vilde Frang. Since 2021, Santtu-Matias Rouvali is also Chief Conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. 2013-2023 he was Chief Conductor of the Tampere Symphony Orchestra. Tours with the Gothenburg Symphony in the 2024-2025 season include guest performances in Malmö, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Stuttgart, Prague and Dresden. With the Philharmonia he will visit Helsinki, Tallinn, Japan and Spain. He also makes appearances with the Chicago Symphony and Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. With the Gothenburg Symphony, Santtu-Matias Rouvali released in January 2024 a recording of Sibelius 4a, the fourth album in his Sibelius cycle (Alpha Classics). In April 2024 he released Beethoven's Triple Concerto in a recording with the Philharmonia, Benjamin Grosvenor, Nicola Benedetti and Sheku Kanneh-Mason (Decca). When he is not conducting, he devotes himself to farming and fishing at his farm outside Tampere.