The Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (DSO) was highlighted by the renowned national newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung as the “orchestral think tank” among the capital city’s orchestras. It is characterised by the rich dramaturgy of its concert programmes, its commitment to contemporary music and regular discoveries of repertoire, as well as the courage to pursue unusual music presentation formats.

The DSO has provided innovative impulses with international remix competitions, electro projects and collaboration with ensembles on the independent scene. Its moderated Casual Concerts, including Lounge and Live Act, have been successfully building a bridge between club and classical music since 2007; since 2014, it has been bringing amateur musicians together with professionals to form Berlin’s largest spontaneous orchestra, the ‘Symphonic Mob’. In 2020 and 2021, the years of the pandemic, the orchestra attracted attention with extraordinary music films, and in the 2023–24 season with its feminist music policy initiative under the motto “No concert without a female composer!”. Increasing the audibility of works by women composers and inviting publishers as well as performers to expand the repertoire has been an important concern of the DSO.

The DSO was founded as the RIAS Symphony Orchestra in 1946, and was renamed the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin in 1956; it bears its current name since 1993. Ferenc Fricsay, Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Chailly, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Kent Nagano, Ingo Metzmacher and Tugan Sokhiev were the Music Directors in its first seven decades. Since 2017 and until the end of 2024, the Briton Robin Ticciati has been leading the DSO as Music Director.

With its many guest performances, the orchestra is in demand as a cultural ambassador of Berlin and Germany both nationally and internationally, and also has a worldwide presence with numerous award-winning CD recordings.

The Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin is an ensemble of the Rundfunk Orchester und Chöre gGmbH (ROC), which is borne by Deutschlandradio, the Federal Republic of Germany, the State of Berlin and Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg.

www.dso-berlin.de

A gifted child, the Bohemian composer Jaromír Weinberger studied at the Prague Conservatory with Vitězslav Novák and then with Max Reger in Leipzig, pursuing an early career as a conductor and pianist. He wrote music in particular for the theatre and, during a period teaching in America, sought to emulate Dvořák in a planned ‘Union Rhapsody’, a purpose never realised. At home he became briefly director of the opera in Bratislava and director of the Cheb Music School before moving to Prague. Compelled to emigrate after the Anschluss, he returned to America in 1939, settling in Florida where his later depression led to suicide.

Opera

Weinberger’s lasting success was the Czech opera Švanda the Bagpiper, first staged in Prague in 1927, then at the Vienna State Opera in 1930 and at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1931. This folk-opera won wide popularity, being staged in various translations and providing a particularly popular instrumental movement for the concert hall in its Polka and Fugue. His other stage works never achieved the same level of success.