Gewandhausorchester

The Gewandhaus Orchestra can look back today on an over 250 year history starting when a group of Leipzig merchants founded a Concert Society, which, under the name “Grosses Concert” (“Grand Concert”) made music history and brought forth one of the best-known and most renowned musical ensembles world-wide.
Some 70 “Grand Concerts” in Leipzig alone are on the annual schedule of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, which has additionally served for over 200 years as the house orchestra at the Leipzig Opera, on top of which it accompanies the weekly Johann Sebastian Bach cantatas performed by St. Thomas’s Boys Choir at St. Thomas’s Church.
The reputation of the orchestra is reinforced by the masterworks of world music literature that were given their world premières by the Gewandhaus Orchestra: for example, Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto in 1811. His nine symphonies were first performed in a complete cycle during the concert winter of 1825/1826. From 1835 on, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was Gewandhauskapellmeister. Later, Richard Wagner’s “Meistersinger” overture and Johannes Brahms’s Violin Concerto were also given their world premières by the Gewandhaus Orchestra.
The Gewandhaus has always attracted internationally top-ranking composers and performers to the city. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart conducted a concert of his own works here in 1789. At the beginning of the 2005/2006 season, Riccardo Chailly became the 19th Gewandhauskapellmeister und General Music Director of the Leipzig Opera.