The Košice State Philharmonic
The Slovak State Philharmonic Košice was founded in 1968 as the second professional concertant symphony orchestra in Slovakia. The first concert of the newly formed ensemble took place in April 1969 under the direction of the chief conductor Bystrík Režucha. In a short time, the orchestra achieved the recognition of experts and the public and became one of the leading representatives of Slovak performing arts at home and abroad. The orchestra gave concerts at major international music festivals and in important cultural centres (Vienna, Salzburg, Berlin, Budapest, Prague, Antwerp, Madrid, Lisbon, Barcelona, Athens, Reims, Hong-Kong, Luxembourg, New York). In 1994 the orchestra realized a month-long tour of the USA, where it presented itself as the first Slovak symphony orchestra on the American continent. At the turn of 2014/2015, the orchestra completed a tour in the People's Republic of China, which it repeated in 2016 after an extraordinary success.
In addition to various concert activities, the Slovak State Philharmonic Košice presents its art through recordings for radio, television companies and music labels. It has more than 160 CDs to its credit. The orchestra has collaborated with many world-famous artists, such as Igor Oistrakh, Gidon Kremer, Josef Suk, Julia Fischer, Giora Feidman, Ivan Moravec, Xavier de Maistre, Edita Gruberová, Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Sergej Kopčák, Peter Mikuláš, Peter Dvorský and Pavol Bršlík and worked under the direction of great conductors – Viktor Fedotov, Emin Khachaturian, Natan Rakhlin, Thomas Sanderling, Alexander Rahbari, Tadeusz Strugała, Jiří Bělohlávek, Libor Pešek, Václav Smetáček, Antoni Wit, Ľudovít Rajter, Ladislav Slovák, Ondrej Lenárd and others.
The repertoire range of the orchestra includes works from the Baroque to the music of the 21st century. The Slovak State Philharmonic Košice is, as the only orchestra in Slovakia, the organizer of three festivals – the Košice Music Spring, the Ivan Sokol International Organ Festival and the ARS NOVA contemporary music festival.