The Slovak Philharmonic
THE SLOVAK PHILHARMONIC was founded in 1949 as the first state symphonic orchestra in Slovakia. Two remarkable, internationally acclaimed personalities were assisting at its birth - Václav Talich and Dr Ľudovít Rajter (1949 – 1976, until 1961 as its artistic director). The other principal conductors that have played their part in the artistic evolution of the orchestra include Tibor Frešo, Ladislav Slovák, Libor Pešek, Vladimir Verbickij, Bystrík Režucha, Aldo Ceccato, and many other guest conductors: Zdeněk Košler, János Ferencsik, Carlo Zecchi, Dmitri Kitayenko, Claudio Abbado, James Conlon, Maris Jansons, Kurt Masur, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Leonard Slatkin, James Judd and others. From 1991 to 2001, Ondrej Lenárd served as Principal Conductor and Music Director of the Slovak Philharmonic. The orchestra has toured Europe, USA and Japan several times, it was invited to major international festivals, made a great number of recordings for OPUS, Supraphon, Panton, Hungaroton, JVC Victor, RCA, Pacific Music, Naxos, Marco Polo etc. It premiered works by Slovak and foreign composers. The principal conductor of The Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra is Vladimír Válek.