The Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra (German: Nürnberger Symphoniker) is a German orchestra based in Nuremberg.
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The orchestra began in 1946 as the Franconia State Orchestra (Fränkisches Landesorchester). In the early 1950s, the orchestra accrued international acclaim for their recordings of the sound tracks to Quo Vadis and Ben Hur by Miklós Rózsa.
The orchestra took its current name in 1963 for the dedication of the newly built Meistersingerhalle.[1] In 1993, they won a Grammy Award in the category Best Pop Instrumental Performance for the soundtrack of Beauty and the Beast.[2]
Since 2008, the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra has a new rehearsal and concert hall with a seating capacity of 515, the Neuer Musiksaal. During the summer, it also presents an open air concert series in the Serenadenhof, the southern courtyard of the Congress Hall.
Alexander Shelley has been the principal conductor of the orchestra since 2009.
The Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra performs approximately 100 concerts a year to a combined annual audience of more than 180,000.[3] Regular subscription concert series are performed in the Meistersingerhalle for more than 3.000 subscribers.
The Nuremberg Symphony is the festival orchestra of the Heidenheim Opera Festival and frequently records for the Bavarian radio (Bayerischer Rundfunk) as well as numerous CD labels. They perform regularly in Berlin, Milan, Prague and Vienna, and completed their first Japanese tour in October 2009.
The orchestra participates in Europe's largest open air classical music event: Klassik Open Air. Two performances are given two weeks apart, one by the Nuremberg Symphony, the other by the Nuremberg Philharmonic. Each year, these two concerts are visited by an audience of 100,000.[4]