The Danish National Symphony Orchestra was founded as a radio orchestra in 1925 in connection with the launch of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR), and consists today of 99 musicians.
The orchestra is based in the DR Concert Hall, one of Europe's most spectacular concert halls, which was inaugurated in 2009. The Concert Hall was designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel and its acoustics were designed by Yasuhisa Toyota. Since September 2012 the orchestra's chief conductor has been the Spanish maestro Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos. Previous chief conductors of the DNSO have included Gerd Albrecht, Ulf Schirmer, Leif Segerstam and Lamberto Gardelli.
The orchestra's two honorary conductors are Thomas Daussgaard (chief conductor 2004-2011) and Herbert Blomstedt (chief conductor 1967-1977). The Danish National Symphony Orchestra's principal guest conductors have included Yuri Temirkanov, Michael Schønwandt and Dmitri Kitajenko.
Two legendary conductors built the orchestra up in the early years: Fritz Busch and the Russian Nicolai Malko, whom the orchestra honours every three years with the international Malko Competition for Young Conductors. The Orchestra has performed under many of the greatest conductors including Bruno Walter, Eugene Ormandy, Leopold Stokowski, Rafael Kubelík, Sergiu Celibidache, Kyrill Kondrashin, Yevgeny Svetlanov, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Christoph Eschenbach and Kurt Sanderling. Furthermore the orchestra has collaborated with composers - as soloists and conductors - such as Stravinsky, Prokofjev, Hindemith, Boulez, Lutoslawski, Stockhausen and Henze.
Other conductors with whom the DNSO has worked regularly over the past years are the late Gary Bertini, the late Giuseppe Sinopoli, Dmitri Kitajenko, Yuri Temirkanov, Sylvain Cambreling, Marek Janowski, John Eliot Gardiner, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Christopher Hogwood, Ton Koopman and Fabio Luisi.
The orchestra's strong, straightforward musical personality has its roots in its close links with Danish and other Nordic music. The Danish National Symphony Orchestra is the leading Carl Nielsen orchestra in the world, and often takes Carl Nielsen's music on tours abroad. Throughout half a century the orchestra's Carl Nielsen recordings have been normative. The leading Scandinavian symphonist of our time, Per Nørgård, has had most of his symphonies premiered by the DNSO. Per Nørgård is moreover the only 'honorary member' of the orchestra.
The Danish National Symphony Orchestra tours both at home and abroad. In recent years the orchestra has performed in China and Korea and has been on tour to Europe's finest concert halls - the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Philharmonia in Berlin and the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris - and has appeared at festivals like The Proms, the Salzburg Festival and Prague Spring. It has recorded innumerable CDs for labels like Decca, EMI, Chandos and Dacapo, and has received awards for recordings from all over the world.
The Danish National Symphony Orchestra gives 70 concerts per year. The weekly Thursday Concerts are a unique concert series that has taken place since 1932. Every week these concerts are broadcast live by Danish Radio and many of these on TV as well. In addition the orchestra works to renew the forms in which classical music is performed for instance with the popular, informal Metro Concerts, which the audience can attend after working hours on their way home.
