The Munich Philharmonic celebrates triumphs at home and abroad. Through its numerous concert tours to the world’s music capitals and great concert halls, the orchestra has made its name as a sought-after ambassador for Munich and has consolidated the Bavarian capital’s reputation as a city of musical excellence.
Its concert tours over past decades have taken the Munich Philharmonic around the globe: it first visited Japan and the then USSR as early as the 1970s. As Germany’s ambassador, the orchestra accompanied the then Chancellor Helmut Kohl to London, Paris, Vienna, Madrid, Milan, South America, the USA, India, Asia and South-east Asia. In the Sergiu Celibidache era, the orchestra was repeatedly called upon to accompany Germany’s Federal Government or President as musical ambassador. Under Celibidache’s baton, it visited many countries in Europe as well as South America and Asia. With James Levine, the Munich Philharmonic undertook extensive concert tours through Europe, gave guest performances at New York’s Carnegie Hall and made its joint debut at the Proms in London. Together with Christian Thielemann, the Munich Philharmonic played a concert for Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican. A highly successful tour under the baton of conductor laureate Zubin Mehta took the orchestra to South America, and with Lorin Maazel, the orchestra undertook extensive concert tours within Europe as well as to the USA and Asia.
With guest conductors such as Semyon Bychkov, Pablo Heras-Casado and Gustavo Dudamel, the Munich Philharmonic has performed in many of Europe’s major concert halls.
Under Valery Gergiev’s direction, it has performed in all of Europe’s major cities as well as several times in New York and Asia, among other engagements inaugurating the spectacular new concert hall in the Chinese metropolis of Nanjing. Also under the baton of Valery Gergiev, it recorded Anton Bruckner’s entire opus of symphonies at St. Florian Monastery for subsequent release on CD and DVD. With a programme to celebrate its 125th anniversary, the orchestra visited Hamburg and Paris, where it performed the three works of Gustav Mahler that were premièred by the Munich Philharmonic: the »Lied von der Erde« and his Symphonies No. 4 and 8.
