The Luzerner Sinfonieorchester
is the resident orchestra at the prestigious KKL Luzern. As Switzerland’s oldest symphony orchestra, it has achieved international standing and is considered one of the leading Swiss orchestras.

Strongly anchored in Lucerne, a city with a worldwide reputation for music, the orchestra runs a number of concert series and initiated the annual piano festival “Le piano symphonique” in 2022. It also acts as the opera orchestra of the Lucerne Theatre. Michael Sanderling has held the post of Chief Conductor of the orchestra since the 2021/22 season.

Renowned chief conductors including James Gaffigan (2010 – 2021) and Jonathan Nott (1997 – 2002) have shaped the ensemble over the last two decades. Big names such as Constantinos Carydis, Thomas Dausgaard, Charles Dutoit, Marek Janowski, Juanjo Mena, Andris Nelsons and John Storgårds are regular guest conductors of the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester. Many artists of international repute enjoy a close association with the orchestra including Martha Argerich, Joshua Bell, Rudolf Buchbinder, Gautier and Renaud Capuçon, Julia Fischer, Vilde Frang, Gil Shaham, Vadim Gluzman, Hélène Grimaud, Steven Isserlis, Sol Gabetta, Truls Mørk, Daniil Trifonov and Krystian Zimerman.

The Luzerner Sinfonieorchester was founded in 1805/06, at the same time as Beethoven was writing his Violin Concerto, his Fourth Symphony and his Fourth Piano Concerto. With its 200-year history, the orchestra successfully combines tradition and innovation. It actively promotes new music through the commissioning of works from composers including Sofia Gubaidulina, Dieter Ammann, Rodion Shchedrin, Thomas Adès and Wolfgang Rihm. The Rising Stars series, lunchtime concerts and the Arthur Waser Prize signal the orchestra’s commitment to fostering young talent. It runs its own orchestra academy and a comprehensive outreach programme, for which it was awarded the “Junge Ohren” prize in 2018.

In 2021 the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester was able to move into its new home on the Südpol campus. The Orchestra House provides the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester with a state of the art, full-scale rehearsal venue. Besides rehearsals – some of which are open to the public – chamber music concerts and numerous music outreach events also take place at this location.

Guest performances in around 30 countries on 4 continents and in 90 cities have taken the orchestra to the world’s best-known concert halls, such as Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Philharmonie de Paris, London’s Barbican Hall, St. Petersburg Philharmonie, Salzburg Great Festival Hall, Vienna Musikverein, Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, Seoul Arts Center and Suntory Hall in Tokyo. The Luzerner Sinfonieorchester was the first Swiss orchestra to perform at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, the Festival de Pâques in Aix-en-Provence and the Bologna Festival. Regular tours to Asia include destinations such as Japan, China, Korea, India and Singapore. Further engagements have taken the orchestra to Germany, Israel, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and also further afield to Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Uruguay. The 2022/23 season brings notable debuts for the orchestra, including the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.

The international profile of the orchestra is reflected in its output of CDs and DVDs. The most recent releases are “Americans” on the French label Harmonia Mundi, and the much acclaimed recording of two violin concertos by Beethoven and Schnittke for BIS Records. Sony Classical has released albums including “Rachmaninoff in Lucerne” and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Further recordings with works by Saint-Saëns and Dutilleux (German Record Critics’ Award), Dvořák‘s Sixth Symphony (Top Music Recording 2014, New York Times) and Wolfgang Rihm’s symphony “Nähe Fern” have received awards from Harmonia Mundi. A DVD was released by Accentus Music with Martha Argerich and works by Shchedrin, Dvořák and Shostakovich.

In 2021 the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester sealed a long term partnership with Warner Classics.

The international promotion of the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester receives its principal funding from the Michael and Emmy Lou Pieper Trust.

Michael Sanderling
has been Chief Conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra since the beginning of the 2021/22 season. The appointment follows many years of successful collaboration and is based on the shared goal of further developing the orchestra toward the late-Romantic repertoire of works by Bruckner, Mahler, and Strauss.

Guest engagements have taken Michael Sanderling to leading orchestras worldwide. In recent seasons, he has performed with the Berlin Philharmonic, the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, the SWR Symphony Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the NHK Symphony Orchestra, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He enjoys a particularly close and regular collaboration with the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig and the Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin.

In addition to his commitments in Lucerne, he will be accepted into the 2021/22 season by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the Frankfurt Museumsorchester, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, and the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, among others. He will make his US debut with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. From 2011 to 2019, Michael Sanderling was Chief Conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic. During this time, he established the orchestra as one of Germany's leading ensembles, leading it in a variety of concert formats in Dresden as well as on numerous tours at home and abroad. Recordings of the complete symphonies by Beethoven and Shostakovich for Sony Classical document this special collaboration. Michael Sanderling's first principal position was with the Kammerakademie Potsdam, where he served as Artistic Director from 2006 to 2011.

Michael Sanderling's discography includes recordings of important works by Dvořák, Schumann, Prokofiev, and Tchaikovsky, as well as the complete symphonies of Beethoven and Shostakovich. A recent recording of piano works by Hummel, Weber, and Mendelssohn with Matthias Kirschnereit and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra was released on Berlin Classics.

As an opera conductor, he has appeared, among other things, in a new production of Sergei Prokofiev's War and Peace at the Cologne Opera.

At the age of 20, in 1987, Michael Sanderling became principal cellist of the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig under Kurt Masur. From 1994 to 2006, he held the same position with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. Michael Sanderling is a passionate supporter of the younger generation of musicians. He teaches at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Frankfurt am Main and regularly collaborates with the German Federal Youth Orchestra, the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra. Together with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, he will continue and intensify his collaboration with the Lucerne University of Music.