The Beethoven Orchester Bonn is the driving force of music life in the city of Bonn. The orchestra performs more than 70 concerts and participates in around 100 nights at the municipal opera house each year. Our mission is the ongoing quest for young fiery spirit in the city of Beethoven’s birthplace – and spreading this spirit around the people.
Since the beginning of the 2017/18 season, the orchestra has begun a new chapter as conductor Dirk Kaftan has assumed the post of the general music director. Along with the musicians, he intends to discover soundscapes on the highest artistic level – whether the music is 300 years old, was composed in Beethoven’s era or is contemporary music, regardless if the music originates from cultures which require traveling around the globe or wandering through unexplored territory. Our primary objective is to fasten the orchestra in the hearts and the souls of the people of Bonn and far beyond the boundaries of the city and the region.
Exceptional concert projects like the Bonner Hofkapelle, the work with international artists like Vadim Gluzman, Martin Grubinger or Lucienne Renaudin and diverse awarded recordings such as the opera Der Golem by
Eugen d’Albert and Maurice Ravels Daphnis et Chloé as well as Franz Schreker’s “Irrelohe” or the recently awarded CD with Dirk Kaftan dedicated to Egmont by Ludwig van Beethoven (OPUS KLASSIK 2020) have testified the outstanding artistic work of the orchestra up to the present day. The dedication to the orchestra’s educational program for young people (OpenPhil or b+) and interculturall projects with Brings or the Nouruz-Ensemble has been cheered by the audience.
The history of the Beethoven Orchester Bonn goes back to the year of 1907, when Beethoven’s birth place received its own orchestra once again, after the former court orchestra had been closed back in 1794. Prominent conductors such as Richard Strauss, Max Reger, Volker Wangenheim, Dennis
Russell Davies, and Kurt Masur have established the orchestra as one of the most renowned sym-phonic ensembles of its kind in Germany. Over the past few years, the Swiss conductor Stefan Blunier (2008 – 2016) and Christof Perick (2016 – 2017) have lead the orchestra and determined its artistic fate.
Tours around Europe, North America, Japan, and China have helped carrying the excellent reputation of the Beethoven Orchester Bonn into the world.
On February 27, 2021, Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), appointed the Beethoven Orchester Bonn as a „United Nations Climate Change Goodwill Ambassador“ at the Deutsche Telekom AG Group Headquarters in Bonn. The orchestra sees the award as an opportunity to take responsibility for the United Nations‘ Agenda 2030, with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals to promote peace and protect our planet.
Mikhail Ovrutsky
N. N.
Artur Chermonov
Jaehyeong Lee
Mugurel Markos
Irakli Tsadaia
Wolfram Lehnert
Theresia Veale
Veronica Wehling
Sonja Wiedebusch
Irina Rohde
Daniele Di Renzo
Alexander Lifland
Susanne Salbego
Ieva Andreeva
Hitoshi Ooka
Victoria Gusachenko
Mladen Drenic
Anna Putnikova
N. N.
Maria Geißler
Melanie Torres-Meißner
Keunah Park
Dorothea Stepp
Kristina Nukii
Beate Ochs
Astrida Steinate
Mechthild Bozzetti
Vivien Wald
Stefanie Brewing
Mareike Neumann
Pedro de Vasconcelos Barreto
Naoki Yamaguchi
Teresa Simone
N. N.
Ulrich Hartmann
Susanne Roehrig
Anna Krimm
Christian Fischer
Martin Wandel
Engin Lössl
Michael Bergen
Susanne Dürmeyer
Christine Kinder
Thomas Plümacher
Johannes Weeth
Ji Eun Yang
N. N.
Grigory Alumyan
N. N.
Markus Rundel
Se-Eun Hyun
Markus Fassbender
Benjamin Hönle-Marttunen
Johannes Rapp
Caroline Steiner
Ines Altmann
Lena Ovrutsky-Wignjosaputro
N. N.
Róbert Grondžel
N. N.
Maren Rabien
Andreas Marner
Harry Anderwaldt
Peter Cender
Frank Geuer
Daniel López Giménez
Lucas Spagnolo
Mariska van der Sande
Eva Maria Thiébaud
Julia Bremm
Ursula Grote
Gunde Hamraths
Keita Yamamoto
N. N.
Susanne van Zoelen-Lucker
Volker Kriegsmann
Hans-Joachim Mohrmann
Amelie Bertlwieser
Henry Paulus
Florian Gyßling
Matthias Schuler
Benedikt Seel
Thomas Ludes
Henning Groscurth
Raymund Otten
N. N.
Gillian Williams
Geoffrey Winter
Daniel Lohmüller
Stephanie Davis
Rohan Richards
Thomas Kletti
Charles Putnam
Gregor Leczkowski
Bernd Fritz
José Real Cintero
Alfred Spliesgar
N. N.
Hans-Peter Bausch
Oliver Meißner
Gerhard Lederer
Rudolf Wedel
Nándor Németi
Christoph Schneider
Johanna Welsch
Markus Knoben
Hermann-Josef Tillmann
Camillo Anderwaldt
Peter Hänsch
*in representation
Rohan Richards
Mechthild Bozzetti
Mareike Neumann
Gillian Williams
Theresia Veale