The Grammy Award-winning Minnesota Orchestra, founded in 1903 and led since its centennial by Music Director Osmo Vänskä, is recognized for distinguished performances around the world, award-winning recordings, radio broadcasts, educational engagement programs, and commitment to building the orchestral repertoire of the future. The Orchestra tours regularly throughout Minnesota and nationally, and has toured abroad in Australia, Canada, East Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and South Africa. Recording has been an important part of the organization’s mission since the 1920s. During Vänskä’s tenure, the Orchestra has undertaken acclaimed recordings, including complete cycles of symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven, Jean Sibelius and—now underway—Mahler.

Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård is the current music director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO), a position he took after six seasons as principal guest conductor. Previously, he served as principal conductor of BBC National Orchestra of Wales and as principal conductor and musical advisor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra. Recent highlights of his tenure with the RSNO have included tours to China and the U.S., premieres of new commissions and Wynton Marsalis’ Violin Concerto with Nicola Benedetti. This season, he makes his first visits to the Montreal Symphony and Bergen Philharmonic and returns to many orchestras, among them the Malmö Symphony, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, Royal Danish Academy of Music, Royal Danish Opera (with which he will lead Wagner’s Die Walküre and New Year concerts), London Philharmonic and Danish National Symphony.