The SWR Symphony Orchestra has its artistic home in the Liederhalle Stuttgart and the Konzerthaus Freiburg. Formed in September 2016 from the merger of the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart and the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg, its artistic profile includes interpretative approaches from historically informed performance practice, the classical-romantic core repertoire and contemporary music in equal measure. From 2018 to 2024, Teodor Currentzis was at the helm of the symphony orchestra as chief conductor. François-Xavier Roth will take over this position from the 2025/2026 season.

Annual fixtures in the SWR Symphony Orchestra’s concert calendar include SWR’s own concert series in Stuttgart, Freiburg and Mannheim as well as performances at the Donaueschingen Music Festival and the Schwetzingen SWR Festival. Since 2020, the SWR Symphony Orchestra has been the resident orchestra of the Whitsun Festival at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. Invitations regularly take the orchestra to the Salzburg Festival, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt, Dortmund, Essen, Vienna, Edinburgh, London, Barcelona, Madrid and Warsaw.

Internationally sought-after conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Peter Eötvös, Christoph Eschenbach, Pablo Heras-Casado, Manfred Honeck, Jakub Hrůša, Eliahu Inbal, Ingo Metzmacher, Kent Nagano, Sir Roger Norrington, Jonathan Nott, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Michael Sanderling and Giedrė Šlekytė have worked with the SWR Symphony Orchestra. Among the high-calibre soloists are Yulianna Avdeeva, Renaud Capuçon, Martin Grubinger, Isabelle Faust, Vilde Frang, Hilary Hahn, Janine Jansen, Alexandre Kantorow, Sabine Meyer, Fazil Say, Gil Shaham, Antoine Tamestit and Anna Vinnitskaya. From September 2024, the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja joined the SWR Symphonieorchester as Artistic partner for two seasons.

With its extensive music education programme, the orchestra reaches around 15,000 children, young people and adults in the SWR broadcasting area every year. Numerous live broadcasts on SWR Kultur and concert streams on SWR.de/so enable many music lovers around the world to take part in the symphony orchestra’s concerts.

Since 2024, the SWR Symphony Orchestra has been an official partner of La Maestra, the most important international competition for young female conductors.