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Gothenburg (Göteborg), Sweden's second-largest city, is home to the oldest and most prestigious professional orchestra in the country. The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra's extensive schedule includes roughly 100 concerts in their home concert hall, international tours, recordings, and outreach programs for school children. The orchestra was named "Sweden's National Orchestra" in 1997 by the Swedish government.

The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1905 as an orchestral association, the Göteborgs Orkesterförening, with funding from local industries. The first concerts were given the same year under the baton of Heinrich Hammer. Composer Wilhelm Stenhammar was principal conductor from 1907 until 1922. Stenhammar was a firm leader and an innovator as a symphony director, with a gift for orchestra building and a wide-ranging interest in new repertory. Reasoning that children benefited from exposure to orchestral music, he was among the first conductors anywhere to establish regular school outreach concerts. This has resulted in symphony concerts becoming one of the favorite forms of musical entertainment in Gothenburg and the surrounding area. Stenhammar and the Gothenburg Symphony were the first to introduce the music of Danish composer Carl Nielsen to Sweden.

Stenhammar's successors as music director have included Tor Mann, Ture Rängstrom, Dean Dixon, Charles Dutoit, and Sixten Ehrling. Neeme Järvi served as principal conductor from 1982-2004, during which time the orchestra began a long association with the BIS record company, making both Järvi and the orchestra world-famous. Following Järvi as principal conductor were Mario Venzago from 2004-2007 and Gustavo Dudamel from 2007-2012. In 2017, Santtu-Matias Rouvali was named principal conductor, with a contract running through 2025. Since 1987, the orchestra has toured throughout Sweden, Europe, Asia, and the U.S., regularly performing in festivals in Sweden and abroad.

An early obstacle for the orchestra, the lack of a suitable concert hall, was remedied in 1935 with the opening of the Göteborgs Konserthus, a municipally financed hall. This hall is compared favorably with such venues as Boston's Orchestra Hall, Carnegie Hall, and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw as one of the best-sounding concert halls in the world. The richness and clarity of the sound is one of the factors that have set the high standards the Gothenburg Symphony has met.

The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra has produced dozens of recordings, mainly on the BIS and Deutsche Grammophon labels, including complete cycles of music with orchestra by Sibelius, Tubin, Nielsen, Grieg, Borodin, among others, as well as the complete operas by Rachmaninov. In 2019, under Rouvali, the orchestra released the album Sibelius: Symphony No. 1; En Saga on the Alpha label. ~ Joseph Stevenson & Keith Finke

Veteran conductor Neeme Järvi has led many orchestras in Europe and the U.S. over a career stretching back to the 1950s. With his children now as rivals, he has remained a busy star on the international conducting scene well into his eighties, and he is among the most prolific conductors of modern times in the recording studio.

Born in the Estonian capital of Tallinn on June 7, 1937, and brought up within the Soviet Union's system for developing musical talent, Järvi studied percussion and conducting at the Tallinn Music School. He made his debut as a conductor at age 18. From 1955 to 1960, he pursued further studies at the Leningrad Conservatory, where his principal teachers were Nikolaï Rabinovich and Yevgeny Mravinsky. Järvi took a leading role in the musical life of his homeland. In 1963, he assumed the directorship of the Estonian Radio & Television Orchestra, his first important post. He also founded the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and, for 13 years, was the chief conductor of Opera House Estonia in Tallinn. From 1976 to 1980, he was chief conductor and artistic director of the Estonian State Symphony Orchestra, then in its infancy. By the late '70s, his fame had spread throughout the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and he received favorable notices for his appearances in the West. He made history by leading the first performances of Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier and Gershwin's Porgy and Bess ever given in the USSR.

Järvi developed a particular interest in unearthing and performing neglected repertory by both little-known and important composers, and his recorded output in this area dates back to well before Estonia's independence. He began recording for the BIS label in the early '80s. He was a champion of the Estonian composers Eduard Tubin and Arvo Pärt. In 1979, he premiered Pärt's Credo, a work that represents a turning point in that composer's stylistic evolution. Järvi, recognizing the importance of Credo (which incorporates biblical texts), presented it without first navigating through the usual channels of the Communist Party or the Composers' Union. The resulting controversy and official disfavor induced Järvi to emigrate. He was permitted to leave Estonia in 1980; within a month of his departure, he made his debut performances with the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic. He quickly received important appointments: principal guest conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in England (1981-1983) and the Japan Philharmonic; music director of the Royal Scottish Orchestra (1984-1988) and the Gothenburg (Sweden) Symphony Orchestra (1982-2004). Järvi became an American citizen in 1985. In 1990, he assumed the post of music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, remaining there until 2005. He led that ensemble through a troubled period and made some 30 recordings with the group on the Chandos label. He has also served as principal conductor of the New Jersey Symphony, the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague, and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.

Järvi's concert appearances gradually slowed as he approached his ninth decade, but his recorded legacy has continued to grow at an impressive pace. For the BIS label, he recorded a great deal of unfamiliar Scandinavian music with various orchestras from the 1980s to the 2020s. Järvi has also recorded for Deutsche Grammophon and Orfeo. His recording projects include cycles of orchestral music by Sibelius, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and others. In late Romantic repertory, especially from France and the Scandinavian countries, he remains one of the world's great specialists, and he has maintained relationships with many of the ensembles he has headed. The year 2016 alone saw no fewer than seven new releases, including the continuation of a symphony cycle devoted to composer Kurt Atterberg, recorded with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. Devoting himself mostly to substantial symphonic works, Järvi nevertheless did not disdain lighter fare; in 2015, he released, with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the album A Festival of Fucik, devoted to the composer of the familiar circus march Entry of the Gladiators. He remains a fixture of Chandos' catalog, issuing a pair of new albums on the label, one of orchestral works by composers Artur Kapp, Mihkel Lüdig, and Artur Lemba, and the other of ballet music by Léo Delibes in 2020. He made several recordings during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in 2023, he led the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, backing pianist Anna Shelest in a recording of the first two piano concertos of Anton Rubinstein. By that time, Järvi's recording catalog comprised more than 400 albums.

Järvi's children have made their mark on the musical world as well: sons Paavo and Kristjan have gained international reputations as conductors. Daughter Maarika was the principal flutist with the RTVE Symphony Orchestra in Madrid. Neeme has written an Estonian-language memoir, Kunstniku elu (The Maestro's Touch). ~ James Manheim & Joseph Stevenson