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The WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, or West German Radio Symphony Orchestra of Cologne, is one of Germany's leading symphony orchestras. The group plays the music of various periods but has specialized in contemporary music, a specialty made possible by the fact that the WDR network also maintains another orchestra, the WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln, that performs lighter music and pops material.

The broadcast of orchestral music on the radio in Cologne dates back almost to the foundation of the Richessender Köln radio station in 1927. After World War II, Allied administrators announced the breakup of the central broadcasting of the Nazi era in favor of a system of regional broadcasters that persists today. The Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester was established to serve the new Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (Northwest German Radio), in 1947; the name was changed to WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln in the 1990s. In the beginning, the group hosted only guest conductors, but since 1964, when Christoph von Dohnányi was named principal conductor, the orchestra has reliably spawned international conducting careers. Recent principal conductors have included Hans Vonk (1991-1997), Semyon Bychkov (1997-2010), Jukka-Pekka Saraste (2010-2019), and, since 2019, Cristian Macelaru. Guest conductors have included international greats: Herbert von Karajan, Karl Böhm, and Zubin Mehta, among others. The orchestra's contemporary music specialty dates back many years and has included premieres of works by Luciano Berio, Hans Werner Henze, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. This tendency, along with the WDR's maintenance of its own electronic music studio directed for many years by Stockhausen, helped to establish Cologne as a center for contemporary music. The orchestra performs at the WDR Funkhaus Wallrafplatz and the Kölner Philharmonie.

The WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln has recorded for both German and international labels. In 1989, under frequent guest conductor Günter Wand, the orchestra released recordings of Schubert's Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944 ("The Great"), and Bruckner's Symphony No. 5 on RCA Red Seal. The orchestra has also recorded for Wergo, Audite, CPO, and many others. Although quite prolific, with more than 80 recordings to its credit as of the early 2020s, the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln has not been strongly associated with any single imprint. In 2020, the group released its first two albums on Sony Classical, Beethoven's World, and a release devoted to the violin concertos of Franz Joseph Clement, with violinist Mirijam Contzen and conductor Reinhard Goebel. ~ James Manheim

Gerd Albrecht was a major conductor of the late 20th century. He was best known for his interpretations of late Romantic and 20th century German repertory.

Albrecht was born July 19, 1935, in Essen, Germany. His father, Hans Albrecht, was a noted musicologist. Albrecht sang in a choir in his teens and took up conducting at 16. In 1955, he enrolled at the Musikhochschule Hamburg, studying with Hans Brückner-Rüggeberg and also taking classes in musicology, philosophy, and art at Hamburg and Kiel Universities. He gravitated toward conducting after winning prizes in 1957 at the International Young Conductors Competition in Besançon, France, and at the Hilversum Conductors Competition the following year. Posts then began to come his way, first as a repetiteur at the Stuttgart State Opera, and then, in 1963, as principal conductor of the Mainz City Opera. Many of the posts from the first part of Albrecht's career were concerned with opera: he served as music director of the Bühnen Lübeck (1962-1966) and the Kassel Staatsoper (1966-1972), and then as principal conductor of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, succeeding Lorin Maazel. In Kassel, he instituted a series of children's events; he would stress this activity for the rest of his career and even wrote a set of fairy tales for children.

In 1975, Albrecht took an additional position at the Tonhalle-Orchestra of Zurich, remaining there until 1980. In the 1980s, he worked frequently as a guest conductor, developing a reputation as a specialist in German and Central European music from the early 19th century to the contemporary era. In 1988, Albrecht was appointed music director of the Hamburg Staatsoper and the Philharmonisches Staatsoper Hamburg, remaining until 1997. Controversy attended Albrecht's tenure as principal conductor of the Czech Philharmonic; he was the orchestra's first non-Czech director, and the orchestra was split between his backers and those of former conductor Jiří Bělohlávek. After taking criticism from Czech President Vaclav Havel, Albrecht resigned in 1996. He later held chief conducting posts at the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra (1998-2007) and the Danish National Radio Symphony (2000-2004).

Albrecht had a heavy recording schedule beginning in the mid-1980s; in the year 1995 alone, he released 11 separate recordings. He recorded for many different labels, including Koch, Capriccio, and Wergo, often conducting difficult contemporary German works with a variety of orchestras. He remained active until the end of his life, on February 2, 2014, in Berlin, and several of his recordings were posthumously released. ~ James Manheim