Bialystok Philharmonic Orchestra

Białystok's state symphony orchestra was formed in 1954 and waited two decades for philharmonic status, which arrived in 1974 along with a hall of its own on Podleśna Street. In 2005 the institution was reconstituted as the Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic — European Art Centre, adding a full opera company to the orchestra, and the building that gave the new name its meaning opened on 28 September 2012, at the start of the orchestra's fifty-eighth season. Since 2019 it has carried the name of Stanisław Moniuszko. Polish repertoire sits at the centre of its work — Paderewski's Polish Fantasy among the concertante pieces heard in its programmes — and the opera and concert seasons now run side by side in what has become the principal musical institution of north-eastern Poland.