Kulturhaus Gotha

Gotha's orchestra is a court chapel founded in 1651 by Duke Ernst the Pious, and continuous, through many changes of name, ever since. Reorganised as a state symphony orchestra in 1952, merged with the Suhl philharmonic in 1998 and with the Landeskapelle Eisenach in 2017, it plays today as the Thüringen Philharmonie Gotha-Eisenach, with Markus Huber as chief conductor since 2019. The Kulturhaus is where Gotha hears it — the town's main auditorium, quite distinct from the small Baroque Ekhof-Theater up at Schloss Friedenstein, and large enough to take full symphonic forces. Programmes here have set Glinka and Tchaikovsky beside the Butterfly Lovers violin concerto of He Zhanhao and Chen Gang.