Savaria Symphony Orchestra

The Savaria Symphony Orchestra was founded in Szombathely in 1962 by János Petró and became a professional ensemble in 1974. Its association with the city's Bartók Seminar and Festival has given twentieth-century and contemporary music a sustained place in its activity. The orchestra has worked with visiting composers and conductors through this programme while maintaining its own symphonic concerts. Recordings, broadcasts and tours have extended its work beyond western Hungary, with appearances elsewhere in Europe, in South Korea and in Dubai. Its achievements have been recognised by the Bartók-Pásztory and Artisjus awards. Youth concerts and film-music programmes complement its symphonic and contemporary repertoire. Szombathely was Savaria, a Roman colony founded under Claudius in the first century, and the orchestra of the modern western-Hungarian city took the older name. It plays chiefly in the Bartók Hall, the town's former synagogue, adapted as a concert hall in 1975 — a conversion that gave Szombathely one of the more distinctive auditoria in provincial Hungary. The orchestra carries the symphonic season there and works with the summer music courses for which the town is known.