State Philharmonic Sibiu

In Sibiu — Hermannstadt to the Saxon settlers who built it — concert-giving has civic roots reaching back into the nineteenth century, when the town's musical society drew on a German-speaking burgher culture unusual in the region. The present orchestra took its shape as a state philharmonic after the Second World War. It plays in the Thalia Hall, a small eighteenth-century theatre in the old town, restored in recent decades and among the oldest buildings of its kind in Romania. Sibiu's year as European Capital of Culture in 2007 widened the orchestra's audience, and its seasons combine the standard symphonic repertoire with Romanian music and a steady flow of visiting soloists.