Vogtland Philharmonie Greiz/Reichenbach

Two orchestras on opposite sides of a state border became one in September 1992, when Saxony and Thuringia signed an agreement merging the Sinfonieorchester Greiz with the Vogtlandorchester Reichenbach. The resulting ensemble of some sixty-five players is funded jointly by the two Free States, by the Greiz and Vogtland districts, by the Kulturraum Vogtland-Zwickau and by the two towns whose names it carries — a complicated construction, and one that has held for three decades. Hans Rainer Förster, its first chief conductor, saw the merged orchestra through its earliest seasons to 1994. It belongs to a region rather than to a single house, giving around a hundred and fifty concerts a year across the Vogtland and travelling further into Europe.