HSO – Hochschulsymphonieorchester

As the largest ensemble at our university, the Hochschulsymphonieorchester (University Symphony Orchestra) is an important figurehead. Five to eight concert and opera projects per academic year, plus ten repertoire rehearsals, give our students a comprehensive insight into current orchestral work. During their studies, the aim is to provide the greatest possible knowledge of repertoire and fundamental experience of current orchestral work.

Students who study an orchestral instrument at our university, usually with a performance profile (string, woodwind and brass instruments as well as percussion and harp), make music in the HSO München. They later work as freelance musicians in various positions, achieve a position in an orchestra or become soloists in the international classical music business.

The HSO München at a concert on 8 November 2021 in the Isarphilharmonie.

The artistic director Prof. Marcus Bosch has conceived an annual programme with recurring series such as HSO in the Isarphilharmonie, BARock, neoKLASSIK, etc., which allows the greatest possible recognisability to grow both internally and externally and covers the repertoire from baroque to modern. A special format is the WERKSTATTkonzert. Here students are given the opportunity to perform solo concerts with orchestra, conducted by their fellow students from the conducting class Prof. Marcus Bosch and Georg Fritzsch.
The repertoire rehearsals are a »fast-track« way of getting to know each other, in order to train skills such as sight-reading, playing under special circumstances, etc., in addition to gaining new knowledge of the repertoire. For example, in a repertoire rehearsal, new pieces are also tried out by our students in the composition classes, who thus gain invaluable experience.

The large number of internationally renowned instrumentalists who teach at the university are naturally also outstanding soloists of the HSO. In December 2022, for example, Alexander Gerassimez will perform Tan Dun’s »Tears of Nature« with the HSO, followed by Richard Wagner’s »Ring ohne Worte«. Highlights of recent years have certainly been the interpretation of the Symphony No. 9 by Mahler in combination with choral settings by Clytus Gottwald and Johannes Brahms, the Symphony No. 7 by Anton Bruckner in the Isarphilharmonie, the recording of the »Kindertotenlieder« realised during the Covid crisis, Puccini’s »Crisantemi« and the Symphony No. 2 by Robert Schumann, the Sibelius evening, a semi-scenic »Fledermaus« or the »Faustszenen« by Robert Schumann on the occasion of the Faust Festival of the City of Munich.

The HSO München has been led by the internationally renowned conductor Marcus Bosch since the winter semester 2017/18. Guests on the podium in the history of the HSO have also included Mariss Jansons, Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Leonard Bernstein. The first conductor after 1945 was Fritz Lehmann, followed by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Adolf Mennerich, Jan Koetsier, Hermann Michael, Jaroslav Opela and Ulrich Nicolai.

All students with an orchestral instrument as their main subject (all degree courses with a performance profile including Chamber Music as well as all degree courses with a teaching profile) are required to play in the orchestra. The work in the orchestra is regulated by the orchestra regulations.