Symphony Orchestra

The Symphony Orchestra of the HfMDK consists mainly of students of the Bachelor and Master Artistic Instrumental Education programs with an orchestral instrument as their main subject. The goal of orchestral training is to comprehensively prepare students for the professional field of orchestral musicianship. Under professional conditions, orchestral work at the HfMDK teaches essential and differentiated skills as well as the joy of playing in an orchestra. Through the diverse repertoire selection, students are exposed to characteristic compositions from all eras and styles of Western symphonic music in the course of their studies.

There are usually two major orchestral projects per semester, which culminate in concerts or a video or audio production. In addition, wind exercises and repertoire rehearsals are offered as one-day projects. Projects in cooperation with the university choirs take place at regular intervals. Opera productions are also realized in cooperation with the vocal department of the HfMDK.

Michael Sanderling has been chief conductor of the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester since 2021. His appointment followed a successful collaboration over many years, with a common goal of further developing the orchestra in late Romantic repertoire such as Bruckner, Mahler and Strauss. 

In 2007, the orchestra performed a Beethoven program at the 1st Limburg Orchestra Festival and at the Bad Hersfeld Festival. In the same year, it traveled to concerts in Frankfurt's twin city Guangzhou in China. For the 2009 fall concert, the Society of Friends and Sponsors of the HfMDK supported a rehearsal phase and a concert of the symphony orchestra with a renowned conductor for the first time. The chief conductor of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Lothar Zagrosek, was won for this cooperation.

In the summer semester of 2010, a program consisting of the "Concerto Grosso for three cellos and orchestra" as well as the "Adagietto" by Penderecki himself and the 9th Symphony by Dmitri Shostakovich was developed under the direction of Krzystof Penderecki. The great success of Sebastian Weigle's work phase with the Symphony Orchestra in February 2011 proved the concept right.

Further projects under guest conductors took place in January 2014 with the then GMD of the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern, Uwe Sandner, and in June 2014 with José Luis Gomez, principal conductor of the Teatro Sociale di Como. Under the direction of Clemens Heil, the Symphony Orchestra of the HfMDK performed Philippe Hurel's "Flash-Back" and "A Short Ride in a Fast Machine" by John Adams in the New Music Night of the Hochschule in the summer semester 2017.