Real name: Gürzenich-Orchester Köln

Effective period / Period of releases: 1956 - 2022

Members: Vincent Royer, Ulrike Schäfer, Otmar Berger, Daniel Raabe, H. Hoffmann, Günter Wand, Jürgen Kussmaul, Frederick Stock, Ida Bieler, Colin Harrison, Bernhard Oll, Ursula Maria Berg, Dirk Otte, George Heimbach, Hellmut Schneidewind, Friederike Zumach, Joanna Becker, Rainer Schottstädt, Herbert Lange, Saskia Kwast, Juraj Čižmarovič, Fritz Pahlmann, Christoph Bujanowski, Carsten Steinbach, Egon Hellrung, Hans Joachim Zingel, Henning Rasche, Ikuko Homma, Markus Wittgens, Andreas Jakobs, Elisabeth Polyzoides, Martina Horejsi, Antoaneta Emanuilova, Tom Owen (2), Franz Klein, Dylan Naylor, Nathalie Streichardt, Wolfgang Sallmon, Natalie Chee, Klaus Lohrer, Thomas Adamsky, Matthias Racz, Kelly Mitropoulou, Jana Andraschke, Hubert Crüts, Hans Gelhar, Torsten Janicke, André Sebald, Karl-Heinz Weber, Nathan Braude, Stephan Cürlis, Ferenc Mihaly, Gabor Janosi, Christoph Rombusch, Michael Zühl, Kurt Schäffer, Johannes Esser, Philipp Zeller, Christoph Baumgartner, Joachim Griesheimer, Christian Geldsetzer, J. Baum (2), Maria Scheid, Antonia Schreiber, Matthias Kiefer, William Grigg, Johannes Seidl, Manfred Neumann (2), Jee-Hye Bae, Juta Õunapuu-Mocanita, Gerhard Dierig, H. Röseler, F. Zimmermann (3), J. Ippen, Markus Lenzing, Sylvia Borg, Rose Kaufmann, Daniel Cahen, Sarah Aeschbach, Daniel Dangendorf, Jörg Steinbrecher, Demetrius Polyzoides, Jens Kreuter, Christopher Corbett, Konstantin Krell, Johannes Schuster, Oliver Schwarz (3), Sergej Khvorostukhin, Henrik Rabien, Bernhard Pietralla, David Johnson (94), Christian Dollfuß, Guglielmo Dandolo Marchesi, Jan Böhme, Carsten Luz, Franziska Leube, Gerhard Reuber, Ekkehardt Feldmann

The German symphony orchestra Gürzenich-Orchester Köln was founded in 1827 as "Concert-Gesellschaft" and is based in Cologne. It was named after Cologne's historic Gürzenich ballroom, where the orchestra began playing their concerts in 1857. Since 1986 the orchestra is based in the Kölner Philharmonie, as one of the two principal orchestras of the city, together with the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln. It is also the orchestra of the Cologne opera hous (Kölner Oper).
Its musical directors have been Konradin Kreutzer, followed, among others, by Ferdinand Hiller, Hermann Abendroth, Günter Wand, James Conlon, and Markus Stenz. Since 2015 the principal conductor is François-Xavier Roth.