Württemberg Philharmonic Orchestra Reutlingen (WPR)

The Württemberg Philharmonic Orchestra Reutlingen (WPR) is a German symphony orchestra founded in 1945, based in Reutlingen.

Shortly after World War II, the Municipal Symphony Orchestra was founded in Reutlingen by Hans Grischkat, initially consisting of 30 musicians. The concerts were well attended from the beginning due to broad support from the Reutlingen population. To alleviate the orchestra’s financial difficulties in the post-war years, concerts were organized, for which local companies bought large ticket quotas for their employees. The first “Popular Concert for Reutlingen Companies” took place on January 31, 1949. The orchestra was renamed in 1949 to the Swabian Symphony Orchestra Reutlingen and over time developed into an internationally active ensemble.

In the 1959/60 season, the orchestra already played to 98,000 listeners. In 1983, it was renamed to the Württemberg Philharmonic Orchestra Reutlingen, and in 1998, it was one of the first orchestras in Germany to be transformed into a legally capable foundation of civil law.

The orchestra has undertaken numerous concert tours and performances at venues such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Cologne Philharmonic, the Vienna Musikverein, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Tonhalle Zurich, the Stuttgart Liederhalle, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Dortmund Concert Hall, the Culture and Congress Centre Lucerne, the Salzburg Festival Hall, and the Baden-Baden Festival Hall, as well as at festivals like the Gustav Mahler Music Weeks in Toblach, the Beethoven Festival in Warsaw, or the Festival International de Musique in Besançon. They have collaborated with renowned soloists such as Lang Lang, Thomas Hampson, Sabine Meyer, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Christoph Poppen, and Fazil Say.

The Württemberg Philharmonic Orchestra Reutlingen now performs over a hundred concerts annually. In addition to classical-romantic concert literature, they also engage in musical genres such as jazz (collaborating with James Morrison, Till Brönner, Klaus Doldinger, Ute Lemper, China Moses), world music (Natacha Atlas, Yasmin Levy, Burhan Öçal), as well as musical and chanson (Dominique Horwitz), pop (Max Mutzke), Latin, and hip-hop, and in special “focus” events, for example, on the music of Turkey (2013) and the Jewish Diaspora (2016).

Numerous CD and radio recordings document the artistic work of the WPR, including world premiere recordings. Since 2022, Ariane Matiakh has been the musical director of the orchestra, and Cornelius Grube has been the managing director since 2003.

In 1974, the orchestra, under Dimitris Agrafiotis, held its first children’s concert, followed by a student concert two years later. To this day, the orchestra is intensely committed to nurturing young audiences and annually gives numerous children’s and family concerts. In 2015, in cooperation with the German Alzheimer’s Society, a concert series was established for people with dementia. From 2016 to 2018, intercultural music theater projects with refugees followed.

In 2009, it received the inaugural BKM Prize for Cultural Education for a project with intellectually disabled artists. In 2019, the orchestra was awarded by the German Orchestra Foundation with the “Innovative Orchestra of the Year” prize for the format “Net-Werk-Orchestra: Live Stream to the Countryside”, where music is transmitted to remote schools via video streaming.

Source: Wikipedia