The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra gave its first concert on 7 October 1945, led by its founder and ‘first conductor‘ Albert van Raalte, on Radio “Herrijzend Nederland”. Initially the orchestra spent most of its time in studios working on a large number of recordings for the public broadcasting system. The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic featured prominently in the Saturday Matinee as soon as the series started in 1961, and has continued to give frequent live performances ever since. The celebrated Saturday Matinee has hosted many legendary concerts. Illustrious soloists such as Kathleen Ferrier, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Clara Haskil and Jean-Pierre Rampal have shared the stage with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 2004, the three classical orchestral formations of the broadcasting 15 system were transformed into two: the present Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic. In 2006, these two orchestras, the Netherlands Radio Choir and the Metropole Orchestra joined the Dutch public broadcasting organisation NPO.
The Radio Philharmonic Orchestra has been conducted by great names such as Bernard Haitink, Jean Fournet, Hans Vonk, Sergiu Comissiona and Edo de Waart. Jaap van Zweden was named its chief conductor in September 2005. The orchestra has also worked with numerous famed guest conductors such as Leopold Stokowski, Kirill Kondrashin, Antál Dorati, Riccardo Muti, Kurt Masur and Valery Gergiev. Soon after its founding, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic found itself foremost in Dutch musical life in the number of performances and the diversity of its repertoire, with a predilection for Dutch and contemporary works in its programming. It has honed another facet of its striking profile with a great many opera concertante performances. The orchestra has an extensive discography, ranging from legendary LPs recorded in the 1970s under such conductors as Leopold Stokowski and Antal Doráti to Jean Fournet’s much-lauded renderings of French repertoire. Under Edo de Waart, not only did it release its legendary Wagner interpretations, but also the complete orchestral works of Rachmaninov. CDs with work by contemporary composers such as Jonathan Harvey, Klas Torstensson, Jan van Vlijmen and Stravinsky have garnered prizes and much acclaim.

Born in Amsterdam in 1960, Jaap Van Zweden began his musical career as a violinist, becoming at nineteen the youngest ever concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. In 1997, van Zweden made his decision to conduct full time, played his last concert as a violinist with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and was named the chief conductor of the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra where he remained until 2003. In 2000, he added the music directorship of the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague to his credits, a post he held until 2005.
Jaap van Zweden began his third season as music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in September 2010. His commitment to the orchestra was recently extended through the 2015-2016 season. Under his direction, the orchestra is enhancing its programming and community outreach, continuing to champion new composers, and raising its national profile with an annual residency in Vail, CO and a 2011 appearance at Carnegie Hall in the inaugural Spring for Music Festival. Concurrently with his post in Dallas, van Zweden’s other titled positions include chief conductor and artistic director of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (2005-2012), and chief conductor of the Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra of Belgium (2008-2012).
Under van Zweden’s leadership, the DSO has established an ongoing residency at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival through the summer of 2012, and debuted five world premiere works over two seasons as part of the DSO’s Texas Instruments Classical Series. Throughout the past seasons, the orchestra, under van Zweden's leadership, has received lavish praise from notable media including The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Musical America, The Financial Times, BBC Music Magazine, The Dallas Morning News and many others. In a December 2009 article in The LA Times, Mark Swed named van Zweden one of the”Faces to Watch“ in 2010, noting van Zweden “knows how to generate tense, tactile excitement in all kinds of music.” Van Zweden has also become a highly sought-after guest artist since the DSO introduced him to US audiences in 2007. During the 2010-2011 season, van Zweden debuts with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, San Paulo Symphony, Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra and the Monte Carlo Philharmonic. He makes his much-anticipated fourth guest appearance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and returns to guest conduct with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Saint Louis Symphony and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
He also has guested with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre National du Capital de Toulouse, Munich Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Tokyo Philharmonic, among others.

Reinbert de Leeuw is a well-known conductor and pianist performing mainly contemporary music. He also taught at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague and founded the “Dutch Charles Ives Society”.

In 1974 he founded the Schönberg Ensemble. They focus on performing works by the Second Viennese School. For the strings of the ensemble he composed the piece Etude.

Reinbert de Leeuw regularly conducts the Netherlands' major orchestras and ensembles, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Residentie Orchestra The Hague, the Netherlands Chamber Choir and the ASKO ensemble. He is a regular guest in most European countries and the United States, Japan and Australia. Reinbert de Leeuw has been involved in various opera productions at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam as well as with the Nederlandse Reisopera. Productions include works by Strawinsky, Andriessen, Ligeti and Vivier. In 2011, he conducted Schoenberg's monumental Gurre-Lieder, which was the realisation of an old ambition of his.

De Leeuw was in 1992 guest artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival and from 1994–1998 artistic director of Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. He was artistic advisor for contemporary music with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and from 2001 to 2010 he served as artistic leader at the Nederlandse Orkest- en Ensemble-Academie (NJO; Dutch Orchestra and Ensemble Academy).

Hailed for the natural ease of his conducting and the compelling insight of his musicianship, James Gaffigan continues to attract international attention and is one of the most outstanding American conductors working today. James Gaffigan is currently the Chief Conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. He was also appointed the first Principal Guest Conductor of the Gürzenich Orchestra, Cologne in September 2013, a position that was created for him.
In addition to these titled positions, James Gaffigan is in high demand working with leading orchestras and opera houses throughout Europe, the United States and Asia. In recent seasons, James Gaffigan’s guest engagements have included the Munich, London, Dresden, Oslo, Czech and Rotterdam Philharmonics, Vienna Symphoniker, Dresden Staatskapelle, Deutsches Symphony Orchestra (Berlin), Konzerthaus Berlin, RSO Berlin, Orchestre de Paris, Zurich Tonhalle, London, BBC, Gothenburg, Bournemouth and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Leipzig and Stuttgart Radio Orchestras, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony and Sydney Symphony. In the States, he has worked with the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras, San Francisco and Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Minnesota, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and National Symphony Orchestras and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra among others.
As an opera conductor, James Gaffigan made his Vienna State Opera debut in 2011/12 with La Bohéme and was immediately invited back to conduct Don Giovanniduring 12/13. Mr Gaffigan continues his relationship with both the Vienna State Opera and the Glyndebourne Festival – in 2012, he conducted a production of La Cenerentola at Glyndebourne and returned for performances of Falstaff during the summer of 2013. In 2014/15 season he conducted the Hamburg Opera with performances of Salome and the Norwegian Opera with a new production of La Traviata. He made his opera debut at the Zurich Opera in 2005 conducting La Bohéme.
Highlights of the 2015/16 season include debuts with the New York Philharmonic and Don Giovanni at the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich. Mr. Gaffigan will also return to the Munich and Los Angeles Philharmonics, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, and the Vienna Staatsoper to conduct the Marriage of Figaro.
Born in New York City in 1979, Mr. Gaffigan has degrees from both the New England Conservatory of Music and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston. He also studied at the American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music Festival, and was a conducting fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center.
In 2009, Mr. Gaffigan completed a three-year tenure as Associate Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony in a position specially created for him. Prior to that appointment, he was the Assistant Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra where he worked under Music Director Franz Welser-Möst from 2003 through 2006. James was also named a first prize winner at the 2004 Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition. He lives in Lucerne with his wife Lee and their two children Sofia and Liam.

Tasmin Little has firmly established herself as one of today's leading international violinists. She has performed on every continent in some of the most prestigious venues of the world, including Carnegie Hall, Musikverein, Concertgebouw, Philharmonie Berlin, Vienna Konzerthaus, South Bank Centre, Barbican Centre and Royal Albert Hall, Lincoln Center and Suntory Hall.
Tasmin’s concerto appearances include those with Adelaide Symphony, Berliner Philharmoniker, Bournemouth Symphony, Berliner Symphoniker, City of Birmingham Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Singapore Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Ulster Orchestra, West Australian Symphony and all the BBC Orchestras.
Her multi-award winning and varied career encompasses international concerto and recital performances, master classes, workshops and community outreach work. Tasmin's discography and performance schedule reflect her wide-ranging repertoire and she has given numerous World Premiere performances including concerti by Willem Jeths, Robin de Raaf, Stuart MacRae, Robert Saxton and Dominic Muldowney. She remains one of the few violinists to perform Ligeti's challenging Violin Concerto and has performed this work at the Berlin Philharmonie, New York Carnegie Hall, Salzburg Festival, BBC Proms, Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Philadelphia Kimmel Center.
In 2008, Tasmin launched her project, The Naked Violin, aimed at breaking down barriers to classical music by releasing a free album for download on her website, and performing in the community where music is rarely heard. Tasmin continues to present this project both in the UK as well as on tour in America, China, New Zealand, Ireland and United Arab Emirates (Dubai).
Tasmin Little plays a 1757 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini violin.