Formed in 1922, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO) started its life as the Perth Symphony Orchestra, with a small group of musicians performing weekly concerts under the direction of Harold Betteridge.

Betteridge was the first in a long line of distinguished conductors to join the Orchestra with other Chief Conductors including; Tibor Paul, Jorge Mester, Vernon Handley and most recently Matthias Bamert.

Today, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra is the state¡¯s largest and busiest performing arts company.  It plays a central role in the heart of musical life in Western Australia, performing over 170 concerts each year to audiences in excess of 180 000.

In addition to its own classical concerts, WASO performs with the West Australian Opera, West Australian Ballet, with the Perth International Arts Festival, and in collaboration with a number of local performing arts companies including Black Swan Theatre Company and the Totally Huge New Music Festival.

Led by Chief Conductor Matthias Bamert, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra has an innovate approach to music programming, performing both artistically vibrant classical music as well as original contemporary music. Through its Summer and Contempo Series¡¯ WASO regularly joins forces with international and Australian pop musicians to create concerts that fuse popular contemporary artists with classical music.  

The West Australian Symphony Orchestra is also at the forefront of Australian orchestras to commission original compositions from the country¡¯s leading arrangers. In 2003, to mark its 75th anniversary, the WASO commissioned 15 Australian composers to each write a five-minute piece of music.  The result was 75 minutes of original Australian music, which was performed throughout the year and which is currently being recorded for a cd.
 
WASO tours throughout regional Western Australia both as the full orchestra and as a fifteen piece Education Chamber Orchestra (EChO). These performances aim to introduce and inspire school aged children to classical music.

In May 2006 the WASO will tour to China. This will be the first time in 22 years the West Australian Symphony Orchestra has toured internationally.