The Lahti Symphony Orchestra's objective is to offer its audiences memorable experiences, both in concert and on disc, and at the same time to present music that is interesting and of high quality.
Many years of persistent work under the leadership of Conductor Osmo Vänskä has made the Lahti Symphony Orchestra one of the most renowned orchestras of the Nordic countries. The Lahti Symphony Orchestra's home concert hall is located at the Sibelius Hall in Lahti, a wooden congress and concert centre completed in March 2000. The orchestra's new home concert hall has outstanding acoustics that are considered one of the best internationally. Sibelius Hall has provided the Lahti Symphony Orchestra more opportunities to expand its authentic sound. The Lahti Symphony Orchestra wants to guarantee that all of its performances create enjoyable experiences for audiences, regardless of whether they are playing a symphony, concertos, the Beatles, popular music, classical favorites, or modern compositions.
The orchestra's ambitious and fresh approach to work is audible and visible. The Lahti Symphony Orchestra has the ability to surprise, to renew and broaden the scale of its concert programs. Two examples of these characteristics are the 20th century premiere of Sibelius's work The Wood-Nymph, performed in 1996, and the historical jazz-symphony concert with humour, in cooperation with the jazz ensemble "Trio Töykeät" along with the violinist brothers, Jaakko and Pekka Kuusisto, just before Christmas in 2000. The same unconditional ambition and freedom of prejudice in interpretation is presented to listeners in the Lahti Symphony Orchestra's over 50 recordings. In addition to Sibelius's works, along with other music, the complete orchestral works of Joonas Kokkonen, an honorary member of the orchestra, has been recorded. Under production, for BIS Records, there are also the entire orchestral works of its composer-in-residence since 1992, Kalevi Aho. Others include composers Uuno Klami and Einojuhani Rautavaara.
The Lahti Symphony Orchestra has won international acclaim for its recordings several times. The Sibelius recordings alone have the following awards: two Gramophone Awards (1991, 1996), the Grand Prix du Disque (1993) and the Cannes Classical Award twice (1997 and 2001). In February 2001, the prestigious "Gramophone Magazine" mentioned the Lahti Symphony Orchestra's recording of Sibelius's Sixth Symphony as the world's all-time best recording of this work. International music experts have elected several of the orchestra's recordings as the "Disc of the Year". The Lahti Symphony Orchestra's premiere recording of the original version of Sibelius's "Violin Concerto" was the first classical music disc to achieve the "Golden Record Award" in Finland. Other Golden Record winners of the orchestra are the discs "Finlandia" - a Festival of Finnish music, the disc "Christmas Wonderland" from 1998 and the disc with Finnish hymns, 2001.
Osmo Vänskä has been the chief conductor of the orchestra since 1988 (main guest conductor 1985-88). The Lahti Symphony Orchestra performs annually in Helsinki and gives concerts at several music festivals in Finland, as well as, abroad. It has visited St. Petersburg, England, Germany, France, Sweden, Japan and New York. In 2003 the orchestra has a tour in Japan and concerts at the Stars of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, at the BBC Proms in London and at the Congertgebouw in Amsterdam.
The Lahti Symphony Orchestra was established in 1949 to continue the work of, among others, the "Lahti Music Friends' Orchestra" which had operated since 1910.
