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About
The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is a symphony orchestra in the Netherlands, based at the Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw (concert hall). Considered one of the world's leading orchestras., Queen Beatrix conferred the "Royal" title upon the orchestra in 1988.
The orchestra enjoyed a close relationship with Gustav Mahler and championed many of his symphonies, with an especially worthy festival of his music being the 1920 Mahler Festival. Other conductors who worked closely with the Concertgebouw Orchestra included Pierre Monteux, Eugen Jochum, George Szell and Kirill Kondrashin, who was principal guest conductor from 1978, following his defection from the USSR, until his death in 1981. More recently, Nikolaus Harnoncourt served as Honorary Guest Conductor of the RCO, beginning in 2000, and leading his final performance with the RCO in October 2013.
Another factor in creating the orchestra's distinct character is that the Concertgebouw Orchestra has had only six chief conductors, setting it apart from orchestras of similar age and caliber. The nearly one thousand recordings that the orchestra has to its credit have also contributed to this reputation. The orchestra also serves as one of the opera orchestras for productions of the Dutch National Opera.
Jan Raes is the orchestra's current executive director, since 1 December 2008, succeeding Jan Willem Loot, who retired in November 2008. In May 2019, the orchestra announced that Raes is to stand down as its executive director at the end of 2019. Past artistic directors of the Concertgebouw Orchestra have included Rudolf Mengelberg(1925-1955), Marius Flothuis(1955-1974), Hein van Royen (1974-1991) and Peter Ruzicka. The present head of artistic administration for the orchestra is Joel Ethan Fried.
The RCO has begun to issue CDs on its own label, RCO Live, as conducted by Jansons and Haitink among others.