The year was 1974. Having outgrown the Bundesstudentenorchester, a few young musicians were determined to continue performing together – at a high level and full of passion. They spontaneously decided to form their own orchestra – the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. Here they initiated their own projects and made all musical decisions themselves. Winning the Karajan Award in 1976 and the “Opus Anton Weber” project in 1983 proved their success. Gradually, many renowned ensembles emerged from the orchestra, among them the Ensemble Modern and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.

To this day, the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie is one of the most exciting and most popular orchestras in Germany. The orchestra is a regular guest performer at the major German concert halls, such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, and Laeiszhalle in Hamburg – and it works with prominent directors, composers, and soloists such as Pierre Boulez, Iván Fischer, Hans Zender, Wolfgang Rihm, Christian Tetzlaff, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Tabea Zimmermann, and many others.

But the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie has won acclaim outside of Germany as well – some of the important stations on the orchestra’s worldwide mission include the Festival d'Automne in Paris (1994) and the world-famous BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London (1995). Guest performances have taken it to Northeastern Europe (1997), Amsterdam, Helsinki, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. Among the highlights of 1999 were providing the musical backdrop for the dedication of the Plenary Chamber in the Reichstag in Berlin and the anniversary tour “25 years of Junge Deutsche Philharmonie”. This journey was followed by tours to India (2000, by invitation of the Goethe Institut), North and South Korea (2002, as the first German orchestra ever), and through five South American metropolises (2003). In 2005 the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie gave a concert on the occasion of the opening of Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. On a concert tour through China in 2007, the musicians performed with students of the Shanghai Conservatory. Twice, at the end of 2007 and again in the spring of 2008, musicians of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie were guests in San Francisco, performing with musicians of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra in the newly formed Berkeley Academy Ensemble conducted by Kent Nagano.