Since its foundation in 1978 the Strauss Festival Orchestra Vienna has established itself with splendid performances at music festivals, TV-concerts and worldwide tours, as well as with its CD- and DVD-recordings as an internationally renowned ensemble for the authentic interpretation of Viennese music. Due to its permanent cast, also with a new generation of highly qualified and experienced musicians, the orchestra can assert its leading position with highest artistic claims since more than 30 years.

Peter Guth, the internationally renowned Johann Strauss specialist shares the musical direction with his younger colleague Willy Büchler, concertmaster of the Vienna Symphony. True to the tradition of the Strauss-Dynasty, they both conduct also playing the violin. With 21 guest performances up to now, the SFO belongs to the favourites of the Japanese audience. The musicians from Vienna also caused quite a stir as pioneers of cultural exchange with China, which they have visited 14 times since 1993. In recent years they have captured the audiences of Eastern Europe's concert halls with spectacular successes from Bucharest, Kiev and Minsk to St. Petersburg, Moscow and Yekaterinburg.

Highlights in the orchestra's history include regular appearances in the major musical centres and collaborations with prominent soloists, such as the 1999 Strauss-anniversary TV-Gala in the Wiener Musikverein with legendary film star Gregory Peck as the host. Since the millennium 2000 the annual New Year's Galas of the Strauss Festival Orchestra in the Grand Hall of the Wiener Konzerthaus are a fixed part of the Viennese concert calendar. Live CD-recordings and 2010 also on DVD are a representative testimonial to this. Stylistic truth and genuine sound, Viennese charm and the joy of playing music are characteristic features of the Strauss Festival Orchestra Vienna. It receives enthusiastic acclaim everywhere and conveys the timeless fascination of Viennese music.

Conductor: Peter Guth

The incomparable way of sweeping musicians and audiences along and to conduct in the tradition of Johann Strauss also playing the violin, has made him internationally known. He conveys the joy of music wherever he appears. Repeatedly invited as a guest conductor and coveted specialist for Viennese music by more than hundred renowned symphony orchestras and important festivals, as well as with is own Strauss Festival Orchestra Vienna he has made an exceptional career in the big musical centres of the world. Concert series and TV-Galas associate him in frequent cooperation with many famous orchestras, like the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London, the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, the San Francisco Symphony, the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra or the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich.

In 2007 he was appointed as first guest conductor at the State Theatre of Musical Comedy in Saint Petersburg. In his considerable number of recordings, the first CD-presentation with music by the Danish "Strauss of the North" Hans Christian Lumbye won the British Music Retailers Award and his recordings with the RSO Vienna were rated as the best of the Marco Polo-Strauss Edition.

Several times he directed New Year's Concerts in the Tokyo Suntory Hall and in the USA for "Salute to Vienna". He has accompanied many prominent vocal-soloists, was music director of the Vienna Operetta Festival in Japan and conducted new productions at international opera houses, as well as operettas in his own TV-adaptations. After his education at the Vienna Academy of Music and Performing Arts, Peter Guth studied three years with David Oistrakh at the Tchaikovsky Conservatorium in Moscow. International success as a soloist and with the Vienna Trio (1st prize at the ARD-Competition in Munich), educational work, publications on modern violin methodology and an active concern for new music, as well as his earlier position as first concertmaster of the RSO Vienna give a comprehensive picture of this versatile, well known Austrian artist. In 2006 he was awarded the City of Vienna's Golden Sign of Merit.

With awareness of style and his universal musical experience he is one of the foremost exponents of Viennese music.

"Guth is surely the most stylish Straussian around these days."

- Gramophone, London