Founded in 1945, National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra (NTSO) is the oldest symphony orchestra in Taiwan. NTSO was first subordinate to Taiwan Provincial Art Establishment Association, and the Department of Education and Office of Culture of Taiwan Provincial Government, etc. In July 1999, the Orchestra was made subordinate to the Council for Cultural Affairs and renamed National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra. The Orchestra is based in a dedicated concert hall inWufeng Precinct, Taichung that was inaugurated in 2002. The NTSO Music Culture Park of Taiwan, with the three main themes “culture”, “education” and “recreation,” officially began operating in December, 2009, representing the NTSO’s ascending to an all-round musical group that possesses complete facilities and services.

The NTSO has played an extremely important role in the development of classical music in Taiwan. Since its establishment, the orchestra has invited many outstanding musicians from Taiwan and overseas to perform with it and helped nourish a taste for classical music appreciation in Taiwan; in the era when Taiwan’s economy took off, the NTSO made an intensive effort in terms of education and nurtured a large number of seed music teachers across-the-board, making an invaluable contribution to the popularization of classical music in Taiwan. Despite its changes of subordination, the orchestra continues to position itself as Taiwan’s national orchestra, with the objectives of widening the classical music aesthetic view and raising the level of classical music performance and appreciation in Taiwan, also aiming to promote innovation, deepen and convert the beauty of Taiwan, putting it at the center of the international stage, and creating a distinctive Taiwan music brand in the future.

Over the last 60 years the NTSO has amassed extremely rich performance experience and a large number of orchestras and artists have performed with it; conductors include Chen Cheng-xiong, Henry Mazer, Michel Rochat, Frederick Fennell, Tamás Vásáry, Lan Shui, Jin Wan; as for musicians, pianists include Fu Cong, Cheng Bi-xian, Chen Yu-xiang, Oxana Yablonskaya, Ivo Pogorelich, Dang Thai Son, Makoto Ozone; violinists include Hu Nai-yuan, Zeng Geng-yuan, Lin Zhao-liang, Pinchas Zukerman, Sarah Chang, Gil Shaham, Ann-Sophie Mutter; violists include Nobuko Imai; cellists include Yang Wen-xin, Steven Isserlis, Natalia Gutman, Mischa Maisky; oboists include Albrecht Mayer, trombonists include Christian Lindberger; flutists include Andras Adorjan and Emmanuel Pahud; orchestras include Berliner Philharmonie Divertimento Ensemble, Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor. The NTSO is frequently invited to perform in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa and has achieved notable results.

In August, 2010 Fusao Kajima was appointed Conductor and, in 2011, the internationally reknowned Maestro Lan Shui was appointed Artistic Advisor, with Mr. Cho-Liang Lin as the Artist-in-Residence. Learning from tradition and linking with the new era, the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra has the mission of “improving skills, innovating tradition, laying down deep educational roots and promoting aesthetics” and intends to attach equal importance to “exquisiteness” and “universality,” and achieve a balance between classical and innovative, in the process raising the level of the musical life of the people and achieving the objective of making society more harmonious and better.