Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra, also known as Kaohsiung Symphony Orchestra (KCSO or KSO; ) is a Taiwanese orchestra based in

Fengshan District Fongshan District, United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency () is a district located in southern Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Fongshan is one of the administrative centers of Kaohsiung and is home to the Republic of China Military Academy. ...

Kaohsiung Kaohsiung City (Mandarin Chinese: ; Wade–Giles: ''Kao¹-hsiung²;'' Pinyin: ''Gāoxióng'') is a special municipality located in southern Taiwan. It ranges from the coastal urban center to the rural Yushan Range with an area of . Kaohsi ...

. It is also the only professional orchestra in Southern

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. The orchestra was owned and ran by the city government until its privatization in 2009.

History

The orchestra was originally founded in 1981 as Kaohsiung Symphony Orchestra. In 1991, it was renamed as Kaohsiung City Experimental Symphony Orchestra. In 2000, it was again renamed as Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra. In April 2009, the orchestra was merged with Kaohsiung Chinese Orchestra by Kaohsiung Mayor

Chen Chu Chen Chu or Kiku Chen (; born 10 June 1950) is the current President of the Control Yuan and Chair of the National Human Rights Commission. Before assuming her current post, Chen had served as Secretary-General to the President from 2018 t ...

to become Kaohsiung Philharmonic Culture and Arts Foundation.

Directorship

Henry Mazer Henry Simon Mazer ( – ), was an American and later Taiwanese conductor, recording artist and music educator who was the founding principal conductor and music director of Taipei Philharmonic Orchestra from 1985 until suffering a stroke in Fe ...

started conducting KCSO since its expansion in 1986. Violinist Pang-Hsiang Hsiao became the conductor since 1993. The current conductor-in-residence of the orchestra is Taiwanese conductor Yang Chih-Chin, who was appointed after an open audition in January 2011. From 1996 to 1999, conductor Pang-Hsiang Hsiao also served as the interim General Director. Shu-Si Chen became the General Director of the orchestra in 1999. In 2000, KCSO became the in-residence orchestra of the Kaohsiung Music Center and was officially renamed the Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra. In July 2007, Hung-Chang Chu was publicly selected as the general director of the orchestra. It was also KCSO that invited maestro

to Taiwan in the first place, who eventually led the Taipei Philharmonic, then Taipei Sinfonietta, to its fame.

Transportation

The orchestra building is accessible from

Dadong Station Dadong is a station on the Orange line of Kaohsiung MRT in Fongshan District, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Station overview The station is a four-level, underground station with two stacked side platforms and two exits. The station is 151 metres long a ...

Kaohsiung MRT Kaohsiung Metro () is a rapid transit and light rail system covering the metropolitan area of Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Its rapid transit network is known as Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit or Kaohsiung MRT. Construction of the MRT started in October 200 ...

References

{{authority control 1981 establishments in Taiwan Musical groups established in 1981 Organizations based in Kaohsiung Taiwanese orchestras

History

Directorship

Transportation

See also

References