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It has performed at the half a century old International Festival of Contemporary Music ‘Warsaw Autumn’ and the festival of oratorio and cantata music ‘Wratislavia Cantans’ numerous times. Since the French Music Festival in La Chaise Dieu, held three decades ago, it has also played at music festivals abroad.

Since 1958 and its first tours around the then Czechoslovakia the orchestra has given concert all over Europe. It has promoted the Polish culture beyond our continent, as well: in Japan, where the ensemble has been invited for the fifth tour in 2018, in South Korea, and in Taiwan. In 25 countries besides Poland, the musicians of the symphony orchestra have given more than five hundred concerts.

The orchestra has accompanied the most acclaimed artists – conductors and soloists, starting from Leopold Stokowski, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, or Fou Ts’onga, to Krystian Zimerman, Igor Oistrakh, Zakhar Bron, Ida Haendel, Victoria de los Angeles, or Montserrat Caballé.

The Silesian Philharmonic musicians were the first to record - under the baton of Karol Stryja - all vocal and orchestra works by Karol Szymanowski, which are present on the global market in the offer of the Naxos studio to this day. They belong to the group of philharmonic ensembles which enter recording studios most often. The recording of the music by George Gershwin conducted by Jerzy Salwarowski has reached the status of a ‘golden record’. Jerzy Salwarowski conducted the orchestra also in the memorable recording of all symphonic poems by Mieczysław Karłowicz. In November 2007 the album with ‘Magnificant’ by Wojciech Kilar was released, for the first time in the world. Next, the Silesian Philharmonic musicians released the world’s phonographic premieres of his ‘Solemn Overture’, Symphony No. 5 ‘Advent Symphony’, and ‘Paschal Hymn’, as well as two pieces by Aleksander Tansman.  Recordings of the music by Witold Lutosławski and two albums from 2009 and 2011 with the music by Bolesław Szabelski, Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, and Eugeniusz Knapik have received very favourable evaluations. Musicians from the symphony orchestra of the Silesian Philharmonic under the baton of Mirosław Jacek Błaszczyk were the first to perform the ‘Nocturn’ by Mikołaj Górecki, dedicated to his father – a piece which was played at the gala of granting the Silesian Philharmonic with the name of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki. The album (DUX 0924) with the world’s phonographic premiere of this piece was nominated to the ‘Fryderyk 2013’ award. In 2016 an album was released containing the premiere performance of the Symphony No. 4 ‘Tansman Episodes’ by Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, which took place on 15 February 2015 in Łódź (special event of the Tansman Festival 2015).