The Kraków Philharmonic Orchestra began its activity in February 1945 and was the first Polish symphonic orchestra to do so after the end of the Second World War. Over the course of eighty years, the ensemble has been led by outstanding conductors, including Zygmunt Latoszewski, Bohdan Wodiczko, Stanisław Skrowaczewski, Witold Rowicki, Andrzej Markowski, Henryk Czyż, Jerzy Katlewicz, Tadeusz Strugała, Roland Bader, Jerzy Maksymiuk, and Vladimir Ponkin. From 1988 to 1990, Krzysztof Penderecki served as Artistic Director of the Philharmonic and, from 1993, held the title of Honorary Artistic Director.
The orchestra has performed in more than thirty countries, including Iran, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Lebanon, Turkey, and the United States, and has taken part in major international festivals such as the Festival di Musica Contemporanea and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Italy, the Flanders Festival in Belgium, the Festival Estival de Paris, the Festival Europäischer Musik in Germany, the Ravello Festival in Italy, the Wexford Festival Opera in Ireland, Warsaw Autumn, and Wratislavia Cantans.
The orchestra’s achievements include world premieres of works by Polish composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as well as numerous recordings, among them Penderecki’s St Luke Passion conducted by Henryk Czyż, which was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque in 1967.