The Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra was established as a professional orchestra in Bratislava (formerly Pressburg) in 1949.
Note: Not to be confused with the Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra, Košice and Philharmonia Slavonica.

Slovakia, which, with Bohemia and Moravia, became the Republic of Czecho-slovakia in 1918, was the source of a great deal of music during the years of the Habsburg Empire. This musically fertile region had been influenced by Viennese, Hungarian and Bohemian music and it is these influences that have given the Slovak Philharmonic one of Europe’s finest orchestras, its unique character. On its many international tours, and at festivals throughout Europe, the orchestra has been praised for its great musicality and it has been compared by enthusiastic critics with such world-class orchestras as the Vienna Philharmonic.

The orchestra benefited considerably from the work of its distinguished conductors. These included Vaclav Talish (1949-1952), Ludovit Rajter and Ladislav Slovak. The Czech conductor Libor Pesek was appointed resident conductor in 1981, and the present Principal Conductor is the Slovak musician Bystrik Rezucha. Zdenek Kosler has also had a long and distinguished association with the orchestra and has conducted many of its most successful recordings, among them the complete symphonies of Dvorak.

During the years of its professional existence the Slovak Philharmonic has worked under the direction of many of the most distinguished conductors from abroad, from Eugene Goossens and Malcolm Sargent to Claudio Abbado, Antal Dorati and Riccardo Muti.

The orchestra has undertaken many tours abroad, for example to Germany and Japan, and has made a large number of recordings for the Czech Opus label, for Supraphon, for Hungaroton and, in recent years, for the Marco Polo label.

These recordings have brought the orchestra a growing international reputation and praise from the critics of leading international publications.