City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
orchestra based in Birmingham, England
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) is a British orchestra based in Birmingham, England. It is the resident orchestra at Symphony Hall, Birmingham in Birmingham, which has been its principal performance venue since 1991. Its administrative and rehearsal base is at the nearby CBSO Centre, where it also presents chamber concerts by members of the orchestra and guest performers.
Each year, the CBSO performs more than 150 concerts in Birmingham, the UK and around the world. The CBSO has four choirs – the CBSO Chorus, Youth Chorus, Children's Chorus and SO Vocal (its un-auditioned community choir). The CBSO Choruses are directed by Simon Halsey, Chorus Director, who celebrated his 40-year anniversary with the CBSO in the 2023 season. The Children's and Youth Chorus are led by Julian Wilkins, Associate Chorus Director. SO Vocal is conducted by Lucy Hollins.
The current music director of the CBSO is Kazuki Yamada, who became chief conductor and artistic adviser in April 2023, and music director in May 2024.
History
Background and foundation
The earliest orchestral concerts known to have taken place in Birmingham were those organized by Barnabas Gunn at the Moor Street Theatre in 1740, and more than 20 separate orchestras are recorded as having existed in the city between that date and the foundation of what is now the CBSO in 1920.
“City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra” enters the record as orchestra based in Birmingham, England. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what City, Birmingham and Symphony can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q706774. VIAF identifies the subject as 143202284. The Library of Congress control number is n81014580. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1991, 2023, 2024 and 1740.
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This entry incorporates text from “City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.