The founding of Filarmonica Banatul Timișoara (1947) resulted from an intense artistic activity managed by various organizations and music associations such as Philarmonic Society of Timișoara (1871), Amicii Muzicii Association (1920)-meanwhile known under the name of Philarmonic Society George Enescu (1945), Philarmonic Society Banatul (1946) and Philarmonic Society Amicii Muzicii (1947), which enriched the artistic life of Bega city over decades. Its concerto program highlighted a vast repertoire from the beginning, from baroque music to contemporary works. Romanian music occupies an important place for the Philarmonic, with numerous compositions presented to their first audience.
The Symphonic Orchestra was invited several times to take part in notorious national and international festivals, in particular the International Festival George Enescu (Bucharest), the International Week of New Music (Bucharest), the Romanian Music Festival (Iași), the BEMUS Festival (Belgrad), the SAM-90 Festival (Salon Aquitain des musiques) of Bordeaux-France, the Primavera’91 Festival (Spain), the ROMA-EUROPA Festival (Italy), the International Festival of Montreux-Vevey (Switzerland), or the International Music Festival of São Luis (Brazil). Also, the Orchestra held many concert tourneys in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Taiwan, and Hungary.
The following are permanent conductors of Banatul Philarmonic: George Pavel, Mircea Popa, Paul Popescu, Nicolae Boboc, Alexandru Șumski, Remus Georgescu, Peter Oschanitzky; the current permanent conductors are Gheorghe Costin and Radu Popa. Among the well-recognized guests of the Philarmonic are notorious musicians, such as Horia Andreescu, Jean François Antonioli, Ion Baciu, Roberto Benzi, Erich Bergel, Antonin Ciolan, Emanuel Elenescu, George Georgescu, Emin Haciaturian, Cristian Mandeal, Theodor Rogalski, Constantin Silvestri, Carlo Zecchi; and soloists- Dmitri Bashkirov, Lola Bobescu, Monique de la Bruchollerie, Li Min Chan, Aldo Ciccolini, Valentin Gheorghiu, Yvri Gitlis, Dan Grigore, Pompei Hărășteanu, Rudolf Kehrer, Radu Lupu, Silvia Marcovici, Mihaela Martin, Eugenia Moldoveanu, Daniel Podlovski, Jean Bernard Pommier, Ștefan Ruha, Eugen Sârbu, Ludovic Spiess, Vladimir Spivakov, Daniil Șafran, Alexandru Tomescu, Ion Voicu.
The institution’s works include recordings on LP and CD under the Electrocord record label and English, Austrian, Swiss, French, and German record labels.
