The KBS Symphony Orchestra has announced the appointment of Korean conductor Myung-whun Chung as its tenth Music Director, with a three-year term from January 2026 to December 2028. The appointment coincides with the orchestra’s 70th anniversary in 2026, and will see Chung take overall responsibility for the ensemble’s artistic planning and direction.
Chung’s relationship with the KBS Symphony Orchestra stretches back decades. In 1995, he conducted the orchestra in a special concert at the United Nations General Assembly Hall, the first event to be broadcast live simultaneously on Korean television and radio. He later served as the orchestra’s fifth Principal Conductor in 1998, and has continued to work with the ensemble on major stages both at home and abroad. More recently, Chung has led regular subscription concerts and special projects, and in 2021 he was appointed the orchestra’s first Conductor Laureate, a collaboration that has built an especially strong foundation of mutual trust in recent years.
In its announcement, the KBS Symphony Orchestra highlighted how Chung has broadened the ensemble’s artistic profile through both core symphonic repertoire and large-scale choral works. Alongside pillars of the German and Romantic tradition – Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler – Chung’s programmes have included major choral repertoire in recent seasons. In 2025 its cycle of the complete Brahms symphonies was seen as a significant milestone, praised for strengthening the ensemble’s cohesion and focus.
Internationally, Chung has held prominent music directorships with the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra, Opéra de Paris (Opéra Bastille), the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. In may, Chung was recently appointed as the next Music Director at the Teatro alla Scala from 2027, an historic first for an Asian musician in that role.
