Ensembles

The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra

The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra is dedicated to performing concerts of the highest artistic quality, offering accessible musical experiences for all ages, working collaboratively to create powerful, enriching arts events, and serving its community like never before—inside and outside the concert hall.

A Brief History

Under the baton of Ferdinand Schaefer, 60 men and women made their official debut as the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra on Sunday, November 2, 1930, in Caleb Mills Hall in the newly built Shortridge High School. The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra has emerged as one of America’s top orchestras that attracts the finest musicians, guest conductors, and artists from all over the world and presents high-quality classical, pops, family, and holiday programming to thousands of people each year. The ISO has received national and international acclaim with its radio broadcasts, tours, and recordings, including a performance during the SHIFT Festival of American Orchestras in April 2017.

Artistic Leadership

Jun Märkl became the eighth Music Director of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra in September 2024, having been the ISO’s Artistic Advisor from 2021 to 2024. Märkl is internationally respected as an interpreter of core Germanic repertoire and has become known for his refined and idiomatic explorations of the French Impressionists. He has been appointed Music Director of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Artistic Advisor for Taiwan National Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Residentie Orkest, The Hague beginning in 2021. He has served as a guest conductor throughout the United States, including the San Francisco and Metropolitan Operas as well as the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Boston, and Cleveland. 
 
Born in Munich, Märkl won the conducting competition of the Deutscher Musikrat in 1986 and studied at Tanglewood with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa. Soon after he appeared in opera houses throughout Europe followed by his first music directorships at the Staatstheater Saarbrücken and the Nationaltheater Mannheim.

Märkl is highly dedicated to working with young musicians: for many years, he worked as Principal Conductor at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo and the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado. He teaches as a Guest Professor at the Kunitachi College of Music, Tokyo, and in 2023, he founded the National Symphony Youth Orchestra of Taiwan.

The ISO in 2026-2027

As Indiana’s largest nonprofit performing arts organization, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra inspires and unites more than 200,000 people each year through our concerts and educational programs. From our home on Monument Circle in the heart of Indianapolis, the ISO serves a vibrant and evolving community through more than 150 concerts and mainstage education programs each season. The orchestra offers a diverse range of programming—including the Classical Series, the Printing Partners Pops Series, the beloved AES Indiana Yuletide Celebration, and the Film Series presented by Bank of America—all unified by a commitment to artistic excellence and creating inspiring, accessible, and transformative musical experiences. Highlights this season will include the performance of all seven of Beethoven’s concertos, music from the Ballet Russes, and a special spotlight on Oregon-based composer Kenji Bunch. For more information, visit www.indianapolissymphony.org. 

ECCO

conductor-less chamber orchestra

In 2001, a group of musicians – colleagues and friends from leading conservatories and music festivals across the country – collectively envisioned the creation of a democratically-run, self-conducted chamber orchestra that would thrive on the pure joy and camaraderie of classical music making. This organic approach and high level of passion and commitment resulted in ECCO, a dynamic collective that combines the strength and power of a great orchestral ensemble with the personal involvement and sensitivity of superb chamber music.

ECCO is comprised of some of today’s most vibrant and gifted young string players — soloists, chamber musicians, principals of major American orchestras, and GRAMMY award winners. ECCO members play with the symphony orchestras of Philadelphia, Minnesota, San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, Seattle, and Boston among others. Members also play with the Aeolus, Borromeo, Daedalus, Jasper, and Jupiter quartets, as well as Time for Three, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the Boston Chamber Music Society.

For a few concentrated periods of time each year, the members of ECCO meet for rehearsal and musical exploration. Cooking, eating, enjoying close friendships, and now sharing tips for raising the next generation of ECCO are important aspects of their gatherings. Along with musical exploration, there is always an intense discussion about the joys and challenges of maintaining a truly communal creative organization.

In 2012, ECCO celebrated its first decade of friendship and discovery with the release of its first commercial recording on eOne. It includes Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C Major Op. 48, and the exuberant and surprising “La Follia” Variations for String Orchestra, arranged by ECCO’s own Michi Wiancko after Francesco Geminiani’s Concerto Grosso No. 12 in D minor. Their most recent recording is Michael Torke’s LAST (Ecstatic Records, November 2025) featuring violinist Siwoo Kim with ECCO. In commemoration of ECCO’s 25th anniversary, a new recording of works written for ECCO by Vijay Iyer, David Ludwig, and Michi Wiancko will be released in late 2026.

Among recent highlights were a Fall 2023 world premiere with pianist Shai Wosner of Handmaid Universe by Vijay Iyer and subsequent performances of the work in Phoenix and Seattle; return visits to Chamber Music Northwest, the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, and the Indianapolis Violin Competition; and a residency at UT Austin/Texas Performing Arts. 2026 included their debut at Meany Hall in Seattle and with Emerald City Music in Seattle and Olympia. Their regular visits to the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Portland Chamber Music Festival, and outdoor performances in Central Park for the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts with live broadcasts on WQXR are also treasured experiences.

Known for innovative programming with works both old and new, they have premiered or championed numerous new works. In addition to the Iyer work, those include David Ludwig’s Virtuosity, Christopher Theofanidis’ 1000 Cranes, Pierre Jalbert’s String Theory, Kenji Bunch’s Supermaximum, Derek Bermel’s Murmurations, and Christopher Cerrone’s The Air Suspended with pianist Shai Wosner.