was established in autumn 1960 as part of the Slovak Philharmonic. An excellent violinist of Silesian origin Bohdan Warchal (1930–2000) is credited with its foundation and he led the orchestra for four decades. Since 2001, the violinist Ewald Danel has been its artistic leader. Since its establishment the Slovak Chamber Orchestra has been one of the most popular classical music ensembles in Slovakia. Besides regular concerts in the Slovak Philharmonic premises it has organized annual concert tours all over Slovakia and abroad. The orchestra participates in special concert projects. It has acquainted the Slovak audience with a lot of until then unperformed works by world composers. It significantly contributes to Slovak music presentation; since 2001, it has premiered over seventy new pieces.
Organizing special concerts, the orchestra regularly celebrates composers’ and music personalities’ important anniversaries. With the annually organized festive concert Hommage à Bohdal Warchal the ensemble also recalls the distinctive contribution of its founder to Slovak music. Within the concert cycle Music in Temples it supports the work of both professional and non-professional singing choirs with a permanent artistic collaboration. From among other concert activities it is important to mention that the orchestra has been following the almost two-hundred-years-long Bratislava tradition in the performance of J. Haydn’s work The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross in Saint Martin’s Cathedral on Palm Day. It also continues in regular presentations of Concerts Without Barriers and Concerts Without Applause.
In the season 2025/2026 the orchestra commemorated the 65th anniversary of its existence. On this occasion it organized a series of concerts in Slovakia and abroad (Czech Republic, Greece, Bulgaria). The orchestra and its artistic leader were awarded the Ján Cikker Prize in 2026. In July 2026 it toured France, where it performed at the festivals in Reims (Flâneries Musicales de Reims) and in Compiègne (Festival des Forêts).
In addition to its own subscription cycle in the season 2026/2027, the Slovak Chamber Orchestra will also perform in a series of Christmas concerts joined by the Bratislava Boys’ Choir and it will appear in several cities of Slovakia. At the Bratislava Music Festival the ensemble will accompany the soloist Leonidas Kavakos, one of the most famous violinists of out times, paying tribute to the 270th anniversary of the birth of W. A. Mozart with a performance of his Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major and Concertante Symphony in E flat major (together with the Greek violinist Ilias Livieratos). Exceptional events of the following season will include a concert celebrating an anniversary of its leader Ewald Danel, a concert in the Cultural House Nivy, where the Slovak Chamber Orchestra appeared in public for the first time in 1961, and also a repeated performance of the project The Bible in the Aréna Theatre on the occasion of the 80th birthday of the Slovak actor Juraj Kukura.