Since the Bregenzer Festspiele was founded in 1946, over 75 years ago, the Wiener Symphoniker have spent every summer as orchestra in residence at Lake Constance. For about one and a half months, the musicians move their lives to their second home in Vorarlberg. 

The Wiener Symphoniker are not only the so-called orchestra in residence for the Opera on the Lake, they traditionally also give three orchestral concerts with leading conductors and classical soloists. In addition to that, the musicians of the Wiener Symphoniker form various ensembles as part of the festival's fringe programme and perform in the city center of Bregenz on the Tag der Wiener Symphoniker, strengthening the already close ties with Vorarlberg. In a new program series called “Close-Up”, the Wiener Symphoniker share their favorite compositions in chamber ensembles. For the remainder of the year the orchestra gives concerts at the Vienna Konzerthaus and the Musikverein and is responsible for the greater part of the concerts in the music-filled capital; it also performs at major music venues around the world as a cultural ambassador of Vienna.

The Wiener Symphoniker orchestra was founded in 1900. It rapidly established a glowing international reputation under such eminent conductors as Bruno Walter, Richard Strauss and Wilhelm Furtwängler and for giving the world premiere of important works by Anton Bruckner, Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel among others. The Wiener Symphoniker developed into a world-class orchestra thanks to the chief conductors Herbert von Karajan, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Carlo Maria Giulini and Georges Prêtre, who all influenced and further honed the orchestral sound.