Shortly after its founding in 1972, the Orchestra of the Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele became one of the outstanding orchestras on the international festival scene. The musicians earned this reputation above all with the longstanding festival director and conductor Wolfgang Gönnenwein. Even today, it consists of members of leading ensembles of the region as well as professors and their master students. Under the direction of Michael Hofstetter from 2005 to 2012, the focus was increasingly on historically informed performance practice. From 2015 to 2019, the Finn Pietari Inkinen presided as principal conductor. In the 2021 season, the orchestra of the Ludwigsburg Festival performed under the direction of the two female conductors Oksana Lyniv and Barbara Hannigan. In 2022, it also worked for the first time with the British Conductor Harry Ogg and the Belarusian conductor Vitali Alekseenok. With the latter, the orchestra will open the 2023 Festival, performing the closing »Monrepos Open Air« under Ryan McAdams.