About Us

Nairobi Orchestra was founded in 1947 by Italian Prisoners of War (POWs). Consequently, it is one of the oldest orchestras in Africa. We are an amateur orchestra and our players are drawn from a variety of groups, including teachers, university students, volunteers, the United Nations and, at times, pupils from schools.

We normally play five sets of concerts a year, in November, December (with the NMS Choir), March, May (with the NMS Choir) and June. Our main rehearsal venue is Kenton College in Kileleshwa and we normally have around eight to ten rehearsals in preparation for each concert weekend.

Our repertoire tends to be from the Classical and Romantic periods, occasionally Baroque and Modern. Sometimes, if we can source the music, we perform film music and generally once a year, we aim to première a Kenyan composition from a local composer.

We tend to number around sixty players but for our concerts in November 2018 we had seventy players (where we performed The Planets by Holst) which, we believe, is a record!