The Nairobi Orchestra was founded in 1947, and is one of the oldest orchestras in Africa. Today, the orchestra has an ongoing membership of over 150 musicians, with around 70-80 players participating in each concert season.
We contributes to the continued growth and development of orchestral music in Kenya by providing its most able and promising musicians, of any background, with the opportunity to play serious music together to the highest possible standard and our audiences with the opportunity to hear it.
Nairobi Orchestra is part of a wider community of musical, educational and social programmes that work towards building a better society in Kenya, through music. Many of our players have developed through, and continue to work and perform with some of these organisations, including the Kenya Conservatoire of Music, the National Youth Orchestra of Kenya, and Ghetto Classics, among others.
The Nairobi Orchestra has five main concert seasons a year, with orchestral concerts in March, June and November, and concerts in partnership with Nairobi Music Society (NMS), in April and December. We also regularly participate as the orchestra for Voices for Hospices; a biennial performance of Handel’s Messiah involving multiple choirs, and acting as a fundraiser for the Nairobi Hospice.
Across the seasons, we perform a diverse range of music, including standard classical repertoire, lesser-known works, and frequent premieres and performances of music by Kenyan composers.
Notable recent performances include our Kenya at 60 concerts in June 2023, featuring original works by five different Kenyan composers and arrangers; and in June 2024, the Kenyan premiere of Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9, in two sold out performances, conducted by Guest Conductor Toby Purser and joined by the NMS choir.
Different temporary orchestras for events are formed by British colonial settlers living in Kenya, together with Jewish refugees and Italian prisoners of war and bandsmen from the Kings African Rifles
A meeting in June causes the convening of a committee for “The Nairobi Orchestra” with the aim of organising its first concert before the end of the year; on 7th December 1947 the “Symphonic Concert” under the auspices of The East Africa Conservatoire of Music was staged at the Theatre Royal “in aid of the Kenya National Theatre”
The Nairobi Orchestra plays the original composition “Anthem for a Theater, for chorus and orchestra” at the opening of the Kenyan National Theatre on November 6th
Kenya's Independence
the orchestra is not active in Nairobi, but several of its members are playing music together in Kericho as Kericho Music Ensemble, they played concerts in British high schools around the country
revival of the Nairobi Orchestra in Nairobi with concerts in university halls, the All Saints Cathedral and the National Theatre
Nairobi Orchestra staged the operette “Die Fledermaus” in cooperation with a Vienna Opera Company. The year, after the Kericho Music Ensemble put on the Mozart opera Marriage of Figaro at the National Theatre in cooperation with the Austrian Graz Opera Company
Njane Mugambi conducts the first half of a Nairobi Orchestra concert as the first Kenyan conductor
Duncan Wambugu became the first Kenyan to conduct a big choral work with the orchestra.
staging of Porgy and Bess with Cape Town Opera at Hell’s Gate and Arboretum, prepared by the conductor Jim Pywell
Levi Wataka becomes the resident conductor.
Covid Break - and a much younger bounce back after the break with many players who have learned at Ghetto Classics and gone through the Kenyan National Youth Orchestra
Milestone Concert “Kenya at 60” conducted by Levi Wataka - with a majority of pieces by Kenyan composers and arrangers including Njame Mugambi’s Ujenzi, Nancy Day’s XX, Sam xXX , Brian Kepher’s arrangement of Malaika and Shaka Marko’s “Kenya Folk Fusion” that had people dancing