Since its foundation almost 50 years ago, the Academia Allegro Vivo Chamber Orchestra has established itself as “Orchestra in residence” of the International Allegro Vivo Festival and, as a renowned ensemble of its kind, has made a distinctive mark on the European cultural landscape.
Violinist and conductor Vahid Khadem-Missagh took over as artistic director on the ensemble’s 40th anniversary, thereby ushering in a generational change that is reflected both in artists and in programming.

With a commitment to combining the highest artistic quality with a joy of making music, the ensemble blends the Viennese string sound with a modern interpretative flair, acts as a musical ambassador on worldwide tours, and accepts invitations to music festivals. Thus, alongside the entire classical and romantic repertoire for string orchestra, Academia Allegro Vivo devotes itself to 20th Century and contemporary music, with numerous commissioned works and world premieres of contemporary composers.

On around 40 recordings, released by the labels ORF Ö1, Gramola, Camerata Tokyo and AV-Records, the chamber orchestra’s extensive creation has been documented. Recent CD recordings were released in the Ö1 Edition of ORF, including the world premieres of the violin concerto by Tristan Schulze (soloist: Vahid Khadem-Missagh) and the double concerto for violin, cello and orchestra by Christoph Ehrenfellner (soloists: Vahid Khadem-Missagh and László Fenyö).

In 2021, the Ö1 Edition released the CD “Momentum”, featuring recordings of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata in an arrangement for solo violin and strings, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1, Béla Bartók’s Divertimento Sz. 113, and Leoš Janáček’s Idyll, Op. 3. On “Violin Reflections”, released in 2022, Vahid Khadem-Missagh presented romantic and virtuosic works by Antonín Dvořák, Maurice Ravel and Astor Piazzolla.

The CD “Turning Point”, released in 2024, is featuring works by Anton Bruckner, Richard Strauss and Dmitri Shostakovich. Last year, three world premieres from the most recent opening concerts of the Allegro Vivo Festival were released on the CD “Change over Time”. In each of these, violinist Vahid Khadem-Missagh and the Academia Allegro Vivo engaged within a dialogue with a second solo instrument. The works featured violin and percussion by Sylvie Bodorová (world premiere 2024), violin and accordion by Johannes Berauer (world premiere 2023) and violin and tenor saxophone by Daniel Schnyder (world premiere 2022).

The CD “Anima mundi”, released in 2026, brings together works that explore expression, memory and musical identity in Central Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, whilst also building a bridge to the present day. A field of tension emerges between late Romanticism, the experience of emigration in the 1930s and contemporary reflection, within which individual voices, literary references and musical traditions enter into dialogue with one another.