In barely three decades of existence, the Czech National Symphony Orchestra has established a reputation far beyond classical concert music and worked with artists as disparate as tenor José Carreras, composer Danny Elfman, saxophonist Branford Marsalis and his trumpeter brother, Wynton, and singer/songwriter James Morrison. It was founded in 1993 by trumpeter Jan Hasenöhrl and Zdeněk Košler, who was its first chief conductor. Košler was succeeded by Paul Freeman and then by legendary Czech conductor Libor Pešek, who held the post from 2007 until 2019, when Steven Mercurio became the orchestra’s second American chief. The orchestra has recorded film scores and musical theatre works in addition to its classical offering, which includes the summer Prague Proms festival, and has collaborated with an array of jazz and pop musicians. In 2003 it became the first orchestra outside Japan to give a public concert of videogame music. The CNSO also worked with Ennio Morricone on a number of projects, including his Oscar-winning score for Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight (2015).