The Slovak State Philharmonic, Košice (ŠfK) was founded in 1968. Within a short time it ranked amongst the foremost representatives of  Slovak performance art and recorded remarkable achievements on the concert stages, not only of European countries but also in Asia and the Americas. The orchestra performs over 60 concerts each concert season.

In 1994, SFK became the first Slovak symphonic orchestra to perform in America. The orchestra has worked with many foremost artists such as Valery Gergiev, Alexander Rahbari, Jiří Bělohlávek, Luciano Pavarotti, Thomas Sanderling, Tadeusz Strugala, Libor Pešek, Emin Khatchaturyan, Igor Oistrakh, Gidon Kremer, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Julia Fischer, Giora Feidman and others. In addition to its active concert activities, SFK presents its art through recordings for radio and television broadcasting as well as for record companies (over 150 CDs have been issued). The recordings for the publishing houses Naxos, Marco Polo and others often represent unique recordings of works seldom performed.

Since 1991 SFK has been the principal organiser of two international festivals: The Košice Music Spring Festival and The International Organ Festival of Ivan Sokol; and since 2003 it has also presented the ARS NOVA Cassoviae – the Festival of Contemporary Art .

The orchestra will be conducted by the renowned Czech conductor, Leoš Svárovský .