The Busan Philharmonic Orchestra is a public symphony orchestra directly run by the Busan Metropolitan City Government, which aims to become the maritime capital of Northeast Asia and a global cultural hub in the 21st century. Founded in 1962, it is the third oldest orchestra in Korea and symbolizes the cultural pride of the city of Busan. With the opening of the Busan Citizen Center in 1974, the orchestra secured its first permanent performance venue, and by moving to the Busan Cultural Center, which opened in 1988, the orchestra completed its formalization as a professional orchestra with a exclusive rehearsal room, large instruments, and a performance hall. In addition, the orchestra has invited prominent conductors from home and abroad to promote its continuous musical development. Since the first conductor Oh Tae-gyun, Han Byung-ham, Lee Ki-hong, Park Jong-hyuk, Mark Gorenstein, Vladimir Kin, Vanco Cavdarsky, Kwak Sung, Alexander Anissimov, Li Xincao, and Soo-Yeol Choi have led the Busan Philharmonic Orchestra, and since July 2024, the 12th artistic director Seokwon Hong has been leading a new wave.

The Busan Philharmonic Orchestra is a full-scale orchestra that performs a wide range of repertoire and runs a variety of special programs. The subscription concerts feature authentic classical music works, and the orchestra also promotes outreach performances that visit various sites in Busan with with light and familiar works. It also operates various special programs such as ‘unfinished concerts’ that showcase the rehearsal process without filtering, ‘art education concerts’ for children and young people, ‘BPO Night Lab’ for office workers who usually find it difficult to appreciate performances due to time constraints, and a ‘chamber music series’ that highlights the musicality of the members of the Busan Philharmonice Orchestra. Through these efforts, the Orchestra plays a role in spreading various values of music and contributes to enriching the lives of Busan citizens and the many audiences who visit Busan.

The Busan Philharmonic Orchestra's activities are not limited to the Busan area. The Orchestra participates in The Orchestra Festival hosted by the Seoul Arts Center every year, and has successfully toured overseas to the U.S., Germany, Russia, China, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. In 1997, the orchestra became the first Korean orchestra to perform on the stage of Carnegie Hall in New York City during a four-city tour of the U.S. The orchestra has performed concerts in many landmark venues in major cities in Northeast Asia, including Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, Beijing National Center for the Performing Arts, and Shanghai Oriental Art Center.

The Busan Philharmonic Orchestra, with its long tradition, history, and characteristic openness, has recently been showcasing innovative projects. The orchestra successfully completed a cycle of Richard Strauss's complete symphonic poems from 2017 to 2019 and Ravel's complete orchestral works from 2020 to 2022. The Busan Phiharmonic Orchestra, under the leadership of director Seokwon Hong, has been presenting attractive projects with concise and clear themes and colors. Today, the Orchestra is attracting a lot of attention and expectations with its new direction of world-class music, a symphony orchestra loved by the people, and Busan as the center of classical music.