Since its foundation in 1956, the Festival Strings Lucerne has toured extensively throughout the world. They made their debut at the Salzburg Festival in 1957, in New York in 1959, in Tokyo in 1971, in Sydney in 1977 and in Hong Kong in 1978. In Europe, the orchestra regularly performs in leading concert halls such as the Vienna Musikverein and Konzerthaus, the Philharmonie and Konzerthaus Berlin, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, in Lucerne in its own concert series at the KKL Luzern and every year as a guest of the Lucerne Festival.

He has always been characterised by his collaboration with outstanding musical partners, both established ones such as Hélène Grimaud, Khatia Buniatishvili and Maria João Pires and the younger generation such as Kian Soltani, Raphaela Gromes, Jan Lisiecki and Bomsori. The Festival Strings Lucerne has a particularly close partnership with Rudolf Buchbinder and Midori.

The repertoire ranges from the Baroque to the present day; the orchestra makes a substantial contribution to the expansion of the string and chamber orchestra repertoire with new arrangements and world premieres of more than a hundred works by composers such as Jean Françaix, Frank Martin, Bohuslav Martinů, Sándor Veress, Iannis Xenakis and Krzystof Penderecki.

The Festival Strings Lucerne was founded by Wolfgang Schneiderhan and Rudolf Baumgartner as a string ensemble with harpsichord and as a representative of the Austro-Hungarian string tradition. Violinist Daniel Dodds has been artistic director since 2012. With him as concertmaster, the orchestra increasingly performs symphonic repertoire in expanded formations.

The Festival Strings Lucerne can boast a rich discography, were pioneers of Archiv Produktion, Deutsche Grammophon's early music special edition, and made numerous recordings between the 1950s and 1970s with stars such as Clara Haskil, Pierre Fournier, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Zino Francescatti. Most recently, the Festival Strings Lucerne released an exemplary Beethoven album with Midori (2020 on Warner), a Mozart/Righini recording on Sony Classical in 2022 and a current bestseller, the double album FEMMES with Raphaela Gromes, also on Sony Classical. Another recording is planned with Midori, who will be touring the USA with the orchestra in autumn 2023.