The Symphony Orchestra of the UdK Berlin is the heart of the artistic education of the Faculty of Music. With three concerts and an opera production every year, up to 120 students present their excellence in the orchestra and underpin their first-class education. The projects are conducted on a rotating basis by renowned conductors, many of whom hold principal positions with renowned orchestras, including Mario Venzago, Karl-Heinz Steffens, Giovanni Antonini, Michael Sanderling and Michael Schønwandt, who work on the program with the young musicians in rehearsal phases lasting several days. This way, the UdK Berlin creates an individual structure in orchestral training that effectively introduces students to the future orchestral profession and offers an attractive and varied insight into working with renowned personalities. The repertoire ranges from chamber orchestra works of the 18th century to solo concertos, whose solo parts are performed by students in the concert exam, to large-scale symphonies.

Three established concerts form the anchors of the symphony orchestra's performance calendar: a November concert, the traditional winter concert in February and the opening concert of the UdK Berlin crescendo music festival in May/June. The opera production with singers from the Faculty of Performing Arts is always a cross-faculty highlight on the program at the end of the academic year in June/July.

In the orchestra's long tradition, which goes back more than 150 years, well-known personalities from music history have appeared as conductors: The orchestra was established when the "Hochschule für Musik Berlin" was founded in 1869 and was conducted by Joseph Joachim, Max Bruch, Julius Prüwer and later by Erich Bergel and for 15 years by Lutz Köhler, among others. Steven Sloane was Artistic Director from 2013 to 2024. Internationally renowned conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Bernard Haitink, Kent Nagano and Mariss Jansons have conducted the orchestra as part of orchestral workshops. Outstanding concerts included performances in the Berlin Philharmonic with symphonies by Gustav Mahler, Bruckner's 7th and 3rd symphonies, Shostakovich's 5th symphony and the interdisciplinary collaboration with communication and design students in Wagner's "The Ring Without Words" in Lorin Maazel's version. Collaborations with major Berlin choirs have included Mendelssohn's Lobgesang, Britten's War Requiem and Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Other highlights include guest appearances in Katowice, Glasgow and Edinborough, and most recently in The Hague and London.

The orchestra is also present in the media thanks to the sound engineer course. Many concerts have been recorded or produced as live streams, which are available in the UdK Berlin media library. This also characterizes the uniqueness of orchestral training at the UdK Berlin.