In 1992, the musicians invited Robert Kabara to become their artistic director. Within only a few months, this soloist and concertmaster transformed a group of very young musicians into an excellent ensemble of technical prowess and artistic maturity.
Sinfonietta Cracovia – the name appeared at the beginning of 1994 – became a city orchestra enjoying the patronage of the Mayor of Kraków. This was a great success of the then-acting city authorities and Krzysztof and Elżbieta Penderecki, whose support was crucial in the making of Kraków’s youngest orchestra. Since January 2001, the ensemble has acquired its First Permanent Conductor in the person of John Axelrod.
Collaboration with the most exciting personalities of the world of art has been a constant element of the concerts of the Sinfonietta. These includes figures such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Christoph Eschenbach, Lorin Maazel, Rudolf Buchbinder, Mischa Maisky, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Kazimierz Kord, Antoni Wit, Jan Krenz, Jerzy Katlewicz, Janusz Olejniczak, Kaja Danczowska, Barry Douglas, Irene Grafenauer, Tabea Zimmermann, Gérard Depardieu, or Christoph Bantzer. Some of the orchestra's members had the honour to participate in a jubilee project of Krystian Zimmerman's Polish Festival Orchestra (1999): the forty performances of Chopin concertos in Europe and the United States, and the album recorded under Krystian Zimmerman for Deutsche Grammophon have had a great impact on the artistic development of the opera.
The concerts given by Sinfonietta in some of Europe’s most prestigious halls (including the Berlin Philharmonic and Konzerthaus, the Herkules Saal in Munich, the Kurhaus w Wiesbaden, the Casino Hall in Basle, the Mogador Theatre in Paris, the St. Petersburg Conservatory, the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, the Italian theatres of Brescia, Naples and Parma, the Warsaw Philharmonic Hall or the Zurich Tonhalle) helped to secure its international reputation. These successes have also resulted in invitations to work with leading personalities of art and culture in Vienna, Salzburg, Paris, Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, New York and Chicago.
The orchestra’s Honorary Committee is made up of primary movers in international culture.