France's Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire lives up to its "national" designation, with an international reputation and a substantial catalog of recordings dating back to its early days. Some of its music directors have focused on French music, while others, hailing from outside France, have cultivated a broader repertory.

The Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire (the Pays de la Loire are the "lands of the Loire river" in western France) was founded in 1971. It took shape in the merger of two regional ensembles, the orchestra of the Opéra de Nantes and that of the Société des Concerts Populaires d'Angers. The group has maintained a dual headquarters since then in the cities of Nantes and Angers, but it draws its membership of 114 from nationwide auditions. The orchestra toured from early in its career, visiting Romania, Bulgaria, and Poland in 1979 and London in 1980. At first, it was called the Orchestre Philharmonique des Pays de la Loire; the "national" descriptor was added in 1996, and the group has received support from France's Ministry of Culture as well as the city and regional governments in its home area.

The orchestra also began to record, issuing an album of works by Vincent d'Indy in 1977; that recording won a Grand Prix du Disque honor in France. The orchestra's first two music directors, Pierre Dervaux (1971-1976) and Marc Soustrot (1976-1994), emphasized French music in their programming. Soustrot was succeeded by Hubert Soudant (1994-2004), who favored Germanic repertory, and by Isaac Karabtchevsky, who formed a new choir associated with the orchestra and took the orchestra on international tours, including in China and Japan. He cultivated broadly international programming, as did his successor, John Axelrod (2010-2013). Under Pascal Rophé, the orchestra appeared at the Folle Journée in Japan and in the Great Hall of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. Recent conductors have succeeded in building a subscriber base of 9,000 and attracting some 200,000 patrons to the orchestra's concerts; the latter number represents one of the largest totals in Europe. The Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire has recorded several albums for the BIS label, beginning with one devoted to the music of Henri Dutilleux in 2015; in 2022, the orchestra, under Rophé, released the album Debussy Orchestrated. Sascha Goetzel was slated to take over the music directorship of the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire in the fall of that year. ~ James Manheim, Rovi