It is currently based in the Michael Fowler Centre and has frequently performed in the adjacent Wellington Town Hall before it was closed in 2013.

It performs its core series of 12 programmes in Wellington and Auckland, about half of those in Hamilton, Christchurch and Dunedin, and visits several provincial cities each year.

It has several times toured overseas, notably in 2005 to the BBC Proms, the Snape Maltings, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the World Expo at Aichi in Japan.

[7] In June 2015, the NZSO announced the appointment of Edo de Waart as its next music director, with his first concerts in March 2016.

[11] The orchestra's affiliated conductors to date include: The NZSO has recorded several LPs and many CDs, several with internationally known soloists such as Alessandra Marc and Donald McIntyre.

In 2012, the NZSO collaborated with Booktrack and Salman Rushdie to create music for an enhanced edition of Rusdhie's short story In the South .

An NZSO recording of works by Pulitzer Prize-winning Chinese composer Zhou Long and the Symphony ‘Humen 1839’, written in collaboration with compatriot Chen Yi, was nominated for Best Orchestral Performance at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2016.

[17][18] It auditions afresh each year and, after an intensive rehearsal schedule, performs one programme, in 2007 to be repeated in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

The NYO celebrated its 50th Anniversary Celebratory Season in 2009, under the baton of Paul Daniel, with John Chen as soloist and Ben Morrison as Concertmaster.

Their programme was Mahler's 7th Symphony, Ravel's Left-Hand piano concerto and an original composition by Natalie Hunt, Only to the Highest Mountain.