[1] A more sustained effort to establish an orchestra began in 1908 when an alliance between musicians, their union and leading business and legal figures organised regular subscription concerts.

It simply adopted the 20 piece orchestra already engaged in the Sydney studio by the ABC's predecessor, the privately run Australian Broadcasting Company.

Soloists appearing with the orchestra included Arthur Rubinstein, Bronisław Huberman, Artur Schnabel and Jascha Spivakovsky.

At the end of World War II, the ABC reached agreement with the Sydney City Council and the New South Wales state government to jointly fund the orchestra.

His tenure was abruptly cut short in March 1956 under personal circumstances deemed 'scandalous' at the time, and he was forced to return to England in disgrace.

[9] Sir Eugene Goossens was succeeded by Nikolai Malko, Dean Dixon, Moshe Atzmon and Willem van Otterloo.

Under van Otterloo, the orchestra made an eight-week European tour in 1974 which culminated in two concerts in Amsterdam and The Hague.

Zdeněk Mácal was initially appointed on a three-year contract from 1986 until 1988, which was reduced to one year, at his request; he nevertheless left abruptly in the first season.

Highlights of his tenure in Sydney included Wagner's Ring Cycle in concert, a focus on the works of his personal favourite Mahler and tours of Europe (1995), Japan (1996) and the United States (1998).

In December 2019, the SSO announced the appointment of Young as its next chief conductor, effective in 2022, with an initial contract of 3 years.

[17] The SSO, like all the other major symphony orchestras in Australia, was funded by the federal government as a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation from the 1950s until the mid-2000s.

A federal government review in 1994 severed the day-to-day management of the orchestra from the ABC and full independence was achieved on 1 January 2007.

Funding is provided by federal and state governments, corporate and private sponsorships and commercial activities as well as ticketing income.

The longest running point of contention is the refusal by the Opera House Trust to allow the orchestra to drill small holes into the concert hall stage to allow proper seating of the endpins (spikes on the bottom) of their cellos and double basses, which is believed to give a better resonance to these instruments.

The orchestra seats their endpins in planks of wood placed on the stage, as the Opera House Trust maintains that the entire building is heritage-listed under Australian law and that such work would therefore be illegal.

[citation needed] In November 2016, temporary sound reflectors were installed in the concert hall of the Opera House, to assist in amelioration of the acoustics.