The Croatian Radio Television Big Band, that is, its predecessor, the Dancing orchestra of Radio Zagreb, was founded in the season of 1946/47 to fulfill the demands of the Radio and assembled the best musicians from a number of ensembles, under the baton of Zlatko Černjul. Of the numerous conductors that followed, a special mention must be made of Miljenko Prohaska, who was in charge of the orchestra for more then 30 years and introduced the policy of creating a repertoire of their own. This change of orientation brought on the development of a specific style. Many internationally prominent soloists performed with the ensemble: Art Farmer, Clark Terry, Johnny Griffin, Ernie Wilkins, Kai Winding, John Lewis, Art Taylor and others. For the last decade the orchestra has been under the successful direction of Silvije Glojnarić. He introduced the policy of gradually including the best musicians of the younger generation (Saša Nestorović, Davor Križić and others) in order to maintain the highest level of artistic achievement. For the last five years the Big Band has had a regular concert series.

The New Music Group of the Elly Bašić Music School, Zagreb, has been playing as an ensemble since November 2007. The group consists of high school students included in the "Young People and Contemporary Music" project, based on the idea, and under the leadership, of teachers Maja Petyo Bošnjak and Berislav Šipuš. The project's long-term goal is to systematically familiarize students with 20^th century's new music in order for them to be able to follow the new tendencies of the 21^st century. As active participants, the students of elementary and secondary schools are introduced to, and perform, New music, by participating in contemporary music workshops. An added value for the Group for New Music is an experience of working with the distinguished professor Berislav Šipuš. In the preparations for the performances at the Biennale, the students are cooperating with the young conductor Josip Nalis.

The Croatian Radio Television Symphony Orchestra already performed, as a smaller ensemble, as early as 1930. The Zagreb Radio Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1951, achieving a reputation and success both at home and abroad, under the direction of its first conductor Antonio Janigro and later under Stjepan Šulek and Pavle Dešpalj. Its subsequent prominent conductors include  Pavel Dešpalj, Krešimir Šipuš, Josef Daniel, Oskar Danon, Milan Horvat, Uroš Lajovic, Vladimir Kranjčević and Nikša Bareza. Among the conductors and soloists who have worked with this ensemble are Lovro Matačić, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Krzysztof Penderecki, Henryk Szering, Aldo Ciccolini, Dubravka Tomšič-Srebotnjak, Ivo Pogorelić, Mstislav Rostropović, Edita Gruberová, José Carreras and Barbara Hendricks. In addition to regular concerts and their official duties (participating in radio and TV programmes), the Orchestra gives guest performances in many places at home and abroad. It performs both the classical and the contemporary repertoire, makes recordings and broadcasts, and furthermore takes special care of the Croatian musical heritage and contemporary works.