The Zadar Chamber Orchestra was formed in 1960 by Pavle Dešpalj, who is now their honorary conductor, but the Orchestra was not officially constituted before 1985. At that time violinist and teacher Petar Vrbančić took over the leadership of the ensemble. Vrbančić was succeeded by Drago Novak. In his time, the Zadar Chamber Orchestra played around Croatia, as well as in France and Spain. Since the Orchestra was formed at the same time as Zadar's oldest classical music festival, it became the resident ensemble of the Music Evenings in St. Donat's, although unofficially. The war interrupted the Orchestra's activities, but with the support from the city of Zadar Ivan Repušić was appointed as the new chief conductor and artistic director in 2004. Since then, the Orchestra has had its own concert series in which they have hosted a number of renowned conductors (Mladen Tarbuk, Tomislav Fačini, Berislav Šipuš, Tonči Bilić, Chikara Iwamura etc.) and acclaimed soloists (Martina Filjak, Pavica Gvozdić, Marin Zokić, Valentina Fijačko, Martina Gojčeta Silić, Boris Martinović, Stefan Milenković…). They have also appeared in festivals such as the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, Split Summer, Pag Summer.