The English Chamber Orchestra (ECO) is a British chamber orchestra based in London. The full orchestra regularly plays concerts at Cadogan Hall, and their ensemble performs at Wigmore Hall. The orchestra regularly tours in the UK and internationally, and holds the distinction of not only having the most extensive discography of any chamber orchestra, but also of being the most well-travelled orchestra in the world; no other orchestra has played concerts in as many countries as the English Chamber Orchestra.
Shulamit Ran is an Israeli-American composer. She moved from Israel to New York City at 14, as a scholarship student at the Mannes College of Music. Her Symphony (1990) won her the Pulitzer Prize for Music. In this regard, she was the second woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, the first being Ellen Taaffe Zwilich in 1983. Ran was a professor of music composition at the University of Chicago from 1973 to 2015. She has performed as a pianist in Israel, Europe and the U.S., and her compositional works have been performed worldwide by a wide array of orchestras and chamber groups.
Paul Sacher was a Swiss conductor, patron and impresario. He founded and conducted the Basler Kammerorchester (1926–1987). He commissioned notable works of composers of the 20th century and premiered them with the chamber orchestra. While better known for his interest in new music, he was also devoted to music of baroque and classical eras; he founded the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, institute for early music, in 1933.
Joan Tower is a Grammy-winning contemporary American composer, concert pianist and conductor. Lauded by The New Yorker as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time", her bold and energetic compositions have been performed in concert halls around the world. After gaining recognition for her first orchestral composition, Sequoia (1981), a tone poem which structurally depicts a giant tree from trunk to needles, she has gone on to compose a variety of instrumental works including Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, which is something of a response to Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, the Island Prelude, five string quartets, and an assortment of other tone poems. Tower was pianist and founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, which commissioned and premiered many of her early works, including her widely performed Petroushskates.
John Harris Harbison is an American composer, known for his symphonies, operas, and large choral works.
Tania León is a Cuban-born composer of both large scale and chamber works. She is also renowned as a conductor, educator, and advisor to arts organizations.
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, commonly referred to simply as the Gulbenkian Foundation, is a Portuguese institution dedicated to the promotion of the arts, philanthropy, science, and education. One of the wealthiest charitable foundations in the world, the Gulbenkian Foundation was founded on 18 July 1956 according to the last will and testament of Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian, a Portugal-based oil magnate who bequeathed his assets to the country in the form of a foundation.
The Budapest Festival Orchestra was formed in 1983 by Iván Fischer and Zoltán Kocsis, with musicians "drawn from the cream of Hungary's younger players", as The Times put it. Its aim was to make the orchestra's concerts into significant events in Hungary's musical life, and to give Budapest a new symphony orchestra of international standing.
The Swedish Chamber Orchestra is a Swedish orchestra based in Örebro. Established under its current name in 1995, its primary concert venue is the Örebro Concert Hall.
The Gulbenkian Orchestra is a Portuguese symphony orchestra based in Lisbon. The orchestra primarily gives concerts at the Grande Auditório of the Gulbenkian Foundation. The orchestra, which was founded in 1962 as a chamber orchestra, currently has 66 permanent musicians.
The New York Chamber Symphony (NYCS) was an American chamber orchestra based in New York City. It was active from 1977 to 2002.
The Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust was established in September 1954 under the guidance of H. C. ‘Nugget’ Coombs, Governor of the Commonwealth Bank, Sir Charles Moses General Manager, Australian Broadcasting Commission and John Douglas Pringle, Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. It aimed to establish drama, opera and ballet companies nationally.
The Chamber Orchestra of Europe (COE), established in 1981, is an orchestra based in London. The orchestra comprises about 60 members coming from across Europe. The players pursue parallel careers as international soloists, members of chamber groups and as tutors and teachers of music. The orchestra receives substantial support from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and the Underwood Trust; they have no single home resident hall and no appointed resident conductor. The orchestra is a registered charity under English law.
The Calcutta School of Music established in 1915 by Phillipe Sandre is an institution in India, in the field of Western Classical music and Contemporary classical music. It was established in the year 1915 by Phillipé Sandré, a musician of considerable calibre, and a contemporary and friend of the famous composer Saint-Saëns. It has a wide-ranging canvas of musical disciplines covering both Indian and Western music, dance, speech training, elocution, and drama. The School provides liberal instruction in musical subjects on one hand, and also arranging orchestral, chamber and solo music training and concerts, as well as music appreciation sessions throughout the year. Many visiting luminaries of the musical world have visited the School throughout its existence. this include maestros Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern and Mstislav Rostropovich. The great sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar inaugurated the faculty of Indian Music & Dance during the year 1975.
The Netherlands Chamber Orchestra is a Dutch chamber orchestra based in Amsterdam. The NKO is part of the Stichting Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest, along with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra (NedPhO). The core of the NKO is a group of at least 20 string instrumentalists. The orchestra does not have wind, percussion and harp players as permanent orchestra members, but instead utilises such instrumentalists from the NedPhO. The orchestra is headquartered and rehearses at the Beurs van Berlage, Amsterdam.
The Paloma O'Shea Santander International Piano Competition is a piano competition taking place in Santander, Spain. Founded in 1972 by Paloma O'Shea as a national prize, it turned into an international competition in its 2nd edition, and was professionalized in the mid-70s, being accepted into the World Federation of International Music Competitions in 1976.
Kammermusik is the title for eight chamber music compositions by Paul Hindemith. He wrote them, each in several movements, during the 1920s. They are grouped in three opus numbers: Op. 24, Op. 36 and Op. 46. Six of these works, Kammermusik Nos. 2–7, are not what is normally considered chamber music – music for a few players with equally important parts such as a wind quintet – but rather concertos for a soloist and chamber orchestra. They are concertos for piano, cello, violin, viola, viola d'amore and organ. The works, for different ensembles, were premiered at different locations and times. The composer was the soloist in the premiere of the viola concertos, while his brother Rudolf Hindemith was the soloist in the premiere of the cello concerto. Kammermusik is reminiscent of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, also concertos for different solo and orchestra instruments, and in a neo-Bachian spirit of structure, polyphony and stability of motion.
The Hawthorne String Quartet is an American string quartet, all four of whose members are players from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Although its repertoire ranges from the 18th century to contemporary works, the ensemble specializes in works by composers who were interned at the Terezín concentration camp during World War II and other "Entartete Musik" composers. Their recordings of music by three of these composers, Pavel Haas, Erwin Schulhoff and Hans Krása, were released on the Decca Records Entartete Musik series.
The Calcutta Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra that once existed in Calcutta, India. The last conductor of the orchestra was Bunny Jacob.
