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. With a limited performance size, the orchestra specializes in 18th-century music and was created to perform Baroque Music. The orchestra regularly tours in the UK and internationally, and holds the distinction of having the most extensive discography of any chamber orchestra and being the most well-traveled orchestra in the world; no other orchestra has played concerts (as of 2013, according to its own publicity) in as many countries as the English Chamber Orchestra.
Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-American violinist. He has performed worldwide and throughout the United States, in venues that have included a state dinner for Elizabeth II at the White House in 2007, and at the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama. He has conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Westchester Philharmonic. In 2015, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Perlman has won 16 Grammy Awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and four Emmy Awards.
Jacqueline Mary du Pré OBE was a British cellist, widely regarded as one of the greatest cellists of the 20th century. Born in Oxford, she began studying at the Guildhall School of Music in the mid-1950s with William Pleeth, earning the school's Gold Medal in 1960. Her musical development was further enhanced by advanced studies with prominent cellists such as Paul Tortelier, Pablo Casals, and Mstislav Rostropovich.
Zubin Mehta is an Indian conductor of Western classical music. He is music director emeritus of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) and conductor emeritus of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Sarah Chang is a Korean American classical violinist. Recognized as a child prodigy, she first played as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1989. She enrolled at Juilliard School to study music, graduated in 1999, and continued university studies. Especially during the 1990s and early to mid-2000s, Chang had major roles as a soloist with many of the world's major orchestras.
Pinchas Zukerman is an Israeli-American violinist, violist and conductor.
Midori Goto, who performs under the mononym Midori, is a Japanese-born American violinist. She made her debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 11 as a surprise guest soloist at the New Year's Eve Gala in 1982. In 1986 her performance at the Tanglewood Music Festival with Leonard Bernstein conducting his own composition made the front-page headlines in The New York Times. Midori became a celebrated child prodigy, and one of the world's preeminent violinists as an adult.
Shlomo Mintz is a Russian-born Israeli violinist and conductor. He regularly appears with orchestras and conductors on the international scene and is heard in recitals and chamber music concerts around the world.
Kyung Wha Chung is a South Korean violinist.
Hagai Shaham is an Israeli violin virtuoso. He began studying the violin at the age of six and was the last student of the late Professor Ilona Feher. He is also a violin teacher, a professor at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music, in the Faculty of Arts at Tel Aviv University, and an artist-in-residence at Stony Brook University.
Bronisław Huberman was a Polish violinist. He was known for his individualistic interpretations and was praised for his tone color, expressiveness, and flexibility. The Gibson ex-Huberman Stradivarius violin, which bears his name, was stolen twice and recovered once during the period in which he owned the instrument. Huberman is also remembered for founding the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and thus providing refuge from the Third Reich for nearly 1,000 European Jews.
Robert Chen is a Taiwan-born violinist who is the Concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He received Bachelor's and Master's of Music degrees from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Dorothy DeLay and Masao Kawasaki.
Nobuko Imai, is a renowned Japanese classical violist with an extensive career as soloist and chamber musician. Since 1988 she has played a 1690 Andrea Guarneri instrument.
Shmuel Ashkenasi is an Israeli violinist and teacher.
Ralph Henry Kirshbaum is an American cellist. His award-winning career combines the worlds of solo performance, chamber music, recording and pedagogy.
Stephanie Ann Chase is an American classical violinist.
Đặng Thái Sơn is a Vietnamese-Canadian classical pianist. In 1980, he won the X International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, becoming the first pianist from Asia to do so. He has received particular acclaim for the sonority and poetry in his interpretations of Chopin and the French repertoire.
The Buchmann-Mehta School of Music (BMSM) is an institute of higher education in Tel Aviv, Israel. The school is a part of the Faculty of the Arts of Tel Aviv University and is operated in collaboration with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO). The school is named after German Jewish philanthropist Josef Buchmann and conductor Zubin Mehta, then music director of the IPO. Mehta is the honorary president of the school and has conducted the school's orchestra regularly in Israel and on tours abroad. The BMSM mission is to train elite young musicians in performance, composition and research in music and prepare them for professional careers in these fields. The BMSM's orchestral training program is an integral part of the school and aims to educate orchestral musicians to supply the artistic future of the IPO and other orchestras.
Brett Deubner is an American violist. He has performed as concerto soloist with over 70 orchestras on four continents.
Unsuk Chin's Violin Concerto No. 1 was written in 2001 on a commission from the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, where she was then serving as composer-in-residence. It was given its world premiere by the violinist Viviane Hagner and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by Kent Nagano at the Berliner Philharmonie on January 20, 2002. The piece was awarded the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 2004. Unsuk Chin later composed a second Violin Concerto, Scherben der Stille , in 2021.
