Acknowledged as “the finest chamber orchestra in the world” (BBC 2 Television), the Chamber Orchestra of Europe was founded in 1981 by a group of young musicians graduating from the European Union Youth Orchestra. Of that original group, thirteen remain in the current core membership of around sixty.
The COE performs in some of the most prominent cultural venues in Europe including the Philharmonie in Paris, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus, the Cologne Philharmonie and the Alte Oper in Frankfurt. The COE has a close association with the Lucerne Festival, the Styriarte in Graz and with many of the world’s most prestigious musical events, such as the BBC Proms in London, the Edin-burgh International Festival and the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York.
Over the years, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe has developed especially close relationships with the late Claudio Abbado, Vladimir Jurowski, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Sir András Schiff. The Orchestra also performs with many of the world’s most renowned soloists and conductors including, this season, Piotr Anderszewski, Renaud Capuçon, Sir Roger Norrington, Francesco Piemontesi, Christian Tetzlaff and Robin Ticciati.
In only thirty-five years, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe has recorded over 250 works with all the major recording companies. It has won numerous international prizes for its recordings including three Gramophone Record of the Year awards – for Rossini’s opera Viaggio à Reims, Schubert’s symphonies conducted by Claudio Abbado, and Beethoven’s symphonies conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. The Orchestra has also won two Gram-mys and the MIDEM “Classical Download” Award. The COE was the first Orchestra to create its own label, “COE Records”, in association with Sanctuary Records, a division of Univer-sal Music. In 2016, Deutsche Grammophon released the COE’s recor-ding of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin – also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording 2017. The COE receives invaluable financial support from a number of Friends including particularly The Gatsby Charitable Foundation, without which it could not survive.
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