The BBC Concert Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London, one of the British Broadcasting Corporation

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

's five radio orchestra

Radio orchestra

A radio orchestra is an orchestra employed by a radio network in order to provide programming as well as sometimes perform incidental or theme music for various shows on the network. In the heyday of radio such orchestras were numerous, performing classical, popular, light music and jazz...

s. With around fifty players, it is the only one of the five which is not a full-scale symphony orchestra.

The parent ensemble of the orchestra was the BBC Theatre Orchestra, which was formed in 1931 and based in Bedford

Bedford

Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire, in the East of England. It is a large town and the administrative centre for the wider Borough of Bedford. According to the former Bedfordshire County Council's estimates, the town had a population of 79,190 in mid 2005, with 19,720 in the adjacent town...

. The orchestra also did opera work and was occasionally billed as the BBC Opera Orchestra.