The Chamber Orchestra of Europe (COE), established in 1981, is administratively based in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. The orchestra comprises about 60 members coming from across Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. The players pursue parallel careers as international soloists, members of eminent chamber groups, and as tutors and professors of music. The orchestra receives substantial support from the European Commission

European Commission

The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....

 and The Gatsby Charitable Foundation ; they have no single home resident hall and no appointed resident conductor.

The idea for the COE came from musicians in the European Community Youth Orchestra

European Union Youth Orchestra

The European Union Youth Orchestra is a training orchestra for young people in the European Union. It is funded centrally by the European Union and by a number of EU member states...

, from members who were past the age limit for the ECYO and who wanted to continue working together in a chamber orchestra context. The founding members included the oboist Douglas Boyd

Douglas Boyd

Douglas Boyd is a British oboist and conductor. He studied oboe at the Royal Academy of Music, London, as a pupil of Janet Craxton. He later was a student with Maurice Bourgue in Paris...

, who served as the COE's principal oboist from 1981 to 2002. Over the years the COE has developed strong relationships with Claudio Abbado

Claudio Abbado

Claudio Abbado, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , is an Italian conductor. He has served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera,...

, Bernard Haitink

Bernard Haitink

Bernard Johan Herman Haitink, CH, KBE is a Dutch conductor and violinist.- Early life :Haitink was born in Amsterdam, the son of Willem Haitink and Anna Haitink. He studied music at the conservatoire in Amsterdam...

 and Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Nikolaus Harnoncourt is an Austrian conductor, particularly known for his historically informed performances of music from the Classical era and earlier. Starting out as a classical cellist, he founded his own period instrument ensemble in the 1950s, and became a pioneer of the Early Music movement...

, together with Thomas Adès

Thomas Adès

Thomas Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor.-Biography:Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London...

, Pierre-Laurent Aimard

Pierre-Laurent Aimard

Pierre-Laurent Aimard is a French pianist. He was born in Lyon, where he entered the conservatory. Later he studied with Yvonne Loriod and with Maria Curcio....

, Vladimir Ashkenazy

Vladimir Ashkenazy

Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy is a Russian-Icelandic conductor and pianist. Since 1972 he has been a citizen of Iceland, his wife Þórunn's country of birth. Since 1978, because of his many obligations in Europe, he and his family have resided in Meggen, near Lucerne in Switzerland...

, Emanuel Ax

Emanuel Ax

Emanuel Ax is a Grammy-winning American classical pianist. He is currently a teacher on the faculty of the Juilliard School. He is considered one of the best known concert pianists of the 21st century.-Early life:...

, Lisa Batiashvili

Lisa Batiashvili

Lisa Batiashvili is a Georgian violinist, the daughter of a violinist father and a pianist mother. Her father was her first teacher from age 4. She later studied at the Hamburg Musikhochschule...

, Paavo Berglund

Paavo Berglund

Paavo Allan Engelbert Berglund is a Finnish conductor.Born in Helsinki, Berglund studied the violin as a child, and played an instrument made by his grandfather. By age 15, he had decided on music as his career, and by 18 was playing in restaurants...

, Herbert Blomstedt

Herbert Blomstedt

Herbert Blomstedt is a Swedish conductor.Herbert Blomstedt was born in Springfield, Massachusetts and two years after his birth, his Swedish parents moved the family back to their country of origin...

, Semyon Bychkov

Semyon Bychkov

Semyon Mayevich Bychkov is a Russian-Born conductor.-Childhood and studies in Russia:Born in Leningrad to Jewish parents, Bychkov studied at the Glinka Choir School for ten years and later at the Leningrad Conservatory with Ilya Musin...

, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon

Gautier Capuçon

-Biography:Gautier Capuçon was born in Chambéry, Savoie, the youngest of three siblings. His brother is the violinist Renaud Capuçon.He started learning the cello when he was four years old...

, Ivan Fischer

Iván Fischer

Iván Fischer is a Hungarian conductor and composer. Born in Budapest into a Jewish musical family, Fischer initially studied piano, violin, cello and composition in Budapest...

, Thomas Hengelbrock

Thomas Hengelbrock

Thomas Hengelbrock is a German violinist, musicologist, stage director and conductor.- Biography :Thomas Hengelbrock studied the violin with Rainer Kussmaul and started his career in Würzburg and Freiburg im Breisgau...

, Vladimir Jurowski

Vladimir Jurowski

Vladimir Mikhailovich Jurowski is a Russian conductor. He is the son of conductor Mikhail Jurowski.Jurowski began his musical studies at the Moscow Conservatory...

, Leonidas Kavakos

Leonidas Kavakos

Leonidas Kavakos is a Greek virtuoso violinist .-Beginnings:Born in Athens into a musical family, Kavakos began studying violin at five years old and continued his studies at the Hellenic Conservatory with Stelios Kafantaris. An Onassis Foundation scholarship enabled him to attend master classes...

, Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Yannick Nézet-Séguin is a French Canadian conductor. He is Music Director Designate of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and will become Music Director in 2012.-Biography:...

, Sir Roger Norrington, Sakari Oramo

Sakari Oramo

Sakari Markus Oramo OBE is a Finnish conductor.Oramo started his career as a violinist and concertmaster of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 1989, he enrolled in Jorma Panula's conducting class at the Sibelius Academy...

, Maria João Pires

Maria João Pires

-Musical studies:Her first recital was at the age of five, and at the age of seven she was already playing Mozart Piano Concertos publicly. Two years later she received Portugal's top prize for young musicians. In the following years, she studied with Professor Campos Coelho at the Lisbon...

, András Schiff

András Schiff

András Schiff is a Hungarian-born British classical pianist, who has won a number of awards including the Grammy and made numerous recordings.- Biography :...

 and Mitsuko Uchida

Mitsuko Uchida

, born 20 December 1948, is a Japanese naturalized British classical pianist.-Career:Born in Atami, a seaside town close to Tokyo, Japan, Uchida moved to Vienna, Austria, with her diplomat parents when she was twelve years old, after her father was named the Japanese ambassador to Austria...

.

The COE performs regularly in the major cities of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, with occasional visits to the USA, Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. The COE has strong links with the Alte Oper

Alte Oper

The Alte Oper is a major concert hall and former opera house in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The building was inaugurated in 1880. Many important works have been premiered at the Alte Oper, including Carl Orff's Carmina Burana in 1937....

 in Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

, the Styriarte Festival in Graz

Graz

The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...

, the Lucerne Festival

Lucerne Festival

- History :The festival was founded in 1938 with a series of concerts in the gardens of Wagner's villa conducted by Arturo Toscanini, who had formed an orchestra with members of different orchestras and soloists for the concert...

, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation is a Portuguese private foundation of public utility whose statutory aims are in the fields of arts, charity, education, and science...

 in Lisbonne, as well as the Philharmonie

Philharmonie

* Berliner Philharmonie* Cologne Philharmonie* Elbe Philharmonie, Hamburg* Jenaer Philharmonie* Gasteig Philharmonie, Munich* Neue Philharmonie Frankfurt* Philharmonie de Paris* Philharmonie Luxembourg...

 in Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

, the Cité de la musique

Cité de la Musique

The Cité de la Musique is a group of institutions dedicated to music and situated in the La Villette quarter, 19th arrondissement, Paris, France. It was designed by the architect Christian de Portzamparc and opened in 1995...

 and the Salle Pleyel

Salle Pleyel

The Salle Pleyel is a concert hall in Paris, France. The resident ensembles are the Orchestre de Paris and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.-History and Design:...

 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, the Concertgebouw

Concertgebouw

The Concertgebouw is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term "concertgebouw" literally translates into English as "concert building"...

 in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

 and the Opéra de Dijon

Dijon

Dijon is a city in eastern France, the capital of the Côte-d'Or département and of the Burgundy region.Dijon is the historical capital of the region of Burgundy. Population : 151,576 within the city limits; 250,516 for the greater Dijon area....

. In 2007, the European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 appointed the COE as a Cultural Ambassador in its Culture Programme. The COE created the COE Academy in 2009 in order to provide opportunities to gifted music students to study with COE musicians.

The orchestra has made over 250 commercial recordings for several labels with various conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Paavo Berglund

Paavo Berglund

Paavo Allan Engelbert Berglund is a Finnish conductor.Born in Helsinki, Berglund studied the violin as a child, and played an instrument made by his grandfather. By age 15, he had decided on music as his career, and by 18 was playing in restaurants...

, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and Thomas Hengelbrock

Thomas Hengelbrock

Thomas Hengelbrock is a German violinist, musicologist, stage director and conductor.- Biography :Thomas Hengelbrock studied the violin with Rainer Kussmaul and started his career in Würzburg and Freiburg im Breisgau...

.