The Mahler Chamber Orchestra http://www.mahler-chamber.de is a professional touring chamber orchestra founded by 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,...

 and former members of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra

Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra

Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester is a youth orchestra based in Vienna, Austria, founded in 1986 by conductor Claudio Abbado.-History:...

 in 1997.

The MCO appears throughout the year in about 60-70 concerts and performances. It consists of 60 musicians from 17 different nations. Its activities include concerts, opera projects, chamber music as well as CD recordings. Strong artistic links have been established with Daniel Harding

Daniel Harding

Daniel Harding is a British conductor.Harding studied trumpet at Chetham's School of Music and was a member of the National Youth Orchestra at age 13. At age 17, Harding assembled a group of musicians to perform Pierrot Lunaire of Arnold Schoenberg, and sent a tape of the performance to Simon...

 (principal guest conductor 1998-2003, music director since September 2003) and Claudio Abbado. The MCO has stable residencies in Ferrara

Ferrara

Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...

 (Ferrara Musica, honorary president: Claudio Abbado), Aix-en-Provence

Aix-en-Provence

Aix , or Aix-en-Provence to distinguish it from other cities built over hot springs, is a city-commune in southern France, some north of Marseille. It is in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the département of Bouches-du-Rhône, of which it is a subprefecture. The population of Aix is...

 (Festival international d'art lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence), Toblach

Toblach

Toblach is a comune/Gemeinde in South Tyrol in the Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, located in the Puster Valley about 110 km northeast of the city of Trento and about 70 km northeast of the city of Bolzano, on the border with Austria.As of November 30, 2010, it had a...

 (Gustav Mahler Musikwochen), Lucerne

Lucerne

Lucerne is a city in north-central Switzerland, in the German-speaking portion of that country. Lucerne is the capital of the Canton of Lucerne and the capital of the district of the same name. With a population of about 76,200 people, Lucerne is the most populous city in Central Switzerland, and...

 (Lucerne Festival), Salzburg

Salzburg

-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...

 (Mozartwochen) and Landshut

Landshut

Landshut is a city in Bavaria in the south-east of Germany, belonging to both Eastern and Southern Bavaria. Situated on the banks of the River Isar, Landshut is the capital of Lower Bavaria, one of the seven administrative regions of the Free State of Bavaria. It is also the seat of the...

.

The MCO's repertoire reaches from baroque to contemporary music. The MCO is a free financed orchestra without any state support. Friends and sponsors are needed to maintain the artistic life of the orchestra.

Biography

The Mahler Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1997 on the initiative of Claudio Abbado and a group of musicians from the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra who wished to continue to play together even after reaching the youth orchestra's age limit. The combined principles of artistic curiosity and the broadest possible spectrum of repertoire, both at the highest possible musical level, guided the ambitious ensemble in its founding and continue to shape its work today. The ensemble’s repertoire reaches from baroque to contemporary and includes everything from chamber music to symphonic programming, from operatic standards to world premieres.

In order to maintain these high standards, collaboration with high-profile partners has been of particular importance from the very beginning, in the selection of soloists and conductors as well as concert promoters and venues. Alongside founder Claudio Abbado, Daniel Harding has been a determining figure in the development of the orchestra. Serving at first as principal guest conductor, Harding became music director in summer 2003 and conducts a large percentage of the orchestra's 70-80 concerts and opera performances each year. The orchestra also maintains close artistic relationships with Marc Minkowski

Marc Minkowski

Marc Minkowski is a French conductor of classical music, especially known for his interpretations of French Baroque works. His mother is American, and his father was Alexandre Minkowski, a Polish-French professor of pediatrics and one of the founders of neonatology...

 and Alexander Lonquich

Alexander Lonquich

Alexander Lonquich is a German classical pianist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Trier.Studied with Paul Badura-Skoda, Andrzej Jasínski, and Ilonka Deckers-Küszler....

. Projects with noted specialists in particular techniques or repertoire also make up an important element of the orchestra’s program, strengthening its reputation as a multi-faceted ensemble. Baroque workshops, at which specialists instruct in historical performance practice, have been a part of the MCO’s schedule since 2004, and the MCO works regularly with experts in early or contemporary music, such as Reinhard Goebel

Reinhard Goebel

Reinhard Goebel is a German conductor and violinist specialising in early music on authentic instruments. Goebel received his first violin lessons at the age of twelve...

 or Jonathan Nott

Jonathan Nott

Jonathan Nott is an English conductor, the son of a priest at Worcester Cathedral. He was a music student and choral scholar at the University of Cambridge, and also studied singing and flute in Manchester at the Royal Northern College of Music. Nott was also a conducting student in London...

.

The independently financed MCO is also unique in the flexibility of its organisational structure. The core of the MCO is made up of approximately 50 musicians of 19 different nationalities; additional musicians are engaged as needed. The ensemble comes together for single projects, composing itself according to the specific requirements of each individual program. This has led to the development of a cultivated and sensitive orchestral sound which has become the ensemble’s trademark. Rather than having a single fixed home base, the orchestra has residencies in various European cities, which provide rehearsal opportunities and often a launching point for worldwide tours. The Mahler Chamber Orchestra is orchestra-in-residence in Aix-en-Provence, Ferrara, Toblach, Landshut, and at the Mozartwoche Salzburg. Long-term contracts also connect the orchestra to the Sintonie Festival in Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

 and the Lucerne Festival, where the orchestra has performed since 2003.

The orchestra had its international breakthrough just a year after its founding with Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...

, which premiered at the Festival International d’Art Lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence in 1998 under the direction of Claudio Abbado and Daniel Harding. The ensuing world tour of this production not only brought the ensemble international acclaim, but also led to a residency contract with the Aix-en-Provence festival. Since then, the orchestra has collaborated on many notable and successful productions in Aix, including: The Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Screw (opera)

The Turn of the Screw is a 20th century English chamber opera composed by Benjamin Britten with a libretto by Myfanwy Piper, "wife of the artist John Piper, who had been a friend of the composer since 1935 and had provided designs for several of the operas". The libretto is based on the novella...

(Daniel Harding/Luc Bondy, 2001), Eugen Onegin

Eugene Onegin (opera)

Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, is an opera in 3 acts , by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Konstantin Shilovsky and the composer and his brother Modest, and is based on the novel in verse by Alexander Pushkin....

(Daniel Harding/Irina Brook), The Love of Three Oranges (Tugan Sokhiev/Philippe Calvario, 2004) and Così fan tutte

Così fan tutte

Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....

(Daniel Harding/Patrice Chéreau, 2005.) A residency contract with Ferrara Musica was signed in 1998, providing for two concert series a year. In addition to opera projects with Claudio Abbado, concert series with MCO music director Daniel Harding and renowned guest conductors such as Christopher Hogwood

Christopher Hogwood

Christopher Jarvis Haley Hogwood CBE, MA , HonMusD , born 10 September 1941, Nottingham, is an English conductor, harpsichordist, writer and musicologist, well known as the founder of the Academy of Ancient Music.-Biography:...

, Philippe Herreweghe

Philippe Herreweghe

Philippe Herreweghe is a Flemish conductor.In his school years at the University of Ghent, Herreweghe combined studies in medical science and psychiatry with a musical education at the Ghent Conservatory, where Marcel Gazelle, Yehudi Menuhin's accompanist, was his piano teacher...

, Paavo Järvi

Paavo Järvi

Paavo Järvi is an Estonian-American conductor, and current Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris.Järvi was born in Tallinn, Estonia, to conductor Neeme Järvi and Liilia Järvi. His siblings, Kristjan Järvi and Maarika Järvi, are also musicians...

, Murray Perahia

Murray Perahia

Murray Perahia KBE is an American concert pianist and conductor.-Early life:Murray Perahia was born in the Bronx borough of New York City to a family of Sephardi Jewish origin. According to the biography on his Mozart piano sonatas CD, his first language was Judaeo-Spanish or, Ladino. The family...

 and 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...

 also take place here. Soloists such as Cecilia Bartoli

Cecilia Bartoli

Cecilia Bartoli is an Italian coloratura mezzo-soprano opera singer and recitalist. She is best-known for her interpretation of the music of Mozart and Rossini, as well as for her performances of lesser-known Baroque and classical music...

, Martha Argerich

Martha Argerich

Martha Argerich is an Argentine pianist.-Early life:Argerich was born in Buenos Aires and started playing the piano at age three...

, Christian Tetzlaff

Christian Tetzlaff

-Biography:Tetzlaff was born in Hamburg. He began playing the violin and piano at the age of 6, and made his concert debut at 14 years old. He studied with Uwe-Martin Haiberg at the Musikhochschule Lübeck and with Walter Levine at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.He is...

 or 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:...

 join the orchestra for concert programs that serve to draw ever increasing attention to the orchestra both in Ferrara and on an international level.

In its nine years, the MCO has recorded several prize-winning CDs. Discs recorded under the direction of Daniel Harding and released by Virgin Classics include: Don Giovanni, The Turn of the Screw (recipient of several awards, including the Choc de l’année 2002), Haydn Cello Concertos with 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...

 (Choc du monde de la musique 2003, among others) and Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

’s Fourth Symphony

Symphony No. 4 (Mahler)

The Symphony No. 4 by Gustav Mahler was written between 1899 and 1901, though it incorporates a song originally written in 1892. The song, "Das himmlische Leben", presents a child's vision of Heaven. It is sung by a soprano in the work's fourth and last movement...

 in a recording received enthusiastically by the international press. The Deutsche Grammophon

Deutsche Grammophon

Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...

 release of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique

Symphonie Fantastique

Symphonie Fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un Artiste...en cinq parties , Op. 14, is a program symphony written by the French composer Hector Berlioz in 1830. It is one of the most important and representative pieces of the early Romantic period, and is still very popular with concert audiences...

as conducted by Marc Minkowski received the Jahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik 2003. Recordings with founder Claudio Abbado have also been released by Deutsche Grammophon: Italian opera arias with Anna Netrebko

Anna Netrebko

Anna Yuryevna Netrebko is an Russian operatic soprano. She now holds dual Russian and Austrian citizenship and currently resides in Vienna. She has been nicknamed "La Bellissima" by fans.-Biography:...

, and works for oboe by Mozart and Lebrun with Albrecht Mayer

Albrecht Mayer

Albrecht Mayer is a German classical oboist.-Biography:Mayer sang as a child in the Cathedral Choir in Bamberg. He was a student of Gerhard Scheuer, Georg Meerwein, Maurice Bourgue and Ingo Goritzki, and began his professional career as principal oboist for the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra in 1990...

. The live recording of Beethoven’s 2nd and 3rd piano concertos with Martha Argerich was honoured with a Grammy Award

Grammy Award

A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

, and the recording of violin concertos of Stravinsky and Alban Berg

Alban Berg

Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...

 with Kolja Blacher won a Disapon D’or.

The theme-related concert programs at the Sintonie Festival in Torino, the annual concerts at the Lucerne Festival (where the Mahler Chamber Orchestra performs not only as the core of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra

Lucerne Festival Orchestra

The Lucerne Festival Orchestra is an ad hoc seasonal orchestra, based at the annual Lucerne Festival in Switzerland. The Lucerne Festival had featured a resident orchestra as far back as 1938, with Arturo Toscanini conducting the first concert of that ensemble. From 1943 until its disbandment in...

, but also in its usual formation in its own concerts), regular opera and concert projects at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées

Théâtre des Champs-Élysées

The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées is a theatre at 15 avenue Montaigne. Despite its name, the theatre is not on the Champs-Élysées but nearby in another part of the 8th arrondissement of Paris....

, chamber music series, invitations to high-profile European festivals and extensive tours to locations around the world - the list of activities grows ever longer. For the season 2006/2007, the ambitious and creative ensemble has plans for its second Asian tour, a European tour featuring a programme of jazz and swing standards, and an opera project under the direction of Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...

 and Patrice Chéreau, as well as concerts with Daniel Harding, Heinz Holliger

Heinz Holliger

Heinz Holliger Heinz Holliger Heinz Holliger (born 21 May 1939 is a Swiss oboist, composer and conductor.-Biography:He was born in Langenthal, Switzerland, and began his musical education at the conservatories of Bern and Basel. He studied composition with Sándor Veress and Pierre Boulez...

, and Philippe Herreweghe.