The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra is a Grammy Award-winning classical music chamber orchestra based in New York City. It is known for its collaborative leadership style in which the musicians, not a conductor, interpret the score.

Orpheus was founded in 1972, by cellist Julian Fifer and a group of fellow musicians who aspired to perform orchestral repertoire using chamber music ensemble techniques. Central to its distinctive personality is its unique practice of sharing and rotating leadership roles. For every work, the members of the orchestra select the concertmaster and the principal players for each section. These players constitute the core group, whose role is to form the initial concept of the piece and to shape the rehearsal process. In the final rehearsals, all members of the orchestra participate in refining the interpretation and execution, with members taking turns listening from the hall for balance, blend, articulation, dynamic range and clarity of expression.

Group biography

Recognized internationally as one of the world's great orchestras, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has been playing to music lovers on four continents for 34 years. For the past twenty-six seasons, the centerpiece of each Orpheus season has been its concert series at New York's Carnegie Hall. Accompanying the critical acclaim for Orpheus' live appearances are numerous distinctions and awards, including a 2001 Grammy Award for Shadow Dances: Stravinsky Miniatures, a 1998 Grammy nomination for its recording of Mozart piano concerti with Richard Goode, the 1998 "Ensemble of the Year" award by Musical America, as well as performances on Herbie Hancock's Grammy-winning Gershwin's World

Gershwin's World

Gershwin's World is the forty-second album by Herbie Hancock.This album featured the songs of George and Ira Gershwin. It features several prominent musicians including Joni Mitchell, Chick Corea, Stevie Wonder, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra....

. On May 16, 2010, the orchestra was awarded an honorary degree from Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University is a private research university located in Cleveland, Ohio, USA...

 at the university's graduation ceremony alongside Katie Couric

Katie Couric

Katherine Anne "Katie" Couric is an American journalist and author. She serves as Special Correspondent for ABC News, contributing to ABC World News, Nightline, 20/20, Good Morning America, This Week and primetime news specials...

 and M. Cherif Bassiouni.

Orpheus has collaborated with many of the great artists of our time including Isaac Stern

Isaac Stern

Isaac Stern was a Ukrainian-born violinist. He was renowned for his recordings and for discovering new musical talent.-Biography:Isaac Stern was born into a Jewish family in Kremenets, Ukraine. He was fourteen months old when his family moved to San Francisco...

, Gidon Kremer

Gidon Kremer

Gidon Kremer is a Latvian violinist and conductor. In 1980 he left the USSR and settled in Germany.-Biography:Kremer was born in Riga to parents of German-Jewish and Latvian-Swedish origins. He began playing the violin at the age of four, receiving instruction from his father and his grandfather,...

, Itzhak Perlman

Itzhak Perlman

Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-born violinist, conductor, and instructor of master classes. He is regarded as one of the pre-eminent violinists of the 20th and early-21st centuries.-Early life:...

, Gil Shaham

Gil Shaham

-Biography:Gil Shaham was born in Urbana, Illinois, while his parents, Israeli scientists, were on an academic fellowship at the University of Illinois. His father Jacob was an astrophysicist, and his mother, Meira Diskin, was a cytogeneticist. His sister is the pianist Orli Shaham. He is a...

, Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...

, Mischa Maisky

Mischa Maisky

Mischa Maisky is a Latvian cellist.Maisky began studies at the Leningrad Conservatory and later with Mstislav Rostropovich at the Moscow Conservatory whilst pursuing a concert career throughout the Soviet Union. In 1966 he won 6th Prize at the Moscow International Tchaikovsky Competition. In 1970,...

, 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:...

, Richard Goode

Richard Goode

Richard Goode is an American classical pianist, especially known for his interpretations of Ludwig van Beethoven and chamber music.Goode was born in East Bronx, New York...

, Alicia de Larrocha

Alicia de Larrocha

Alicia de Larrocha y de la Calle was a Spanish pianist from Catalonia. One of the great piano legends of the 20th century, Reuters called her "the greatest Spanish pianist in history", Time "one of the world's most outstanding pianists" and The Guardian "the leading Spanish pianist of her...

, Radu Lupu

Radu Lupu

Radu Lupu is a Romanian concert pianist. He has won a number of the most prestigious awards in classical piano, including first prizes in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition....

, 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...

, Alfred Brendel

Alfred Brendel

Alfred Brendel KBE is an Austrian pianist, born in Czechoslovakia and a resident of the United Kingdom. He is also a poet and author.-Biography:...

, Horacio Gutierrez

Horacio Gutiérrez

Horacio Gutiérrez is a Cuban-American virtuoso classical pianist.-Early life and education:Gutiérrez was born in Havana, Cuba, the eldest of four children, to Tomás V. Gutiérrez and Josefina Fernandez Gutiérrez. His mother was his first piano teacher, and was herself, an accomplished pianist. His...

, 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...

, Peter Serkin

Peter Serkin

-Biography:He was born in New York City and is the son of pianist Rudolf Serkin, and grandson of the influential violinist Adolf Busch, whose daughter Irene had married Rudolf Serkin...

, 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...

, Tatiana Troyanos

Tatiana Troyanos

Tatiana Troyanos was an American mezzo-soprano of Greek and German descent.-Early life:...

, Maureen Forrester

Maureen Forrester

Maureen Kathleen Stewart Forrester, was a Canadian operatic contralto.-Life and career:Maureen Forrester was born and grew up in a poor section of Montreal, Quebec. She was one of four children to Thomas Forrester, a Scottish cabinetmaker, and his Irish-born wife, the former May Arnold. She...

, Frederica von Stade

Frederica von Stade

Frederica von Stade is an American mezzo-soprano. Born in Somerville, New Jersey, she acquired the nickname "Flicka" in her childhood. Von Stade attended the Mannes College of Music in New York City. She made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in 1970 and in 1971 appeared as Cherubino in The...

, Peter Schreier

Peter Schreier

Peter Schreier is a German tenor and conductor.-Early life:Schreier was born in Meissen, Saxony, and spent his first years in the small village of Gauernitz, near Meissen, where his father was a teacher, cantor and organist...

, Anne Sofie von Otter, Dawn Upshaw

Dawn Upshaw

Dawn Upshaw is an American soprano described as "one of the most consequential performers of our time" by the Los Angeles Times. The recipient of several Grammy Awards and Edison Prize-winning discs, Upshaw is at home both in opera and art song, and in repertoire from Baroque to contemporary...

, and Renée Fleming

Renée Fleming

Renée Fleming is an American soprano specializing in opera and lieder. Fleming has a full lyric soprano voice.Fleming has performed coloratura, lyric, and lighter spinto soprano repertoires. She has sung roles in Italian, German, French, Czech, and Russian, aside from her native English. She also...

. Reflecting their commitment to expanding the chamber orchestra repertoire, Orpheus has premiered works by Elliott Carter

Elliott Carter

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...

, Jacob Druckman

Jacob Druckman

Jacob Druckman was an American composer born in Philadelphia. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Druckman studied with Vincent Persichetti, Peter Mennin, and Bernard Wagenaar. In 1949 and 1950 he studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood and later continued his studies at the École Normale de...

, Mario Davidovsky

Mario Davidovsky

Mario Davidovsky is an Argentine-American composer. Born in Argentina, he emigrated in 1960 to the US, where he lives today...

, Michael Gandolfi

Michael Gandolfi

Michael James Gandolfi is an American composer of contemporary classical music.Initially a self-taught guitarist, Gandolfi entered the Berklee College of Music before transferring to the New England Conservatory of Music after one year...

, William Bolcom

William Bolcom

William Elden Bolcom is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, two Grammy Awards, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. Bolcom taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973–2008...

, Osvaldo Golijov

Osvaldo Golijov

Osvaldo Noé Golijov is a Grammy award–winning composer of classical music.-Biography:Osvaldo Golijov was born in and grew up in La Plata, Argentina, in a Jewish family that had emigrated to Argentina in the 1920s from Romania and Russia.Golijov has developed a rich musical language, the result of...

, Fred Lerdahl

Fred Lerdahl

Alfred Whitford Lerdahl is the Fritz Reiner Professor of Musical Composition at Columbia University, and a composer and music theorist best known for his work on pitch space and cognitive constraints on compositional systems or "musical grammar[s]." He has written many orchestral and chamber...

, Gunther Schuller

Gunther Schuller

Gunther Schuller is an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, and jazz musician.- Biography and works :...

, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Susan Botti, David Rakowski, Bruce Adolphe

Bruce Adolphe

Bruce Adolphe is a U.S. composer and music scholar, the author of several books on music, and pianist. His current positions include Resident Lecturer and Director of Family Concerts of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and founder and creative director of The Learning Maestros,...

, Peter Lieberson

Peter Lieberson

Peter Lieberson was an American composer. He was ballerina and choreographer Vera Zorina and Goddard Lieberson, president of Columbia Records....

, Elizabeth Brown and Han Yong.

Individual members of Orpheus have received recognition for solo, chamber music, and orchestral performances. Each brings a diversity of musical experience to the orchestra, which constantly enriches and nurtures the musical growth of the ensemble. Of the 30 players who comprise the basic membership of Orpheus, many also hold teaching positions at conservatories and universities in the New York and New England areas, including Juilliard, Manhattan School of Music

Manhattan School of Music

The Manhattan School of Music is a major music conservatory located on the Upper West Side of New York City. The school offers degrees on the bachelors, masters, and doctoral levels in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition...

, New England Conservatory, Columbia

Columbia

Columbia may refer to:-Places:* Columbia , a poetic name for the Americas, and the feminine personification of the United States of America* District of Columbia, the federal district in which the capital of the United States is located...

, Yale

YALE

RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...

, Mannes College of Music

Mannes College of Music

Mannes College The New School for Music is The New School university's music conservatory. While the university's main campus is located in Greenwich Village, New York City, Mannes maintains its main academic building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan....

, Montclair State University

Montclair State University

Montclair State University is a public research university located in the Upper Montclair section of Montclair, the Great Notch area of Little Falls, and Clifton, New Jersey. As of October 2009, there were 18,171 total enrolled students: 14,139 undergraduate students and 4,032 graduate students...

, and the Hartt School

Hartt School

The Hartt School is the comprehensive performing arts conservatory of the University of Hartford located in West Hartford, Connecticut, United States that offers innovative degree programs in music, dance, and theatre...

. Orpheus musicians also hold posts with other orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, American Composer's Orchestra, Met Opera Orchestra and New York City Opera Orchestra. Orpheus members serve on the administrative staff as well as on the Board of Directors.

Past seasons

Orpheus is known for performances of repertoire ranging from baroque masterworks to contemporary commissions. In addition to extensive national and international touring, the orchestra presents an annual concert series at Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 and appears regularly at major New York venues, including Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

. Its 2008-2009 series included performances with pianists Jean-Yves Thibaudet

Jean-Yves Thibaudet

-Early life:Jean-Yves Thibaudet was born in Lyon, France, to non-professional musical parents. His father played the violin, and his mother, of German origin and a somewhat accomplished pianist herself, introduced the instrument to Jean-Yves....

 and Jonathan Biss

Jonathan Biss

Jonathan Biss is an American classical pianist.Biss represents the third generation in a family of professional musicians, which includes his grandmother Raya Garbousova , as well as his parents, the Israeli-born violinist Miriam Fried and the violist Paul Biss...

, sitarist Anoushka Shankar

Anoushka Shankar

Anoushka Shankar is a British Indian sitar player and composer who lives between the United States, the United Kingdom, and India. She is the daughter of Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar and Sukanya Shankar...

, violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg

Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg

Nadja Rose Catherine Salerno-Sonnenberg is an Italian-born classical violinist, author, and teacher. She is a United States citizen.-Career:...

, and mezzo-soprano Susan Graham

Susan Graham

Susan Graham is an American mezzo-soprano.Raised in Midland, Texas, she is a graduate of Texas Tech University and the Manhattan School of Music. She studied the piano for 13 years...

. Each of these concerts was broadcast live on WNYC

WNYC

WNYC is a set of call letters shared by a pair of co-owned, non-profit, public radio stations located in New York City.WNYC broadcasts on the AM band at 820 kHz, and WNYC-FM is at 93.9 MHz. Both stations are members of National Public Radio and carry distinct, but similar news/talk programs...

 and re-broadcast on American Public Media affiliate stations nationwide, as well as made available for free on-line streaming through the WNYC program archives. The orchestra returned to Europe in February 2009 for an extensive tour with pianist Jonathan Biss, performing in venues such as the Konzerthaus Berlin and the Musikverein. In January 201 the orchestra premiered a new concerto for sitar and orchestra commissioned by Orpheus and composed by Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar , often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the best known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent...

. New works by Pulitzer Prize-winners Paul Moravec

Paul Moravec

Paul Moravec is an American composer and a University Professor at Adelphi University on Long Island, New York...

 and Melinda Wagner

Melinda Wagner

Melinda Wagner is a US composer, and winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in music. Her undergraduate degree is from Hamilton College....

 will mark the next installments of Orpheus’ New Brandenburgs commissioning project, a four-year project begun in 2006, with the goal of premiering six orchestral works modeled on J.S. Bach's "Brandenburg" concerti. To conclude its Carnegie Hall season, in May 2009 the Orchestra performed several newly composed, as well as several newly orchestrated, songs by Ned Rorem

Ned Rorem

Ned Rorem is a Pulitzer prize-winning American composer and diarist. He is best known and most praised for his song settings.-Life:...

, with Ms. Graham.

Orpheus’ 2009-2010 season featured collaborations with celebrated musicians including violinists Henning Kraggerud

Henning Kraggerud

Henning Kraggerud is a Norwegian violinist. He was born in Oslo in 1973 and has established himself as one of Scandinavia's most outstanding international soloists...

 and Ryu Goto

Ryu Goto

is a Japanese-American concert violinist. Goto gained attention as a child prodigy, first performing at the age of seven in the Pacific Music Festival held in Sapporo, Japan. His debut tour of 12 cities of Japan, in 2006, was sold out.-Early life:...

, oboist 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...

, pianist Angela Hewitt

Angela Hewitt

Angela Hewitt, OC, OBE is a Canadian classical pianist. She holds British nationality through her father, Godfrey, who was the organist and choirmaster at Christ Church Cathedral in Ottawa, Ontario for almost fifty years.-Career:...

, and cellist Alisa Weilerstein

Alisa Weilerstein

Alisa Weilerstein is an American cellist. She was named a 2011 MacArthur Fellow.-Life and career:Weilerstein started playing the cello at age four. She made her debut at age 13 with the Cleveland Orchestra playing Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme. As a soloist she has performed with a...

. The Orchestra also presented new works by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies

Peter Maxwell Davies

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...

 and Aaron Jay Kernis

Aaron Jay Kernis

Aaron Jay Kernis is an American composer and professor at the Yale School of Music.-Biography:Aaron Jay Kernis is Jewish, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and studied at the Manhattan School of Music, the San Francisco Conservatory, and Yale University .,Notable works include the...

 - the final two installments of The New Brandenburgs commissioning project. Through the generous support of the MetLife Foundation, these concerts were broadcast live on WQXR and re-broadcast on American Public Media affiliate stations nationwide, as well as made available for free on-line streaming through the WQXR program archives.

2010-2011 season

Orpheus' 2010-2011 season saw the orchestra play with pianists Garrick Ohlsson

Garrick Ohlsson

Garrick Ohlsson is an American classical pianist.Ohlsson was the first American to win first prize in the International Frédéric Chopin Piano Competition, in 1970. He also won first prize at the Busoni Competition in Italy and the Montreal Piano Competition in Canada...

 and Rudolf Buchbinder

Rudolf Buchbinder

Rudolf Buchbinder is an Austrian classical pianist.-Biography:Buchbinder studied with Bruno Seidlhofer at the Vienna Academy of Music. In 1965 he made a tour of North and South America. In 1966 he won a special prize awarded at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition...

, soprano Kate Royal

Kate Royal

Kate Royal is an English lyric soprano. She is the daughter of Steve Royal, a singer and songwriter for television, and of Carolyn Royal, a former model and dancer....

, and violinists Vadim Gluzman and Arabella Steinbacher

Arabella Steinbacher

Arabella Steinbacher is a German classical violinist.-Biography:Steinbacher was born in Munich on November 14, 1981, to a German father and a Japanese mother. When she was three, her mother read that a German violin teacher had recently returned from Japan after studying the Suzuki method. ...

. In addition, the group will perform at the inaugural Spring for Music Festival at Carnegie Hall and hosted its first public charity gala concert at Jazz at Lincoln Center

Jazz at Lincoln Center

Jazz at Lincoln Center is part of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. JALC's performing arts complex, Frederick P. Rose Hall, is located at West 60th Street and Broadway in New York City, slightly south of the main Lincoln Center campus and directly adjacent to Columbus Circle. Frederick P....

.

2011-2012 season

During their 2011-2012 Carnegie season, Orpheus will collaborate with violinists Gil Shaham

Gil Shaham

-Biography:Gil Shaham was born in Urbana, Illinois, while his parents, Israeli scientists, were on an academic fellowship at the University of Illinois. His father Jacob was an astrophysicist, and his mother, Meira Diskin, was a cytogeneticist. His sister is the pianist Orli Shaham. He is a...

 and Viviane Hagner

Viviane Hagner

Viviane Hagner is an internationally renowned violinist. She was born in Munich, Germany in 1977, to a German father and Korean mother.Hagner made her international debut at the age of 12, and one year later performed as soloist at the historic "Joint Concert" in Tel Aviv with the Berlin and...

, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, oboist Albrecht Mayer, and mandolinist Chris Thile

Chris Thile

Christopher Scott Thile is an American musician, best known as the mandolinist and a singer for the progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek. His current band is Punch Brothers whose most recent album is Antifogmatic...

. The orchestra also launches Project 440, an initiative to commission four rising composers in celebration of the orchestra’s upcoming fortieth anniversary. All except one Carnegie Hall concert date in the 2011-12 season will feature one piece by one of these young composers.

Recordings

The Orpheus recording legacy consists of over 70 albums. Their extensive catalog for 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...

 includes Baroque masterworks of Handel, Corelli and Vivaldi, Haydn symphonies, Mozart symphonies and serenades, the complete Mozart wind concerti with Orpheus members as soloists, Romantic works by Dvořák, Grieg and Tchaikovsky and a number of twentieth-century classics by Bartók, Prokofiev, Fauré, Ravel, Schoenberg, Ives, Copland, and Stravinsky. Recent releases include a recording of English and America folk songs with countertenor Andreas Scholl

Andreas Scholl

Andreas Scholl is a German countertenor, a male classical singer in the alto vocal range. He is noted as a specialist in Baroque music.-Childhood:...

 (Decca); Creation, a collection the Impressionist music from 1920's Paris with saxophonist Branford Marsalis (Sony Classical); a series of recordings of Mozart's greatest piano concerti with Richard Goode (Nonesuch); and a vigorous reading of The Four Seasons with Sarah Chang (EMI Classics). A collection of Mozart piano concerti with Jonathan Biss is set for release in the fall of 2008, also on EMI Classics.

Touring

Orpheus has embarked on many extensive tours of the United States, Europe, South America, Asia, and Japan. In 1998, the orchestra performed in Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Brunei, Taipei, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, and Hanoi. On this tour, Orpheus was the first American orchestra to perform in Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War.

Educational programs

In addition to performing, Orpheus is committed to providing diverse audiences with opportunities to engage in music. In 2003, Orpheus launched the Orpheus Institute, through which Orpheus musicians share their unique artist-centered philosophy, methodology and skills with college-aged musicians. During the 2011-2012 academic year, Orpheus will be the Artist-in-Residence in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Maryland

University of Maryland

When the term "University of Maryland" is used without any qualification, it generally refers to the University of Maryland, College Park.University of Maryland may refer to the following:...

 (UMD) for the 2011-2012 season. The residency will provide UMD music students with the opportunity to experience the democratic Orpheus Process™ of conductorless ensemble performance through coaching sessions, rehearsals, master classes and performances. Orpheus also provides hands-on music learning opportunities for hundreds of New York City public school students, through the Access Orpheus programs, which include workshops, open rehearsals, and concerts, and audience engagement through the Orpheus Unwrapped pre-concert lecture series.

Orpheus as a democratic workplace

In March 2007, Orpheus became one of the first winners of the Worldwide Award for the Most Democratic Workplaces sponsored by WorldBlu, Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based organization specializing in organizational democracy.

Concerto No. 3 for Sitar and Orchestra

The Concerto No. 3 for Sitar and Orchestra by Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar , often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the best known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent...

 was commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. It had its debut on January 31, 2009 with Shankar's daughter, Anoushka Shankar

Anoushka Shankar

Anoushka Shankar is a British Indian sitar player and composer who lives between the United States, the United Kingdom, and India. She is the daughter of Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar and Sukanya Shankar...

, in the debut performance. The piece has been scored for solo sitar

Sitar

The 'Tablaman' is a plucked stringed instrument predominantly used in Hindustani classical music, where it has been ubiquitous since the Middle Ages...

 and orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

 consisting of piccolo

Piccolo

The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...

, oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

, English horn, clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

, bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

, horn

Horn (instrument)

The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....

, trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

, timpani

Timpani

Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...

, two percussionists, harp

Harp

The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...

and strings and lasts approximately 28 minutes.

External links

• Orpheus Chamber Orchestra website
• [ Orpheus AllMusic page]
• Orpheus mySpace page
• Orpheus Blog