Immerse yourself in the enchanting world of classical music with three captivating performances by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Renowned countertenor Iestyn Davies and conductor Robin Ticciati bring to life the works of George Frideric Handel and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, showcasing a treasury of arias and symphonies. Meanwhile, acclaimed pianist Sunwook Kim takes center stage in Liège to explore the profound depths of Beethoven's concertos. Join us as we delve into musical masterpieces that span continents and centuries, evoking a rich tapestry of emotional and artistic fervor.

A Harmonious Journey: Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe

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Chamber Orchestra Of Europe / Sir Antonio Pappano

Cité de la Musique

Antonio Pappano conducts the wonderful Chamber Orchestra of Europe in a program that celebrates the marriage of jazz and classical music with Bertrand Chamayou, a faithful among the faithful of the Dijon Opera.

Chamber Orchestra of Europe Antonio Pappano, Bertrand Chamayou

Dijon Opera

The charismatic Italian-British conductor Sir Antonio Pappano, who has been absent from the season since 2018, returns to lead the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, a forty-year-old ensemble that brings together instrumentalists from all over Europe. The program is entirely twentieth-century and evokes the spirit of American jazz, from the ballets La création du monde by Milhaud and Fancy Free by Bernstein to the Variations on «I Got Rhythm» by Gershwin. The highlight of the evening is the whimsical and at times unpredictable Second Concerto by Saint-Saëns, which Pappano presents by relying on the luminous and flexible pianism of Bertrand Chamayou, the only four-time winner of the French “Victoires de la Musique” award and a guest in the season in 2016.

Chamber Orchestra Of Europe

Giovanni Agnelli Auditorium

One of the most established orchestras on the international scene led by one of the most beloved and admired conductors in the world. A program dedicated to twentieth-century French and American music with the participation of an award-winning pianist make this event one of the most important of the Teatro Grande Season.

Chamber Orchestra of Europe | Sir Antonio Pappano Conductor | Bertrand Chamayou Piano

Chamber Orchestra of Europe

It is always a great joy for us to be able to perform with Sir András, with whom our last project dates back to last May when we performed together at the Schloss Esterházy in Eisenstadt in a concert also featuring soloists from the ranks of the Orchestra – principals Lorenza Borrani, Richard Lester and Rie Koyama – as well as oboist Olivier Stankiewicz in Haydn’s Sinfonia Concertante. They then toured this programme to Hamburg, Bergamo and Ferrara.

Kronberg Festival 2024

Casals Forum

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe returns to its Kronberg residency for a number of concerts at this year’s Kronberg Festival. On 25th September, the COE winds will join conductor Heinz Holliger – an old friend of the COE for whom he even composed a piece – pianist Kirill Gerstein, violinist Ilya Gringolts and a string quintet from the Kronberg Academy. Together, they will perform Berg’s Chamber Concerto for piano, violin and 13 wind instruments, and the piano and string instruments will then play Schubert’s “Trout” piano quintet and Strauss’s Schatz-Waltzer arranged for piano, string quintet and harmonium by Webern. On 28th September, the COE and Sir András Schiff will give two concerts (18.15 and 20.30), performing works by Haydn and Beethoven. The second concert will also feature pianist Martina Consonni, with whom members of the COE performed in Eisenstadt back in May this year and who is one of András’s Building Bridges artists. On 29th September, they will again perform twice (18.15 and 20.30), this time in a programme by Bach and Mendelssohn. The first concert will feature soloists Clara Andrada (COE principal flute) and Stephen Waarts (violinist and Kronberg Academy alumni).

It was in the evening on 23rd May 2022 that the COE set foot for the first time in the newly-built, not yet open, Casals Forum, a concert hall commissioned by the Kronberg Academy for its students to perform in a hall that truly showcases the outstanding level of music education provided by the Academy. For a number of years, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Kronberg Academy have been working in Partnership, with the COE being invited to perform a number of times in Kronberg, including for the celebration of the Academy’s 25th anniversary in 2018. We are thrilled that this partnership has resulted in an invitation to become orchestra-in-residence at the Casals Forum where we can rehearse ahead of tours as well as perform smaller scale concerts with some of the Kronberg Academy students and teachers.

Valentin Uryupin feels equally at home as a conductor in the symphonic and operatic repertoire. In both areas, he has built up close artistic partnerships with orchestras and houses in recent years. In addition to debuts, he has several invitations to return to the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, Frankfurt Opera, Teatro Regio Torino, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, and the New National Theatre Tokyo, where he will conduct Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. He makes his first guest appearance, also with Eugene Onegin, at the Hanover State Opera as well as with Carmen at the Berlin State Opera and with Verdi’s Nabucco at the Nuremberg Theatre; he also makes his debut with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra.

Tour to Antwerp and Ghent (September 2024)

Saint Bavo's Cathedral

We are thrilled to have been invited back to Belgium, this time to open the new season at deSingel in Antwerp on 18th September and as part of the Flanders Festival Ghent on 19th September. For these two concerts, we will be joined by two artists making their debut with the COE: conductor Valentin Uryupin and Salzburg-born cellist Julia Hagen who is at the beginning of a global career. Together, they will perform Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1 ‘Classical’, Schumann’s Cello Concerto and Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony No. 1 (arr. Barshai).

De Singel

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe first worked with Martha Argerich in 1987 when she performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the 6-year old COE and Claudio Abbado in Vienna’s Konzerthaus. After more projects together in 1989, 1990 and 1991, we released a recording of the Schumann Piano Concerto conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt for Teldec in 1994. We then embarked on a 6-concert tour to Japan with Martha and conductor Emmanuel Krivine in November/December 1997 when she performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Another tour to Japan happened in October 2000, also with Emmanuel Krivine, in a programme which included Schumann’s Piano Concerto, one of the most iconic pieces of her repertoire.  It was then in 2014 that we joined forces again at the Aix-en-Provence Easter Festival where she played Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and also treated the astonished audience to a piece for four hands with one of her oldest friends, Daniel Barenboim, who happened to be sitting in the Grand Théâtre that night. Although we had planned to tour with Martha, and also Vladimir Jurowski, in 2020, for reasons we all know this project was cancelled. It is therefore with great anticipation that we look forward to meet again this autumn, this time with one of her protégés, pianist Iddo Bar-Shai and her daughter Annie as narrator in Saint-Saens’s Carnival of the Animals.

Herbstgold 2024

Esterházy Palace

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe returns to its Austrian home in Eisenstadt to perform two concerts at this year’s Herbstgold Festival. Resident orchestra at the Schloss Esterhazy since 2022, the COE regularly appears in the Palace’s programme of events every year and we are thrilled that the Esterhazy Foundation has extended our residency until 2027. This year’s Festival is about ‘yearning’. Julia Rachlin, Artistic Director of Herbstgold, said: “To understand human beings, one must know what they yearn for. It would be too trivial, however, to associate the idea of yearning only with romantic feelings. It is worth taking pause again and again to become aware of one’s own longings. Especially in difficult and uncertain times, the yearning for a better world unites us. Music is the direct manifestation of the yearning felt by humans. So, what could be more natural than to immerse oneself in the world of music, which only comes into being through the emotions and the yearning vibrations of the soul? I’d like you to share in this ‘deep dive’ exploration of all kinds of yearning.” You can hear Julian Rachlin talking about the COE with Simon Mundy on our podcast, Interlude, here.

On 31st July, COE Leader Lorenza Borrani, strings and clarinets take flight to Northern Norway where they join mezzo-soprano Marianne Beate Kielland for the opening concert of the Nordland Music Festival at the Stormen Concert Hall in Bodø on 3rd August. This concert takes the COE further north than we have ever played and it has been many months in the making; a celebration of Bodø being one of the European Capitals of Culture for 2024. They will perform songs by Grieg, Schubert and Mahler as well as Mendelssohn’s Konzertstück No. 2 and Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 11 (arranged for string orchestra by Gustav Mahler). This is the Orchestra’s second time in Norway, following concerts with Vilde Frang and Rafael Payare in Oslo and Bergen in 2022.

Nordland Music Festival 2024

Radisson Blu Hotel, Bodo

Multi-Grammy Award winner and 2018 Olivier Award winner for Outstanding Achievement in Opera, Kansas-born Joyce DiDonato entrances audiences across the globe, and has been proclaimed “perhaps the most potent female singer of her generation” by The New Yorker. With a voice “nothing less than 24-carat gold” according to The Times, Joyce has towered at the top of the industry both as a performer, a producer, and a fierce advocate for the arts. With a repertoire spanning over four centuries, a varied and highly acclaimed discography, and industry-leading projects, her artistry has defined what it is to be a singer in the 21st century.

Baden-Baden 2024

Festspielhaus Baden-Baden

Since their first project together in 2008, the COE and Yannick have developed a very special relationship, resulting in Yannick becoming one of the Orchestra’s Honorary Members. Aside from their many tours together, they have also been very prolific with their recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, releasing Schumann, Mendelssohn and Beethoven Symphony Cycles, five Mozart operas (Cosi Fan Tutte, The Marriage of Figaro, La Clemenza di Tito, Die Entführung aus dem Serail and The Magic Flute), a fine disc that combined Clara Wieck-Schumann’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and her husband Robert’s Piano Concerto with Beatrice Rana, Prokofiev’s Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 with Lisa Batiashvili and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 with Seong-Jin Cho, who rejoins them now. The Brahms Symphony cycle to be released this year will be their 12th recording together.

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe worked for the first time with Sir Simon Rattle at the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, giving two concerts at the Berlin Philharmonie with Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang to a much reduced audience when the restrictions had slightly eased, in October 2020. It was a very emotional time for the COE musicians who had not had the opportunity to play together since February that year. They were also unsure when they would be able to play again after these concerts. The Orchestra had been trying to work with Sir Simon for years but somehow dates could never align. This first meeting was a rare ray of sunshine for everyone involved, in the midst of the global gloom, and the COE made a strong impression on Sir Simon. The feeling was mutual with him saying he had “fallen in love” with theOrchestra.

Tour with Sir Simon Rattle and Magdalena Kožená – June 2024

It is always an immense pleasure for the musicians of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe to work with their long-standing friend and COE Honorary Member Sir András Schiff with whom they have performed 111 concerts since their first encounter in 1985 at the Lichfield Cathedral. To hear the whole story, and more, please listen to our interview with Sir András on the COE podcast here.

Tour with Sir András Schiff – May 2024

This tour is made up of three very contrasting projects – the first in Athens with Constantinos Carydis and Jan Lisiecki followed immediately by a short tour to Spain and Germany with Joshua Bell and finally to the Budapest Spring Festival with Miklós Perényi and Ben Gilmore – altogether highlighting the Orchestra’s strengths and flexibility.

Spring tour 2024

On 1st February, the Orchestra returns to the Salzburg Mozartwoche, performing works by Mozart, Salieri and Beethoven with pianist Kirill Gerstein, who made his COE debut in Kronberg last September. Very excitingly the Orchestra will be led and directed on this occasion by Polish violinist Maria Wloszczowska who we had hoped to meet for a project with Renaud Capuçon in 2020, but that project was sadly cancelled for reasons we all know. The concert in Salzburg will be followed on 2nd February by a Friends concert at the Kronberg Academy at the Casals Forum where the COE has been resident orchestra since the hall’s opening in September 2022.

Salzburg Mozartwoche 2024

The COE is looking forward to its now well-established end-of-year tour with Sir Antonio Pappano, one of the orchestra’s closest friends. This year they travel to Italy, Germany and Austria, joined by the Italian pianist Beatrice Rana in a program by Elgar, Schumann and Dvorak. Beatrice will perform Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto, which she recorded for Warner Classics with the COE and Yannick Nézet-Séguin last year at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. The CD, which also includes Clara Wieck-Schumann’s Piano Concerto No. 1, was released earlier this year to great international acclaim.

Tour with Sir Antonio Pappano and Beatrice Rana (Winter 2023)

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe is on the road again, this time with British conductor Andrew Manze and Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki. Together, they will perform three different programmes in 4 European cities:

Tour with Andrew Manze and Jan Lisiecki (Autumn 2023)

This year the Kronberg Academy celebrates both its 30th anniversary and the 50th anniversary of Pablo Casals’s death the underlying theme of this year’s Festival is “Humanity comes first!” Music for humanity is certainly a motto that would have pleased the great cellist and humanist Pablo Casals to whom the Casals Forum is dedicated.

Kronberg Academy Festival and BeethovenFest 2023

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe will be in Eisenstadt from 10th to 17th September, performing two concerts at Eisenstadt’s Schloss Esterhazy: on 13th September, they will launch Herbstgold performing works by Russian composers Prokofiev, Glinka and Tchaikovsky with Herbstgold’s artistic director Julian Rachlin; on 16th September, the concert will feature works by Haydn and Schubert with conductor Maxim Emelyanychev and soprano Lucy Crowe who will sing arias from Weber’s operas Oberon and Freischütz. Medici.tv has planned to record and broadcast both concerts in the context of our partnership, together with the Esterhazy Palace.

Herbstgold 2023

The COE is thrilled to be working with Daniel Harding again after their first tour together back in 2019. The Orchestra first met Daniel when he was assistant to Claudio Abbado in the 1980’s. Many COE musicians have kept in close contact with him over the last decades and we look forward to travelling to Spain with him, performing works by Beethoven and Sibelius at Pollença, Santander, San Sebastian and Torroella Music Festivals.

Tour to Spain with Daniel Harding

It is always with great pleasure that we return to our summer residency with Yannick Nézet-Séguin at the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2023. Last year, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of our yearly collaboration with Yannick which, over the years, has resulted in critically acclaimed recordings of five of Mozart’s late operas, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 with Seong Jin Cho, “Visions of Prokofiev” with Lisa Batiashvili and our latest release, Clara Wieck-Schumann’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto with Beatrice Rana – all for Deutsche Grammophon.

La Capitale d’été 2023, Baden-Baden

On 29th June, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe is thrilled to perform again with world-renowned Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel with whom they had recorded Don Giovanni under the direction of Claudio Abbado back in 1997. Bryn Terfel then held the role of Leporello alongside an all-star cast included Simon Keenlyside, Matti Salminen, Carmela Remigio, Uwe Heilmann, Soile Iskoski, Ildebrando d’Arcangelo and Patrizia Pace. This year in Evian, he will sing works by Beethoven, Mozart, Verdi and Wagner, with the Orchestra in full voice in performance of Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, Rossini’s Overture to Semiramide and Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8.

Evian Rencontres Musicales 2023

It is with great anticipation that the COE is looking forward to its tour with Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt, with whom they last performed in December 2012 with pianist Emanuel Ax. Our concerts this month in Cologne (24th May), Dortmund (25th) and Luxemburg (26th) feature Berwald’s Symphony No. 4 and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3. On 28th May in Dresden, the first half of the programme changes, and we will be joined by star violinist Maria Dueñas in performance of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.

Tour with Herbert Blomstedt

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe is thrilled to embark on an extensive European tour with artistic partners and friends conductor Robin Ticciati and violinist Lisa Batiashvili. It is always an absolute privilege to work with these artists with whom we have built special relationships over the years.

Spring tour with Robin Ticciati and Lisa Batiashvili

Anyone who delves into George Frideric Handel’s vocal and instrumental music will find a wealth of treasures. Elegance, virtuosity, delicacy – all this can be discovered in an endlessly inventive world of musical expression. In a programme with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and conductor Robin Ticciati, you can experience some of Handel’s most beautiful arias and orchestral pieces from operas and other works. Iestyn Davies, one of the leading countertenors of our time, is the soloist. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a great admirer of Handel. His festive and exuberant “Haffner Symphony” concludes the programme.

Iestyn Davies, Robin Ticciati and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe

»The Chamber Orchestra of Europe is all about the music. In concert, this magical group unleashes an unbridled, emotional fervour, underpinned by profound wisdom. It is a privilege to work with this orchestra,« conductor Robin Ticciati raves about the democratically organised orchestra, with which he has been a regular guest at the Elbphilharmonie for almost ten years now.

Chamber Orchestra Of Europe / Iestyn Davies / Robin Ticciati

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

The prestigious Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the darling of Abbado, Haitink, Harnoncourt and Nézet-Séguin, is stopping off for the first time in Liège. It is carrying with it the South Korean pianist Sunwook Kim, winner of the Clara Haskil Competition and the Leeds Competition (at the age of 18), a great Beethoven specialist, whom he conducts from the keyboard. It is showcasing the energetic and triumphant " Emperor ", the most famous of the five concertos, composed in 1809 (in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars), as well as the Third Concerto , created in Vienna in 1803, the master's only concerto in a minor mode. Its dark and tragic colour gives the score all its intensity.

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