The Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO) was founded in 1997 by former members of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra. 45 musicians from 20 nations form the heart of this independently financed orchestra, which performs a wide repertoire of opera and concert music in leading music centers around the world. Along with cofounder Claudio Abbado, Daniel Harding has had a lasting influence on the MCO’s development; since 2008 he has served as Principal Conductor. In 1998 the MCO already made its international breakthrough with its performance of Don Giovanni at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, where the orchestra later played in all the great Mozart operas under the baton of Harding, as well as in such works as Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, and Janáček’s From the House of the Dead. Since 1998 the MCO has served as resident orchestra in Ferrara, Italy, and, since 2009, in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where the musicians collaborate with the concert halls of Dortmund, Essen, and Cologne to organize opera evenings and concerts as well as education programs supported by the North Rhine-Westphalia Art Foundation and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. In the 2010-11 season the MCO appeared in 35 cities and 12 different countries; in June 2011 they undertook a major Japanese tour, and in July they gave performances of Don Giovanni at the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden. Along with Abbado and Harding the MCO’s artistic partners include such conductors as Pierre Boulez, Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Tugan Sokhiev and such soloists as Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Thomas Quasthoff, and Martha Argerich. The MCO has released 19 CDs, which have won such distinctions as the Grammy Award, the Diapason d’Or, and the German Record Critics’ Award.
LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on 16 August 2003 in works by Haydn, Kelterborn, and Schumann conducted by Daniel Harding.
August 2011