Mahler Chamber Orchestra

The Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO) was founded in 1997 as a self-governing, independently funded ensemble. Numbering around 50 members who hail from 25 countries, it forms a “global collective” whose management is based in Berlin. A chamber music approach shapes the sound of the orchestra, which appears regularly at Lucerne Festival, the Philharmonie in Berlin, and Salzburg’s Mozart Week. From 2024 to 2026, the MCO served as Artistic Director of Musikwoche Hitzacker. It has taken on the opera productions presented at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival since 2026, succeeding the Berliner Philharmo­niker in that role; the first production there was of Wagner’s Lohengrin under Joana Mallwitz. The MCO was deeply influenced by its founding mentor Claudio Abbado and its Conductor Laureate Daniel Harding. It works closely with a network of Artistic Partners, who currently include the pianists Mitsuko Uchida and Yuja Wang, the violinist Augustin Hadelich, and the violist Antoine Tamestit. In the 2025-26 season, it appeared with the conductors Gianandrea Noseda, Adam Fischer, and Riccardo Minasi; the pianist Igor Levit; and the trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger. In the summer, it performed Brahms’s First Piano Concerto with Daniil Trifonov. The MCO also engages in innovative social projects through programs including “Feel the Music,” a workshop for hearing-impaired people; numerous school concerts; and projects by the MCO Academy, which trains the next generation. The orchestra has additionally developed new concert formats in the field of virtual reality.

Lucerne Festival (IMF) debut on 8 September 1999, when Kurt Masur conducted a program of Mozart and Beethoven.

For further information on this ensemble, visit their homepage at: http://www.mahlerchamber.com

August 2026