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Mahler Chamber Orchestra

The Mahler Chamber Orchestra grew out of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and represents the vigor brought to the orchestral scene in recent years by European youth orchestras. The group has collaborated with pianist Yuja Wang and other world-class artists and has a substantial recording catalog. The Mahler Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1997 at the initiative of Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra members and their conductor, Claudio Abbado; the new group was made up of musicians who wanted to continue to perform together after aging out of the youth orchestra. Its work has been marked by high technical standards and a commitment to an unusually broad repertoire ranging from Baroque to contemporary music and from chamber music to opera. To this end, the orchestra has enlisted and attracted a range of top-flight long-term collaborators, including veteran Baroque conductor Reinhard Goebel and Ligeti specialist Jonathan Nott. The group has had long associations with two major festivals, backing a series of contemporary opera productions in Aix-en-Provence, France, beginning with Britten's The Turn of the Screw in 2001. That performance was led by Daniel Harding, a major figure in the orchestra's embrace of contemporary music; the orchestra made its recording debut in 2000 with Harding as conductor on a Virgin Classics recording of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Harding has served as the orchestra's principal guest conductor, music director, principal conductor, and conductor laureate. The Mahler Chamber Orchestra consists of 45 musicians from 20 different countries and gives between 60 and 70 concerts a year on five continents so far. Its organizational structure is notable; unlike most European ensembles, it is entirely privately financed. It may expand and contract according to the needs of the repertoire it performs, and it has no home base. Instead, it mounts tours on which it performs in various cities and holds rehearsals that serve as launching points for future concerts. The Mahler Chamber Orchestra has also maintained a strong connection with the Lucerne Festival, where it has performed both as the core of the festival orchestra and under its own aegis. The orchestra has backed top soloists, including Cecilia Bartoli and Martha Argerich, and in 2009, appeared on an album by star tenor Jonas Kaufmann. It has recorded a cycle of Beethoven's piano concertos with pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, whom it also backed on the multi-volume "Mozart Momentum" series. In 2017, it appeared on the Deutsche Grammophon double album Chopin Evocations. The 2017 season saw the group on tour with Wang, whom it had backed on the 2011 album Rachmaninov on Deutsche Grammophon. As of 2024, Daniele Gatti served as the orchestra's conductor and artistic advisor. The orchestra has recorded mostly for that label, Sony Classical (on the Andsnes albums), and Harmonia Mundi. By 2024, when it was led by conductor Pablo Heras-Casado on an album of works by Stravinsky and Falla, its recording catalog comprised some 100 releases.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Discography

19 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller

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