The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia

A founding resident company of The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia is a 33-member ensemble led by Ignat Solzhenitsyn, now in his fifth season as Music Director. The Orchestra, founded in 1964 by Marc Mostovoy, has a well-established reputation for distinguished performances of repertoire from the Baroque period through the twenty-first century.

The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia performs ten pairs of concerts during its subscription season from September through May in the Kimmel Center's intimate, 600-seat Perelman Theater. The 2008 - 2009 season features five major themes: Masters of All Time, Great Soloists, Baroque Perspectives, Classical Discoveries and A Composer's Portrait, this season featuring Sir John Tavener's world première commission entitled Tu ne sais pas. To date, the Orchestra has over seventy commissions and première performances to its credit, including seven works written since the turn of the century.

The season opens and closes with Beethoven - Maestro Solzhenitsyn leading the ensemble in Beethoven's Second and Seventh Symphonies to open the season in September, and concluding in May with the Eighth Symphony and the magnificent "Emperor" Piano Concerto, with Maestro Solzhenitsyn leading from the keyboard. Guest conductors this season include Rudolf Werthen, Mischa Santora, and Scott Yoo. Great Soloists series performers include pianist Shai Wosner, a 1999 Queen Elisabeth Competition finalist, and violinist Boris Garlitsky, by special arrangement with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Additional soloists in the 08-09 Season include French cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras and baritone Randall Scarlata making their returns to Philadelphia. Violinist Korbinian Altenberger is featured in a "Young Mozart" program given in collaboration with Astral Artists; soprano Susanna Phillips joins Mr. Scarlata and The Choral Arts Society Chamber Chorus in Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem; mezzo-soprano Sarah Castle is featured in Tavener's world première; and the Orchestra's principal flute, Edward Schultz and principal cello, James J. Cooper III, take solo turns as well.

The Orchestra has performed with such internationally acclaimed guest artists as Luciano Pavarotti, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Mstislav Rostropovich, Issac Stern, Rudolph Serkin, The Eroica Trio, Jean-Pierre Rampal, The Romeros Guitar Quartet, Sylvia McNair, Steven Isserlis, Joseph Silverstein, Ransom Wilson, Gerard Schwarz, Jahja Ling and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg.

The ensemble also travels regularly, having toured the United States, Europe and Israel.

A brilliant concert pianist and conductor, Maestro Solzhenitsyn has been hailed by the Washington Post as "an interpreter of probing intellect as well as an avid risk taker." His artistic vision has led the Orchestra to program more works from the late Classical and early Romantic periods, as well as fascinating twentieth-century works for chamber orchestra and world première commissions. A winner of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Maestro Solzhenitsyn is a member of the piano faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music.