The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia

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The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia is a 33-member ensemble led by Ignat Solzhenitsyn, who has been the ensemble's music director since 2004. The Orchestra is a founding resident company of The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts; it has a well-established reputation for distinguished performances of repertoire from the Baroque period through the present-day.

During the orchestra's first forty years it was led by its founder, Marc Mostovoy.

The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia performs ten pairs of concerts during its subscription season in the Perelman Theater of The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts from September through June.

The Orchestra has performed with such internationally acclaimed guest artists as Luciano Pavarotti, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Mstislav Rostropovich, Isaac Stern, Rudolph Serkin, Jean-Pierre Rampal, the Romeros Guitar Quartet, Sylvia McNair, Steven Isserlis, Joseph Silverstein and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg.

Highlights of the 2005 – 2006 season include the Eroica Trio joining the ensemble in a season-opening all-Beethoven performance featuring the “Triple” Concerto and Fifth Symphony and guest conducting appearances by Otto-Werner Mueller, Jahja Ling and Ransom Wilson.

The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia also champions the creation of new music. As of 2005, the Orchestra has over seventy commissions and premiere performances to its credit, including six works written since the turn of the century. One recent example was “What Dreams May Come?”, a commission from Bruce Adolphe in celebration of Adolphe's 50th birthday; another, a Michael Hersch work entitled “Variations on a Theme of Hugo Wolf.”

The ensemble also travels regularly, having toured the United States, Europe and Israel, most recently visiting East Coast and Midwest cities in April 2005.