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 fourth 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 in the Kimmel Center's intimate, 600-seat Perelman Theater from September through May. The 2007 - 2008 season features five major themes: Masters of All Time, Great Soloists, Baroque Perspectives, Classical Discoveries and A Composer's Portrait of Terry Riley, featuring the World Première of his Triple Concerto for two guitars and violin and the composer offering his own piano improvisations. 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 with a Masters of All Time concert showcasing the work of Carl Maria von Weber. Conductor Randall Craig Fleischer returns in a guest appearance with the Orchestra and Dirk Brossé, Grant Llewellyn and Jérémie Rhorer make their Philadelphia débuts. Great Soloists series performers include pianists Fabio Bidini and Jeremy Denk; violinist Mark Steinberg; and baritone Randall Scarlata.

Additional soloists in the 07-08 Season include the Philadelphia début of cellist Jan Vogler; mezzo-soprano Mary Ann McCormick and tenor Jason Collins singing Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde; Philadelphia Orchestra principal harp Elizabeth Hainen; Chamber Orchestra principal bassoon Michelle Rosen and pianist Anna Polonsky; and violinist Krista Bennion Feeney and guitarists David Tennenbaum and Gyan Riley in Terry Riley's Triple Concerto. Maestro Solzhenitsyn also performs and leads from the piano in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467, in May, 2008.

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, 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 premiere commissions. A winner of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Maestro Solzhenitsyn is a member of the piano faculty and serves on the Board of Trustees and Board of Overseers of the Curtis Institute of Music.