Chamber Orchestra of Europe

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe was conceived at the Salzburg Festival in August 1980 when around 40 of the most experienced members of the European Community Youth Orchestra, at the time performing with Herbert von Karajan, decided to form a chamber orchestra to enable them to continue performing together on a professional and long term basis. Since then the COE has enjoyed established relationships with many of the world’s great conductors but in particular with Claudio Abbado, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Paavo Berglund and Bernard Haitink.

HarrisonParrott is honoured to work alongside the COE management on their international touring profile. During 2008/09, HarrisonParrott arranged a tour of Spain with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Janine Jansen; such was its success that they were re-invited to Spain in October 2010.  We were delighted to arrange performances in Europe for the orchestra with Pierre-Laurent Aimard directing from the keyboard in a programme of Beethoven's Piano Concertos. In summer 2009 and 2010 the COE continued their collaboration with Aimard in major residencies at the Mostly Mozart Festival, New York.  Future plans include a return to Spain in February 2013 (with Joshua Bell play/directing) and May 2013 with Semyon Bychkov and Lisa Batiashvili. The orchestra will be collaborating again with Vladimir Ashkenazy and Valeriy Sokolov on a European tour in Sept 2013.