Founded in 1942 by Victor Desarzens, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne has collaborated with eminent international artists such as conductors Ernest Ansermet, Günter Wand, Paul Hindemith, Neeme Järvi and Jeffrey Tate, as well as with soloists such as Isaac Stern, Radu Lupu and Martha Argerich. Its previous artistic directors are Victor Desarzens, Armin Jordan, Lawrence Foster, Jesús López Cobos and Christian Zacharias. Renaud Capuçon began his tenure as their Artistic Director in the 2021/22 season, succeeding Joshua Weilerstein.

The OCL performs around 100 concerts each season at the Salle Métropole in Lausanne, its place of residence, as well as throughout Switzerland and abroad. Thus the ensemble has performed at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Salle Pleyel in Paris, Alte Oper in Frankfort, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, the Musikverein in Vienna, as well as at festivals such as the BBC Proms in London, the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest, the International Mstislav Rostropovich Festival in Moscow and the Istanbul Festival.