Entering its tenth decade, the London Chamber Orchestra looks back on 90 years of outstanding concerts. Remarkable for its history as the UK’s oldest professional chamber orchestra, LCO also champions new music and effects real change through education and charity work.
On 11 May 1921 Anthony Bernard launched his new orchestra at 4 St. James’s Square. Inspired by the chamber orchestras of the eighteenth century, Bernard pioneered the idea that there was space in modern music for a professional chamber orchestra, with musicians of soloist quality and artistic direction tailored to the repertoire.
The London Chamber Orchestra has remained an innovative and adventurous ensemble, premièring works by some of the twentieth century’s most important composers, including Stravinsky, Bloch, Vaughan Williams, Respighi, Delius, de Falla, Fauré, Finzi, Prokofiev, Hindemith, Poulenc and Villa Lobos. Since his appointment as LCO’s Principal Conductor and Music Director in 1988, Christopher Warren-Green has continued this tradition with premieres including works by Maxwell Davies, MacMillan, Fitkin and a host of new compositions from young composers.