Chamber Orchestra of Europe

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe (COE), founded in 1981, is an orchestra based in London. It brings together around sixty musicians from all over Europe, who pursue parallel careers as international soloists, members of chamber music ensembles and teachers. The orchestra is supported in particular by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and the Underwood Trust; it has neither a dedicated resident hall nor a permanent conductor, and is registered as a charity under English law.

The idea for the COE came from musicians of the European Community Youth Orchestra who had passed that orchestra's age limit and wished to keep playing together in chamber formation. Oboist Douglas Boyd, one of the founding members, was the COE's principal oboe from 1981 to 2002. Over the years, the orchestra has developed close ties with conductors Claudio Abbado, Bernard Haitink and Nikolaus Harnoncourt, as well as with numerous international soloists.

The COE performs regularly in major European cities, with occasional tours to the United States, South Korea, Japan and Australia, and maintains close ties with festivals and venues such as the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, the Berlin Philharmonie, those of Cologne, Luxembourg and Paris, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and the Alte Oper Frankfurt. It has been “Residenzorchester Schloss Esterházy” in Eisenstadt since 2022, and became, in the same year, in partnership with the Kronberg Academy, the first orchestra in residence at the Casals Forum in Kronberg. From 2007 to 2013, it was cultural ambassador of the European Union, and created the COE Academy for gifted music students in 2009.