Modern Instrumental Ensembles
While honorable mention goes to...
Ensembles recently
added to the list are identified by the
symbol.
- Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (ASMF)
(Directors: Sir Neville Mariner and Iona Brown) [UK]
- Accademia Farnese (Director: none) [Italy]
- Accademia I Filarmonici (Director: Alberto Martini)
- Accademia Strumentale Italiana (Director: Giorgio Bernasconi)
Formed in 1987. No longer extant. Produced a recording in 1991 of Tartini's flute concerti
on the Christophorus label and three recordings of Boccherini symphonies on the ARTS
label. [Italy]
- The Adirondack Baroque Consort (Artistic Director: Joseph A. Loux, Jr.,
Ph.D.; Assistant Director: Laura Lane) Founded in Glens Falls, New York (USA) in
1962, by Dr. Maurice C. Whitney. [Albany, New York]
- Contact Information:
- Postal address:
- The Adirondack Baroque Consort
2 Hawley Lane
Hannacroix, New York 12087-0034
- Tel./FAX: +1 (518) 756-2273
- E-mail : recordershop@empireone.net
- Members: Barbara Cottrell, violincello; Ann Githler-recorders,
keyboard, viol, hurdy-gurdy; Emmeline Grubb, recorders, keyboard; Tanya
Hotalen, recorders, cortol; Tom Hotalen, Percussion, voice; Laura Lane,
recorders, cortol, voice; Martha Lepow-keyboard, percussion; Joseph A.
Loux, Jr.-recorders, crumhorns, viol, hurdy-gurdy, psaltery; Karen
Williams-recorders; George Williams, percussion.
- Allegri Quartet (No director)
- Amsterdam Bach Soloists
(in Dutch: Amsterdamse Bach Solisten) (Guest conductors: Frans Brüggen, Ton Koopman, Marc
Minkowski, Christophe Coin and Roy Goodman) Period instruments were used in the 1960s.
Reformed in 1985 with members of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra employing modern
instruments. Whenever their repertoire allows them, the Amsterdam Bach Soloists play
without a conductor, led by their principal violinist, Henk Rubingh. Discography. {E-mail:
amsbach@bloomline.net} [Amsterdam, The
Netherlands]
- Arco Baleno Members of Collegium Instrumentale Brugense.
[Belgium]
- Ashford Baroque Ensemble
(Director: Philip Buckmaster) Formed in 2005. The ensemble is a mixture of
amateur and professional players who play music from c.1550 - c.1775, mostly
on modern instruments. [St Matthew’s Church, Ashford, Middlesex, UK]
- The August Ensemble
(Director: Scott Giles) Formed in 1997. [Carmichael, California]
- Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra
(Director: Ádám Fischer) [Haydnsaal,
Austria]
- Auvergne Orchestra (See Orchestre d'Auvergne below.)
- Bach Collegium Stuttgart (Director: Helmuth Rilling)
- Bamberg String Quartet (No director)
- Bargemusic (No director) [New York, New York]
- Barockorchester Leipzig
[Leipzig, Germany]
- Berlin Barock Akademie (Conductor: Alessandro deMarchi) [Berlin, Germany]
- Bläserkreis Bochum (Conductor: Karl-Heinz Saretzki
- Baroque Orchestra of Boonton
(Music Director : Robert W. Butts) A non-period instrument community orchestra performing
music of the 17th/18th centuries. Tel: 201-625-0459 {E-mail : boblute@aol.com} [Boonton, New Jersey]
- Bournemouth Sinfonietta (Principl conductor: Tamas Vasary) Formed in 1970.
OrchestraNET
website. [Dorset, UK]
- Brandenburg Sinfonia
[UK]
- Budapest Strings (Director: ?) [Budapest, Hungary]
- Camerata Academica Salzburg (Conductor:
Ernst Hinreiner)
- Camerata Bern (Director: Thomas Füri, Alexander van Wijnkoop)
- Camerata Budapest (Director: Hanspeter Gmür)
- Camerata Roman (E-mail
: camerata@lansmusiken.h.se) [Kalmar,
Sweden]
- Camerata de Versailles (Director: Amaury du Closel) Formed in 1982. [France]
- Cannons
Scholars (John
Andrews) [London, UK]
- Cantilena
(Director:
Adrian Sheppard) [UK]
- Capella Istropolitana (Artistic leader: Jaroslav Krcek; Guest conductors:
Warchal, Peter Breiner, Richard Edlinger, Josef Kopelman, Oliver Dohnényi, Barry
Wordsworth, Johannes Wildner, Stephen Gunzenhauser) Formed in 1983 by members of the
Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra. [Bratislava, Slovak Republic]
- Chilingirian Quartet (No director)
- Cis Collegium Mozarteum Salzburg (Artistic director: Jürgen Geise; violin/viola)
Formed in 1978. Consists of 14 strings. The ensemble performs without a conductor.
[Salzburg, Austria]
- City of London Sinfonia (Directors: Richard Hickox, Nicholas Kraemer)
- Collegium Instrumentale Brugense (Conductors:
Patrick Peire, Alberto Zedda; Leader: Dirk
Lippens) Formed in 1970 by Patrick Peire. "Despite the search for authenticity,
the orchestra plays on modern instruments, and this choice is deliberately taken for
two reasons. First of all, this widens the scope of the repertoire, and secondly it
enables top quality performances even in less favourable acoustic concert halls. The
quality of the orchestra is ensured by a fixed core of players, extended with string &
wind players when necessary." [Brugge, Belgium]
- Postal address :
- Lieve Geerolf
Vijversdreef 9-b
B-8310 Brugge, Belgium
- Telephone : +32-50-35.37.17
- Fax : +32-50-36.27.17
- E-mail :
- Collegium Musicum Copenhagen (Principal conductor: Michael Schønwandt) 42
musicians who have their everyday jobs in other orchestras - such as the Royal Orchestra,
Danish National Radio Symphony [Copenhagen, Denmark]
- Collegium Quodlibet (Director: Stivín Jirí) Formed in 1991 [Czech
Republic]
- Combattimento Consort
Amsterdam
(Director:
Jan Willem de Vriend) Formed in 1982. "Its members believe that the quality of
the performance of Baroque music is not so much a matter of using original instruments: it
is the language of the music that is most important, that truth must be served to both the
heart and mind." [Amsterdam, The Netherlands]
- Concentus Hungaricus (Guest conductors: Idikó Helgi, Mátyás Antal, András
Ligeti)
- Concerto Avenna (Andrzej Mysinski) [Warsaw, Poland]
- Concerto Rotterdam (Artistic Director: Heinz Friesen, oboe) Formed in 1971 by
members of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. Its repertoire focuses on baroque and
early classical music -- including some works from the 20th century. [Delfshaven,
Rotterdam, The Netherlands]
- Consortium Classicum (No director)
- Coull Quartet (No director)
- CPE Bach Chamber Orchestra (See Kammerorchester CPE Bach
below.)
- Denner Clarinet Trio
Founded in 1998 by the basset-horn player Oscar Argüelles. Disbanded in
February 2004. The ensemble performed on modern instruments but with
attention to period performance practice. [Barcelona (Catalonia),
Spain]
- Dorian Consort (no
director) Formed in 1990. The consort plays music from the baroque, pre-classical and
classical periods as well as contemporary music on modern instruments with attention to
period performance practice. [Switzerland, Israel, and Austria]
- Postal address:
- The Dorian Consort
c/o Claudia Dora
Bartenheimerstr. 41
CH-4055 Basel (Switzerland)
- Telephone/FAX number: +41 (0)61-302 20 20
- E-mail address: claudia@musaic.com
- Discography: Works of J.S. Bach - Ambitus - amb 97970 (Recorded in 1998)
- Ensemble Carl Philipp (Director: Jean-François Rivest) Formed in 1982.
[Canada]
- The Complete Organ Concertos (Analekta fleurs de lys recording label)
- Vol. 1 (Geneviève Soly, organ): FL 2 3026
- Vol. 2 (Denis Bédard, organ): FL 2 3027
- Vol. 3 (Dom André Laberge, organ): FL 2 3028
- Vol. 4 (Robert Girard, organ): FL 2 3029
- The Complete Organ Concertos [4 CDs packaged together]: FL 2 3152-5
- Ensemble for Eighteenth Century Music (Director: Eiji Hashimoto) [Cincinnati
College-Conservatory of Music, Ohio]
- Ensemble Fragonard
[France]
- Ensemble Guidantus
(No director) Founded in 1995. Named after an ancient violin maker from Bologna.
{E-mail:
ensembleguidantus@libero.it} [Parma,
Italy]
- Members: Marco Pedrona (violin, soloist), Lorenzo Amadasi (violin), Corrado
Cavalieri (violin), Ilaria Negrotti (viola), Paolo Manfrin (violoncello), Leonardo Morini
(harpsichord).
- Recording Note: Ensemble Guidantus has released a CD including Vivaldi's
"The Four Seasons" and three pieces for harpsichord by François Couperin
(Stradivarius Datum DAT 80001). The music is enriched by digital effects of the natural
phenomena referred by Vivaldi and Couperin, along with the recitation of the short poems
written by Vivaldi himself. The CD includes a book, whose title is "L'osservazione
musicale" (The Musical Observation), written by Prof. Massimo Negrotti of the
University of Urbino. The book aims at connecting the descriptive music - and the music at
all - to a new theory, namely the "Theory of the Artificial" (TA) which tries to
describe the general rules and limits of the human attempt to reproduce the world. For
more information contact: Massimo Negrotti, Professor of Methodology of human
sciences, IMES-LCA, (Institute of Methodology, Economics, Statistics - Lab. for the
Culture of the Artificial) University of Urbino, Italy.
- Ensemble Italiano di Fiati
(director ?) - perform Harmoniemusik [Italy]
- L'ensemble orchestral Octavia
d'Ile-de-France (Directors: Christophe Derrien & Jean-Pierre Maitre)
Formed in 1996. Perform baroque music with attention to period performance practice. {E-mail
: octavia@multimania.com} [France]
- European Community
Chamber Orchestra (Conductors:
Jörg Faerber, Dimitri
Demetriades)
- Failoni Orchestra (Director: Hanspeter Gmür)
- Feinstein Ensemble (Director: Martin Feinstein)
{E-mail : FeinsteinEnsemble@compuserve.com} [London, UK]
- La Follia
(Director: Christophe Poiget) Formed in 1991. Although they perform on modern instruments,
the ensemble performs based on period practice. {E-mail:
lafolia@geocities.com} [France]
- Gabrielli Quartet (No director)
- Gaudier Ensemble (No director)
- Guidhall String Ensemble (Director: Robert Slater) Formed in 1981.
OrchestraNET
website. [London, UK]
- Interpreti Veneziani
(Director : ?) Formed in 1987. (E-mail :
informazioni@interpretiveneziani.com) [Venice, Italy]
- Hessiches Bach-Collegium (Director: Wolfram Wehnert) Formed in 1972.
- Kammerorchester
CPE Bach (Director: Hartmut Haenchen) (E-mail : e-mail:
kammerorchester@kammerorchester-berlin.de)
[Berlin, Germany]
- Kammerorchester Johann Adolf Hasse (Director: Wolfgang Hochstein)
[Bergedorf, Germany]
- Kammer Sinfonia Berlin (Performs with or without a conductor) [Berlin, Germany]
- Kantrovitch Ensemble (Director: Robin Canter - oboe) Perform without a
conductor. They perform on modern instruments but all members also regularly appear with
early instrument orchestras. [London, UK]
- De Kleine Compagnie (Director: José Wylin) Formed in 1985.
- Kodály Quartet (No director)
Naxos website. {E-mail :
Kodaly-Quartet@magyar.org} [Budapest, Hungary]
- Langham Sinfonia (Director: Noël Tredinnick) A chamber orchestra drawn
from the All Souls Orchestra. [UK]
- Lausanne Bach Ensemble Formed in 1997.
{E-mail : lbe@clavida.ch} [Lausanne, Switzerland]
- Members: Jorge-Eduardo Lucca (flute), Pierre-Bernard Sudan (violoncello),
Christine Sartoretti (harpsichord)
- Leipziger Bach-Collegium
- Members: Karl-Heinz Passin (flute), Eberhard Palm (violin), Manfred Otte
(violin), Siegfried Pank (violoncello), Walter Heinz Bernstein (keyboard)
- Lindsay Quartet (No director)
- London Chamber Orchestra (Director: Christopher Warren-Green)
- London Festival Orchestra (Director: Ross Pople)
Hyperion
discography.
- London Harpsichord Ensemble (Director: Sarah Francis)
- London Mozart Players (Director: Jane Glover;
Conductors: Matthias Bamert,
Howard Shelley)
Hyperion
discography.
- Lukas Consort (Director: Viktor Lukas; keyboard) Established for Musica Bayreuth
Festival with participation of members from the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. The ensemble
includes 15 string players with solo wind-players, conducted by Viktor Lukas, in
accordance with Baroque practice, from the harpsichord. Repertoire spans the baroque to
contemporary works. [Germany]
- Manhattan Chamber Orchestra (Conductor: Richard Auldon Clark) [New York, New
York]
- Maryland Bach Aria Group (No director)
- Members: Larry Vote (baritone), Jeff Silberschlag (trumpet), Deborah Greitzer
(bassoon) Pamela Greitzer (violoncello), Jeanne Fryberger-Vote (harpsichord)
- Munich Bach Orchestra (Director: Karl Richter)
- Music of the Baroque (Music
Director: Thomas Wikman) {E-mail:
baroque@baroque.org}
[Chicago, Illinois]
- I Musici (No director) [Italy]
- I Musici Ambrosiani (Paolo Suppa) [Italy]
- I Musici de Montréal (See Orchestre de chambre I Musici de Montréal below.)
- Nash Ensemble (No director)
- Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum, Leipzig (Director: Max Pommer) [Leipzig,
Germany]
- New Bach Collegium Musicum, Leipzig (See previous entry.)
- New Zealand Chamber Orchestra (Music Director: Donald Armstrong -- performs
without a conductor) Formed in 1987 by members of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
"The orchestra has recorded the complete orchestral trios of Johann Stamitz for
Naxos (Volume I has been released; Volume 2 is still in production), and CDs of symphonies
by Stamitz and Leopold Mozart. In November 1996 the NZCO is to record the 6 Orchestral
Quartets Op.1 by Carl Stamitz and in February 1997, his Op.14 Orchestral / Concertante
Quartets and the 6 Symphonies Op.1 by Franz Beck." (See
Artaria for additional information about the
performance editions used by the NZCO.) [New Zealand]
- Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia (Conductor: Béla Drahos) Formed in 1992.
Naxos website.
- Northern Sinfonia of England (Director: Malcolm, Richard Hickox)
- L'Offerta Musicale (Orchestra da Camera di Venezia) (Director: Riccardo
Parravicini) [Venice, Italy] The ensemble's repertoire spans the 16th century to modern
classical music with special attention to works from the 17th and 18th centuries.
- Orchestre d'Auvergne [Jacques Kantorow (1985-94); Arie van
Beek (1994 -)] Formed in 1981. [Clermont-Ferrand, France]
- Orchestre de chambre de Jean-François Paillard (Director: Jean-François
Paillard, flute) [France]
- Orchestre de chambre I Musici de Montréal (Director: Yuli Turovsky, violoncello)
Formed in 1983. [Montréal, Canada]
- Orchestre Paul Kuentz (Director: Paul Kuentz)
- L'Orfeo Ensemble (Director: none) Formed in 1988. [Italy]
- Oregon Bach Festival Chamber Orchestra (Conductor: Helmuth Rilling)
- Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (No director)
[New York City, New York]
- Paillard Chamber Orchestra (See "Orchestre de chambre de Jean-François
Paillard" above.)
- Philharmonia Hungarica (Director: Antal Dorati) [Hungary]
- Prima La Musica (Director: Dirk Vermeulen) [Belgium]
- Pro Musica Kiev (Conductor: Richard Kapp)
- Quartetto di Salisburgo (Italy) Have recorded for Stradivarius.
- Quartetto d'archi di Venezia (No director)
- Rasoumovsky Quartet : Formed prior to 1977. Named after Beethoven's
quartets of the same name. When the recording was made the members of the quartet were
also members of the English Chamber Orchestra and played on their "standard"
(modern) instruments. [UK]
- Members :
- Simon Standage, violin I
- Pauline Scott, violin II
- Simon Whistler, viola
- Joanna Milholland, cello
- Discography :
- Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga (1806-1826): "Cuartets Para Cuerda" (translation:
String Quartets), Nos. 1-3 - Ensayo ENY-CD-9734
(Recorded in 1976. Released in 1999.)
- Salzburg Mozarteum Camerata Accademica (Director: Séndor Végh)
- Sinfonia Varsovia (Director: ?)
- Sinfonietta Köln
(Director: Cornelius Frowein) Formed in 1984. Attention to authentic performance practice.
[Cologne, Germany]
- I Solisti Veneti (Director: Claudio Scimone)
- Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra (Director: Karl Münchinger)
- Symphonia Perusina Orchestra (Conductor: Felix Ayo, violin)
- Talich Quartet (No director)
- Thirteen Strings (Artistic Director: Jean-François
Rivest -- since 1999) Founded in 1976 by Brian Law. [Ottawa, Canada]
- Trio Bell'Arte (no director) - Daniel Waitzman (flute), Marsha Heller
(oboe), Elaine Comparone
(harpsichord) "The members of the group employ historical techniques of
tone-production and musical declamation where appropriate."
- Trio Miró (No director)
- Trio Tanis Formed in 1994. [France]
- Tutti e solo (Artistic director : Barbara Mucha) Formed in 1989. "Tutti e
solo specializes in performance of Baroque music, salo including the repertoire of early
Classicism. The chamber ensemble performs using the modern technique, preferring the
interpretational possibilities of today's string instruments, but keeping the early
temperament of the harpsichord, with the lower pitch." [Poznan, Poland]
- Members : Malgorzata Mlynczak-Spychala (violin), Mariusz Derewecki (violin),
Leszek Ziolko (violoncello), Barbara Mucha (harpsichord)
- Verner Collegium (No director)
- Vienna Mozart Ensemble (Director: Willi Boskovsky)
- Virtuosi di Praga (Conductors: Václav Neumann [died 1995] & Dmitry
Sitkovetsky, violin) [Prague, Czech Republic]
- Virtuosi Saxoniae
(Director: Ludwig Güttler, trumpet) Drawn from
members of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Dresdener Staatskapelle. [Leipzig and
Dresden, Germany]
- I Virtuosi dell'Accademia (No director) 12 string players. [Italy]
- Walter Boeykens Ensemble (No director)
- Württemberg Chamber Orchestra (Director: Jörg Faerber)
Last updated: 11 November 2005