Orchestra da Camera di Mantova

Since the first performance (1981) in the beautiful Bibiena Theatre - the ideal place for chamber music - Mantua Chamber Orchestra has been showing its qualifying features: technical brilliance, the constant search for sound quality and great attention to stylistic matters.

In 1997, Mantua Chamber Orchestra was awarded the “Franco Abbiati” prize by Italian musical critics for its peculiar stylistic refinement and constant search for sound quality, which can effectively merge Italian instrumental tradition and classical repertoire. MCO has been performing for over 30 years with world renown conductors and soloists (Vladimir Ashkenazy, Steven Isserlis, Maria Joao Pires, Gidon Kremer, Shlomo Mintz, Joshua Bell, Viktoria Mullova, Salvatore Accardo, Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli, Giuliano Carmignola, Uto Ughi, Mischa Maisky, Enrico Dindo, Mario Brunello, Miklos Perenyi, Sol Gabetta, Alexander Lonquich, Bruno Canino, Katia e Marielle Labeque, Maria Tipo, Kent Nagano, the unforgettable Astor Piazzolla, Severino Gazzelloni and Aldo Ciccolini). It has performed in theatres and concert halls all over Europe, in the USA, South America and Asia. Between 2001 and 2004 - with several famous Italian soloists and Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli as conductor - MCO carried out the “Beethoven Project” centred on the original version of Beethoven’s masterpieces. Since 2003/2004 MCO developed the “W.A. Mozart Project”, with the pianist Alexander Lonquich both as conductor and soloist performing Mozart’s piano concerts. Since 2008 the MCO has been developing a new project focused on Haydn’s opuses, that reached its climax in 2009. Then, between 2010 and 2011, for the hundreth anniversary of Schumann birth, the orchestra performed all his Symphonies. Mantua Chamber Orchestra has recorded for Hyperion, RAI, Bayerischer Rundfunk and Swiss RSTI., Hyperion. Since 1993, in order to make people appreciate classical music, MCO has been holding in Mantua a very successful yearly season, “Tempo d’Orchestra”, with the contribution of famous Italian and foreign soloists, chamber groups and orchestras. Moreover, since 2013 it has been producing the “Mantova Chamber Music Festival”, an international meeting held in the Palazzo Ducale and in the most beautiful historical places in Mantova.