Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra

Founded in 1987, the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra (CCO) is made up of members of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. Its history goes back to 1957, when it was founded as the Amsterdam Chamber Orchestra. For decades it has performed around the world with leading soloists and conductors; Marco Boni was its principal conductor from 1994 to 2012.

The orchestra has performed with soloists including Maria João Pires, Sarah Chang, Janine Jansen, Mischa Maisky, Lynn Harrell, Shlomo Mintz and Friedrich Gulda, and more recently with Fazil Say, Kit Armstrong, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Liza Ferschtman, Nicolas Altstaedt, Ronald Brautigam, Stefan Vladar, Harriet Krijgh, Amihai Grosz and Noa Wildschut.

Each season it appears in the leading concert halls of the Netherlands, including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht, De Doelen in Rotterdam and the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam. Growing international interest has taken it to Spain, Germany, Bulgaria, Turkey, Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland, Qatar and South America. Recent tours include Germany with Fazil Say, Turkey and Qatar in 2024, Germany and Switzerland with Daniel Müller-Schott, Germany with Ray Chen in 2025, and eight concerts in South America with Antje Weithaas in the summer of 2025; in December 2025 it performed with Elisabeth Leonskaja at the Kölner Philharmonie. In November 2026 it makes its French debut in La Rochelle, with tours planned to Germany in 2027 and to Asia with Daniel Müller-Schott in 2028.

The CCO performs in several formations: CCO Classic, with fifteen to twenty-five musicians depending on the repertoire; CCO & Friends, chamber music with invited soloists; and CCO Bach, which performs Bach’s St Matthew Passion and Christmas Oratorio each season. It played at the inauguration of Queen Beatrix in 1980 and at the 2002 wedding of Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and Máxima; the recording Music from the Royal Wedding went triple platinum.

Its discography includes Super Audio CD recordings for Pentatone of works by Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Haydn and Tchaikovsky, and Mahler’s string orchestra versions of quartets by Schubert and Beethoven, rated five stars by BBC Music Magazine. Soloists such as pianist Ben Kim, with the complete Mozart piano concertos, and violinists Niek Baar and Alexander Kerr have chosen the orchestra for their own recording projects.

Violinist Michael Waterman, a member of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra’s first violin section since 2010, has been the CCO’s artistic and managing director since 2012.