Kammerorchester Basel

The Swiss city of Basel has long supported intimate ensemble traditions, which the Kammerorchester Basel upholds by balancing early-music repertory with contemporary scores. Several Swiss music students launched the group in 1984 as Serenata Basel, aiming to displace the established Basler Kammerorchester while preserving its mixed programs of older and newer works. Johannes Schläfli served as the ensemble’s sole conductor from the outset until 1999, when the present name was adopted and leadership shifted permanently to the concertmasters. Julia Schröder, Daniel Bard, and Baptiste Lopez currently hold those positions. Performances of music through the Classical era employ historically informed instruments, yet guest conductors of stature have appeared regularly, among them Kristjan Järvi, Trevor Pinnock, Christopher Hogwood, and Giovanni Antonini, who directed a widely noted cycle of Beethoven symphonies on modern instruments played with period awareness. The ensemble earned the ECHO Klassik Ensemble of the Year award in 2008. Its recordings have appeared on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Decca, and Sony Classical, among other labels. A 2011 Deutsche Harmonia Mundi collection paired countertenor Andreas Scholl with Bach cantatas. Sony Classical released a 2017 album situating Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E flat major for violin, viola, and orchestra, K. 364, within other period works scored for similar forces, while Deutsche Harmonia Mundi issued a disc devoted to Bolognese music of 1666. Antonini became principal guest conductor in 2015. The orchestra appears at the Olten Stadttheater in Basel; its 2018 programs included a series with pianist Katia Buniatishvili. Under Antonini the group joined Il Giardino Armonico in a project to record all of Joseph Haydn’s symphonies, scheduled for completion in 2032. In 2022 plans were announced for a complete Mendelssohn symphony cycle with conductor Philippe Herreweghe, and the orchestra accompanied soprano Giulia Semenzato on the Alpha album Angelica Diabolica.