Chicago Chamber Orchestra

Sensing a void in Chicago’s musical community in 1952, Dieter Kober assembled a group of eleven string players in an extemporaneous concert of Bach and Handel at the University of Chicago’s International House. More than six decades later, the Chicago Chamber Orchestra now numbers over thirty and is hailed as Chicago’s premier chamber orchestra. Winner of the 1987 and 1989 ASCAP Award for Adventuresome Programming of Contemporary Music and voted 1989′s Orchestra of the Year by the Illinois Council of Orchestras, the Chicago Chamber Orchestra is made up of some of the finest talent in Chicago. In 1989, at the invitation of the German government, Kober and his entourage toured the German Democratic Republic and became the first the first Chicago orchestra to perform in West Berlin’s esteemed Philharmonic Hall. The discerning European audiences held nothing but praise for the Chicago Chamber Orchestra. Other European highlights include performances at Leipzig’s Gewandhaus and Smetana Hall in Prague. Richard von Weizsäcker, President of the Federal Republic of Germany, personally welcomed the CCO in 1994 as the first American orchestras to perform in reunified Germany. Other international performances include a concert for more than listeners at South Korea’s Se-Jong Cultural Center.