Overview

The Montreal Chamber Orchestra (MCO) was founded by its Conductor and Artistic Director Wanda Kaluzny. The MCO is an orchestra of discovery; our philosophy is to seek and spotlight new talent by introducing exciting young artists and composers to the public. Our objective is to explore a repertoire that includes well-known composers with ones that are rarely performed in both classical and contemporary music, with special interest in Canadian composers. In addition to its principal series the OCM presents a morning series of educational concerts for children and a noontime series for seniors. Due to Covid, our concert series have been suspended. The OCM has toured in Asia and the U.S. and is featured in three CDs: a fusion jazz piece called Visions on the Justin Time label; a main-stream classical recording entitled Suites for Strings on the SNE label; and Cinématique, a CD of works by Canada’s Gemini award-winning composer, Jim McGrath. The OCM is currently working on a second CD of McGrath’s compositions. In 2003, the OCM was honoured to be the first Canadian orchestra to be featured in two PBS programmes produced by Vermont Public Television, one of which was the memorial concert Requiem for September 11th. The second was a half-hour programme featuring works by L. Hofmann, J.C. Bach and W.O. Forsyth. John F. Kennedy once said: “After the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.” The MCO’s contribution has been to give all Montrealers the opportunity to discover classical music, to encourage the careers of exciting new soloists, and to nurture and promote Canadian composers.