Orchester de Chambre de Lausanne
The Orchester de Chambre de Lausanne ( OCL ) is an internationally renowned chamber orchestra , whose home is the Salle Métropole in Lausanne .
The orchestra, subsidized by the City of Lausanne and the Canton of Vaud, gives around a hundred concerts each season. As a partner of the Opéra de Lausanne , it also frequently plays in the orchestra pit.
The ensemble was founded in 1942 by Victor Desarzens . In the course of its history it has worked with numerous great figures in musical life, such as the conductors Ernest Ansermet , Günter Wand , Paul Hindemith , Charles Dutoit , Neeme Järvi and Jeffrey Tate and with soloists such as Isaac Stern , Anne-Sophie Mutter and Radu Lupu or Martha Argerich . The founder Victor Desarzens (1942–1973) was followed by Armin Jordan (1973–1985), Lawrence Foster (1985–1990), Jesús López Cobos (1990–2000) and Christian Zacharias (2000–2013) as artistic directors of the orchestra . Joshua Weilerstein took over this position at the beginning of the 2015/2016 season .
The orchestra's reputation is based not only on its concert activities at home and abroad but also on a large number of recordings. It received around forty international awards for the recordings of all Mozart's piano concertos made under Christian Zacharias between 2000 and 2012 . The Orchester de Chambre de Lausanne has also recorded all of the clarinet concertos by Louis Spohr (with Paul Meyer as conductor and soloist), the four symphonies by Schumann and the Berlin symphonies by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach .
The orchestra is heavily involved in promoting music in various projects with school children and in cooperation with the city's music and theater college. Every two years the orchestra also appoints a composer in residence , such as Thomas Demenga (2007/08), Daniel Schnyder (2009/10) or Jean-Luc Darbellay (2011/12).