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The Basel Chamber Orchestra is firmly anchored in Basel, with two subscription series at the Stadtcasino Basel and its own rehearsal and performance venue, the Don Bosco Basel. With more than 60 concerts per season, the Basel Chamber Orchestra tours worldwide and is a welcome guest at international festivals and the most important European concert halls, such as the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées Paris or the Theater an der Wien.
 
A discography of over 30 award-winning recordings on prestigious labels such as Sony, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Pentatone and Warner Classics testifies to the outstanding quality of this versatile ensemble.For its historically informed interpretations, the Basel Chamber Orchestra was awarded the ECHO Klassik in the category "Best Ensemble" in 2008 and in 2019 will be the first orchestra to receive a Swiss music prize.
 
The Basel Chamber Orchestra enjoys working with selected soloists such as Maria João Pires, Jan Lisiecki, Isabelle Faust and Christian Gerhaher. Under the artistic direction of the concertmasters and the baton of selected conductors such as Heinz Holliger, René Jacobs and Pierre Bleuse, the Basel Chamber Orchestra presents its broad repertoire.The concert programmes are as varied as the 47 musicians, ranging from early music on period instruments to historically informed interpretations and contemporary music. Each year the Basel Chamber Orchestra commissions new works and takes part in the Basel Composition Competition.
 
The Orchestra has a particularly fruitful relationship with its Principal Guest Conductor Giovanni Antonini. Under Antonini's baton, the Orchestra will alternate with the Il Giardino Armonico ensemble in performing and recording all 107 symphonies of Joseph Haydn until 2032. From 2022, all of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's symphonies will be performed under the baton of Philippe Herreweghe. Another core element of the Orchestra's work is its forward-looking outreach work in large-scale participatory projects involving creative exchanges with children and young people.
 
With a high degree of self-financing, the Basel Chamber Orchestra pursues an innovative, entrepreneurial approach. From 2019, the Clariant Foundation will be the presenting sponsor of the Basel Chamber Orchestra.

 

Andreas Ottensamer has captured audiences and critics alike with his distinct musicianship and versatility as clarinetist, artistic director and conductor.
 
Ottensamer is considered one of the leading instrumentalists of our time and performs as a clarinet soloist in the major concert halls around the world with orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the Seoul Philharmonic and the Netherlands Philharmonic under Mariss Jansons, Sir Simon Rattle, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Daniel Harding and Lorenzo Viotti.
 
He is a regular guest artist at festivals such as the Salzburger Festspiele, the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, the Rheingau Musik Festival and the Festival de Pâques d’Aix en Provence. In 2021 Ottensamer gave his debut as a conductor and has been awarded the Neeme Järvi Prize of the Gstaad Festival Conducting Academy.
 
In the season 2022/23 he made his Asian conducting debut with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and Seoul’s KBS Symphony Orchestra and collaborated with orchestras such as the MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, the Prag Philharmonia, the Orquestra Gulbenkian in Lisbon, the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra, the Real Philharmonia Galicia and the Orchestre Symphonique de Mulhouse. In the season 23/24 Andreas Ottensamer will return to conduct the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra as well as the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra and give his debuts with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic, the Orchestre Metropolitain Montreal, the Kammerakademie Potsdam, the Philharmonisches Orchester Erfurt, the Münchner Kammerorchester, the Janacek Philharmonic, the Kammerorchester Basel etc.
 
Ottensamer is artistic director of the Bürgenstock Festival in Switzerland. His artistic partnerships as a chamber musician include work with Yuja Wang, Seong-Jin Cho, Lisa Batiashvili, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Phillippe Jaroussky, Gautier Capuçon and Sol Gabetta.
 
Andreas Ottensamer has an exclusive recording partnership with Deutsche Grammophon since 2013, making him the first ever clarinetist on the Yellow Label. For his album Blue Hour, featuring works of Weber, Mendelssohn and Brahms, he partnered with the Berlin Philharmonic under Mariss Jansons and received his second Opus Klassik award as "Instrumentalist of the year". Together with Yuja Wang and Gautier Capucon he has recorded Brahms’ clarinet trio, released with DG in September 2022. His latest album is with his long term recital partner José Gallardo.
 
Andreas Ottensamer was born in 1989 in Vienna. He comes from an Austro-Hungarian family of musicians and was drawn to music early, receiving his first piano lessons when he was four. At the age of ten he began studying cello at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, then changed to the clarinet in 2003.
 
In 2009 he interrupted his Harvard undergraduate studies to become a scholar of the Orchestra Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker. Ottensamer studied conducting with Professor Nicolas Pasquet (Weimar) and has taken masterclasses with Maestri Riccardo Muti and Jaap van Zweden and Professor Johannes Schlaefli (Zürich). He has assisted Maestro Francois-Xavier Roth with the London Symphony Orchestra. 
 
Since March 2011, Ottensamer has held the position of principal clarinetist with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.