Orpheus Chamber Orchestra is a radical experiment in musical democracy, proving for over fifty years what happens when exceptional artists gather with total trust in each other and faith in the creative process. Orpheus began in 1972 when cellist Julian Fifer assembled a group of New York freelancers in their early twenties to play orchestral repertoire as if it were chamber music. In that age of co-ops and communes, the idealistic Orpheans snubbed the “corporate” path of symphony orchestras and learned how to play, plan, and promote concerts as a true collective, with leadership roles rotating from the very first performance.   

It’s one thing for the four players of a string quartet to lean into the group sound and react spontaneously, but with 20 to 30 musicians together, the complexities and payoffs are magnified exponentially. Within its first decade, Orpheus made Carnegie Hall their home and became a global sensation through tours of Europe and Asia. Their catalog of recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, Nonesuch, and other labels grew to include more than 70 albums that still stand as benchmarks of the chamber orchestra repertoire, including Haydn symphonies, Mozart concertos, and twentieth-century gems by Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Ravel, and Bartók.   

The sound of Orpheus is defined by relationships, and guest artists have always been crucial partners in the process. Orpheus brings out the best in their collaborators, with bonds that deepen over time, as heard in the long arc of music-making with soloists such as Richard Goode, Vadim Gluzman, Anne Akiko Meyers, and Branford Marsalis, and in the commitment to welcoming next-generation artists including Nobuyuki Tsujii, Tine Thing Helseth, and Caleb Teicher. By partnering with jazz legends Brad Mehldau, Wayne Shorter, and Vijay Iyer, as well as actors Christine Baranski and Liev Schreiber, Orpheus expands the boundaries of what a chamber orchestra can achieve. Collaborating with composers like Jessie Montgomery, Billy Childs, and Fazil Say has been another crucial way Orpheus evolves, commissioning numerous world-premieres every year. Having proven the power of direct communication and open-mindedness within the ensemble, the only relationship Orpheus has never had any use for is one with a conductor.

At home in New York and in the many concert halls it visits in the U.S. and beyond, Orpheus celebrates over fifty years with a renewed commitment to enriching and reflecting the surrounding community. Orpheus Reflections™ brings the healing power of music to those living with dementia and their caregivers. Celebrating more than twenty years, Access Orpheus shares the orchestra's collaborative process with 1,500 New York City Public School students annually through coaching, school visits, and unparalleled access to Orpheus rehearsals and performances at Carnegie Hall. And through the Orpheus Leadership Institute, the musicians impart positive lessons of leadership and democracy to global organizations and businesses. Always evolving as artists and leaders, the Orpheus musicians carry their legacy forward, counting on their shared artistry and mutual respect to make music and effect change.

Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason offers eclectic and stimulating recital programmes with repertoire encompassing Haydn and Mozart, Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, Chopin and Brahms to Gershwin and beyond. In concerto, she is equally at home in Felix Mendelssohn and Beethoven as in Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff.

Isata is in high demand from concert halls and orchestras worldwide. In July 2024, she was invited to perform at the First Night of the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall with the BBC Symphony and conductor Elim Chan, a performance which resulted in stellar reviews in the mainstream press. Isata went on to appear as concerto soloist with the European Union Youth Orchestra and Iván Fischer in summer 2024 performing Dohnányi’s Variations on a Nursery Tune at New York’s Carnegie Hall.

Highlights of the 2025/26 season include Rachmaninoff’s third piano concerto with Bar Avni and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and with Petr Popelka with the Prague Radio Symphony at the Rudolfinum. Isata makes further debuts with the Naples Philharmonic and Seattle Symphony, and returns to the City of Birmingham Symphony, the BBC Scottish Symphony, Detroit Symphony, and National Arts Centre Orchestra Ottawa.

Isata continues her collaboration with her brother, Sheku, for a European duo recital tour in February, taking in Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, Geneva, Turin, Amsterdam, and London’s Wigmore Hall. In the Americas, the duo will perform in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Montevideo, Boston, Washington D.C., Cleveland, and New York’s Lincoln Center. Isata also appears in solo recital and in chamber music at Wigmore Hall, with further solo recital appearances at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Brucknerhaus in Linz, Powell Hall in St Louis, De Bijloke in Ghent, the Howland Music Circle in New York, Norwegian National Opera in Oslo, and a return to the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society among others.

In 2024/25, Isata gave performances with bass-baritone Gerald Finley in the Czech Republic and Germany, appeared in solo recital at the Lucerne Festival, Piano aux Jacobins Toulouse, the Schumann-Haus Düsseldorf, PHIL Haarlem, and on tour across the USA, and performed with the London, Bergen, Bremen, and Duisburg philharmonics, the North Carolina Symphony, and on tour with the Staatskapelle Weimar, and the Residentie Orkest.

Isata is a Decca Classics artist and has recorded four solo albums for the label – Romance (2019), Summertime (2021), Childhood Tales (2023), and Mendelssohn (2024). Her most recent release presents music from two Mendelssohn siblings, including the glittering First Piano Concerto by Felix and the long-lost ‘Easter Sonata’ by his exceptionally talented but overlooked elder sister Fanny, alongside transcriptions of some of Felix’s most famous music by Rachmaninoff and Liszt. 

Isata has received many awards, including the coveted Leonard Bernstein Award from the Schleswig-Holstein Festival and an Opus Klassik award for best young artist. She also enjoys composing and arranging and released two albums of her favourite works for intermediate and advanced piano students through ABRSM Publishing in 2023