Manitoba Chamber Orchestra

Manitoba Chamber Orchestra (MCO)
Orchestra
MCO Music Director Anne Manson conducts the orchestra.
Founded	1972
Location	Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Principal conductor	Anne Manson
Website	Official MCO site

The Manitoba Chamber Orchestra (MCO) is a chamber orchestra based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It offers an annual subscription series at Westminster United Church, which regularly features the world’s leading soloists, from James Ehnes to Marc-André Hamelin. Other core MCO activities include recording, touring, and engaging extensive outreach in remote communities in northern Manitoba. Currently, Anne Manson serves as the MCO’s Music Director and Vicki Young serves as its Managing Director.

The Manitoba Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1972 by Ruben Gurevich. Gurevich served as music director and principal conductor until 1981. After a season of guest conductors, English conductor Simon Streatfeild, a founding member of the prestigious London-based chamber orchestra, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, was appointed music director and principal conductor in 1982. He was succeeded by another English conductor, Roy Goodman (2000-2005), and then by Anne Manson, who began her tenure in 2008.

In 1984, the MCO assumed the then recently disbanded CBC Winnipeg Orchestra’s Candlelight Concerts series, which was broadcast nationally on CBC radio. Canadians across the country and fans around the world continue to enjoy the orchestra online and in frequent broadcasts of its recordings.

In 1988, the orchestra represented Manitoba at the Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta. The MCO toured southern Italy in August 1999, and British Columbia twice: in the spring of 2003, and in the autumn of 2009 together with the celebrated percussion soloist, Dame Evelyn Glennie. The MCO toured with Glennie a second time in the fall of 2016, with stops in Ontario and Quebec.

The MCO accompanied k.d. lang in her performance of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” at the Juno Awards in April 2005. In the summer of 2008, it made its debut appearance at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. In the autumn of 2008, the orchestra accompanied the Armenian/Canadian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian on a tour to San Francisco and Orange County (California), Vancouver, Toronto, Boston (Massachusetts), and New York, which culminated in a concert at Carnegie Hall.