A founding resident company of The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia is a 33-member professional ensemble led by Dirk Brossé. The Chamber Orchestra, founded in 1964 by Marc Mostovoy, has a well-established reputation for distinguished performances of repertoire from the Baroque period through the twenty-first century. The Orchestra's development was motivated in part by the desire to provide performance opportunities to young professional musicians emerging from the Curtis Institute of Music and other regional training programs but also by a desire to make a substantial contribution to the City and region's cultural life. In addition to presenting its own productions, the Orchestra started to develop an entrepreneurial approach by seeking other performance opportunities among the region's presenter/producer community, thereby providing additional employment for its members. Maestro Mostovoy and his ensemble also championed new music, to date the organization has commissioned and premiered over 70 new works. Over the course of the ensemble’s diverse history, COP has performed with internationally acclaimed guest artists as Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Mark O'Connor, Mstislav Rostropovich, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Julie Andrews, Bernadette Peters, Ben Folds, Branford Marsalis, Elvis Costello, Sylvia McNair, among others. The ensemble travels regularly, having toured the United States, Europe, and Israel.<br>