Welcome to The Danish Chamber Orchestra!

We are quickly becoming one of the most talked-about orchestras in Europe. We create unique and transfixing musical experiences across classical and popular genres. We involve people of all ages in our work and approach everything we do with flexibility and curiosity.

Forget everything you think you know about classical music by Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. If know nothing at all, even better. The Danish Chamber Orchestra is here to prove that this is the most modern, invigorating and moving music ever created.

For more than two decades, the orchestra’s conductor Ádám Fischer has been on a mission to make us hear and feel music differently. The first step was getting his orchestra to play it differently. In the Danish Chamber Orchestra, he has honed one of the most reactive, sensitive, hyperactive and expressive orchestras in the world.

For the Danish Chamber Orchestra, even acoustic performances are electric. Each one comes from a desire to sense the artist’s motivation and to question canonical thinking. From Beethoven to Efterklang, the orchestra uses the full force of its technical capabilities to leave no corner of a score’s emotional range unexplored and to keep expression at the maximum.

Entertainment is in the Danish Chamber Orchestra’s DNA. Until 2015, it was the concert orchestra of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation with roots stretching back to 1927. Since 2015, it has been Denmark’s only major independent orchestra, owned and governed by its musicians. It is as versatile operationally as it is musically – proudly collaborating with some of the great names in popular music and the only Nordic orchestra to have recorded the complete symphonies of both Mozart and Beethoven.

The orchestra’s recordings have seen critics’ jaws drop from Vienna to New York. ‘Sensational,’ wrote the Wiener Zeitung of its Mozart. ‘Few other sets even come close,’ wrote the American magazine Fanfare of its Beethoven. More than ever, the Danish Chamber Orchestra is travelling abroad to provoke the same reactions in live audiences around the world. In 2019, it performed at the Golden Hall of the Musikverein in Vienna.

The orchestra’s determination to see things differently has seen it reimagine where and how concerts should be presented. It has mounted spatial performances and ventured away from concert halls. Every month, it works on pedagogical projects with Danish citizens from Viborg on the west coast to Copenhagen on the east.

Wherever it goes and whatever it plays, the Danish Chamber Orchestra invites you to hear great music differently – to experience its power and sense the coursing of its lifeblood. It always stays true to its Danish title: Denmark’s entertainment orchestra.

link to our concert calendar

We wish to create great musical experiences for all – throughout the country, across genres and generations. The Danish Chamber Orchestra is Denmark’s first major musician-owned orchestra. We want to push the limits of what a classical orchestra can do, which leads us to continually develop new musical concepts with interesting collaborators. Large-scale popular concerts with the best soloists are part of our DNA. At the same time, we play top-level classical concerts both nationally and internationally. We are particularly known for our interpretations of the Viennese classical repertoire with Principal Conductor Ádám Fischer. Engaging with children and the younger generations is one of our top priorities, inviting them into the world of music through concert formats that actively involve and speak to them.

Ádám Fischer

Principal Conductor

Ádám Fischer is one of the leading conductors of our time. Born in 1949 in Budapest, a student of Hans Swarowsky, he knew from an early age that music can, and has to, carry a message. With this in mind, he founded the Österreichisch-Ungarische Haydn Philharmonie in 1987 with musicians from his two home countries Austria and Hungary, to overcome not only the borders of the Iron Curtain but also the prejudices against the music of Joseph Haydn. His recording of the complete 104 symphonies by Joseph Haydn remains unsurpassed to this day.

When he became of the Danish Chamber Orchestra in 1998, he found the ideal partners for his innovative and radical ideas: open-minded musicians who enjoy experimenting. Together, over many years of collaboration, they have been able to develop their very own individual style. With a recording of all Mozart symphonies (International Classical Music Award 2015) and a complete Beethoven recording, presented in 2019 (International Classical Music Award 2020) Ádám Fischer ventured into new territory in terms of musical interpretation to enthusiastic international acclaim.

Ádám Fischer regularly uses his success and the broad international public for important messages about humanity and democracy. The Human Rights Award of the Tonhalle Düsseldorf which he has presented every year since 2014 is a testimony to this, and he is regularly asked for help and advice on the burning issues of our time. For his commitment, he received – amongst others – the renowned Wolf Prize of the Wolf Foundation in Jerusalem and the Gold Medal in the Arts of the Kennedy Center, Washington. He has been a member of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights for more than twenty years.

Ádám Fischer is an Honorary Member of the Musikverein für Steiermark in Graz. He holds the honorary Austrian title of Professor and he has received the Order of Dannebrog from the Queen of Denmark.

Homepage: Adamfischer.at