Although it maintains headquarters in London, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe lives up to its name: the group's roughly 60 members come from all over the European continent as well as Britain. Cultivating relationships with many conductors and venues, the orchestra is especially noteworthy for its recording catalog, which has earned critical acclaim and major awards.

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe was founded in 1981 by a group of young players who had aged out of the European Community Youth Orchestra and wanted to continue making music together. One of the initial movers was Douglas Boyd, who remained the orchestra's lead oboist for many years, and numerous other founding members have remained with the group. The idea of forming a smaller orchestra oriented toward Baroque and Classical repertory was common at the time; less common was the orchestra's democratic structure, which involved a small directorate elected annually by the players. There is no permanent conductor, but the Chamber Orchestra of Europe quickly began to catch the attention of some of the biggest names on the podium. Two years after its formation, the group was tapped by Claudio Abbado for a Deutsche Grammophon recording of Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims. The orchestra has worked with conductors Bernard Haitink, Sakari Oramo, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and many others, and has performed or recorded with top-caliber soloists including Janine Jansen, Emanuel Ax, and Renaud and Gautier Capuçon.

Accordingly, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe tours all over Europe (and sometimes in North America), with no identification with a particular city. These connections have resulted in an unusually deep collection of recordings: since the late '80s, multiple recordings of the orchestra have appeared in almost every year, and 2006 alone saw seven Chamber Orchestra of Europe releases. The group was a European Union cultural ambassador from 2007 until 2013. In 2009, the orchestra established the COE Academy to provide educational opportunities for student performers. Many of the group's recordings feature Baroque or Classical repertory (especially Mozart), but not all; in 2018, the orchestra issued Visions of Prokofiev on Deutsche Grammophon. The orchestra's vast, critically acclaimed recording catalog has earned two Grammy Awards and three Record of the Year Awards from Gramophone magazine. In 2020, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, led by Harnoncourt, was heard on a live recording of Schubert's symphonies made at the Styriarte festival in Graz, Austria, in 1988. The following year, the orchestra and Harnoncourt were heard on an album of works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms; these recordings were made at the same festival spanning from 1989 through 2007. The Chamber Orchestra of Europe is a nonprofit organization and a registered charity in Britain. ~ James Manheim, Rovi