Chamber orchestra

The War Requiem, Op. 66, is a choral and orchestral composition by Benjamin Britten, composed mostly in 1961 and completed in January 1962. The War Requiem was performed for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, in the English county of Warwickshire, which was built after the original fourteenth-century structure was destroyed in a World War II bombing raid. The traditional Latin texts are interspersed, in telling juxtaposition, with extra-liturgical poems by Wilfred Owen, written during World War I.

Britten scored the work for soprano, tenor and baritone soloists, chorus, boys' choir, organ, and two orchestras (a full orchestra and a chamber orchestra). The chamber orchestra accompanies the intimate settings of the English poetry, while soprano, choirs and orchestra are used for the Latin sections; all forces are combined in the conclusion. The Requiem has a duration of approximately 80–85 minutes. In 2019, Britten's 1963 recording of the War Requiem was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO) is an American chamber orchestra based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Its principal concert venue is the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. In collaboration with five artistic partners, the orchestra's musicians present more than 130 concerts and educational programs each year in several venues throughout the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. The SPCO is regularly heard on American Public Media's nationally syndicated radio programs "Performance Today" and SymphonyCast.

Répons is a composition by French composer Pierre Boulez for a large chamber orchestra with six percussion soloists and live electronics. The six soloists play harp, cimbalom, vibraphone, glockenspiel/xylophone, and two pianos. It was premiered on 18 October 1981 at the Donaueschingen Festival. The composer expanded it until its completion in 1985. The work is dedicated to Alfred Schlee [de] "on his 80th birthday".

Répons was the first significant work to come out of Boulez's endeavors at IRCAM, an institute in Paris devoted to making technological advances in electronic music. It has been celebrated for its integration of the electronic and the acoustic. Its title, Répons, reflects the fact that the composition is constructed on various types of responses: the acoustic sounds and electronic responses to them as well as the medieval idea of responsorial mirroring between players and speakers in different parts of the concert hall. Tom Service of The Guardian has called it "Boulez’s most ambitious masterpiece of electronic and acoustic fusion".