Sylvia Alimena, French horn player, founds the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra to showcase the virtuosity and feature solo opportunities for professional musicians who play for the National Symphony Orchestra and other ensembles.

1992

In the inaugural season, Maestra Alimena commissions composer Mark Adamo to compose a piece for Eclipse.

1991-1992

"Ralph Vaughan Williams's THE LARK ASCENDING received an impressive performance under conductor Sylvia Alimena. This is exquisite, deeply felt music, and the satiny curtain of sound that Alimena coaxed from the Eclipse strings couldn't have served the score better."

Joe Banno, The Washington Post (June 18, 2002)

Eclipse premieres Adamo's LATE VICTORIANS to "immediate critical and popular acclaim," according to a later reflection by Stephen Brookes, Washington Post (June 3, 2007).

1995

Eclipse premieres Adamo's OVERTURE TO LYSISTRATA.

2007

Maestra Alimena and Eclipse record Mark Adamo's LATE VICTORIANS and other scores on the Naxos label. Adamo calls the Eclipse performance of his scores "beautiful."

2009

Eclipse presents festivals of J.S. Bach's BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS at St. Patrick's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C.

Late 1990s to Early 2000s

Maestra Alimena and Eclipse release their recording of Florian Gassmann's OPERA OVERTURES on the Naxos label.

September 2009

Maestro Leonard Slatkin guest conducts Eclipse to celebrate the chamber orchestra's 15th anniversary.

2006

"A fine...account of Schubert's Rondo in A for Violin and Strings, D.438, began the concert with [Joseph] Silverstein as the deft violin soloist."

Daniel Ginsberg, The Washington Post (September 19, 2006)

"Young Australian violinist Alexandra Osborne—an ECO regular—stole the show, soloing in Saint-Saëns's virtuosic show-off number, INTRODUCTION AND RONDO CAPRICCIOSO, OP. 28. Osborne has an impressive technique and tossed off the pyrotechnics with ease."

Stephen Brookes, The Washington Post (October 24, 2011)

"The members of the 18-year-old Eclipse Chamber Orchestra go beyond the NSO, indeed; most of them are NSO players, looking to extend their musical lives beyond the Kennedy Center and possibly to connect more intimately with an audience."

Anne Midgette, Washington Post (February 23, 2010)

"It’s always a pleasure to hear the NSO players in solo roles, and Vivaldi's CONCERTO FOR TWO FLUTES IN C, RV 533, which opened the program, received a lighthearted and completely charming performance from Carole Bean and Alice Kogan Weinreb, who wove their melodic lines in kind of affection, playful echoing of each other."

Stephen Brookes, The Washington Post (December 19, 2012)

Nicholas "Stovall has a gorgeous tone (think chocolate with a little honey in it), and he and [Elisabeth] Adkins [former ECO concert master] navigated Bach’s tightly argued counterpoint deftly and with convincing authority; a beautiful, captivating performance in every way."

Stephen Brookes, The Washington Post (December 10, 2012)

"Under the baton of conductor David Teie, the chamber group kicked off the final concert of the season with LUCIO FILLA, K. 135. So rarely programmed that not even the 19 musicians on stage—most of them National Symphony Members—had ever heard it performed live. And what a treat it was, the 10-minute montage of Mozartean elegance, wit and energy, played with reverential warmth."

Grace Jean, The Washington Post (April 22, 2013)

"[Craig] Coray's WE WALK TO THE SKY, music of an Alaskan composer, is inspired by the contours of the state's mountains and its folk melodies and reaching intense levels of dialogue and interplay among individual instrumentalists. The music was haunting in its premier performance and continued to echo in memory long after the sounds had faded."

Joseph McLellan, The Washington Post (November 2, 1995)

MORNING MUSIC, a premiere by Truman Harris, “juxtaposed anguished Bernsteinisms with cartoonish cloak-and-dagger episodes for pizzicato strings, to appealing effect."

Joe Banno, The Washington Post (April 29, 1997)

"The concert opened with the premiere of a Viola Concerto by Thomas Myron, a delightful 30-minute piece whose four movements (with echoes of Copland, Stravinsky and Prokofiev) offered both lyricism and rhythmic interest. Violist Tsuna Sakamoto drew out its long lines with lovely, uncomplicated artistry and Alimena and the orchestra backed her up with clean sonorities and the incisive placement of accents."

Joan Reinthaler, The Washington Post (June 3, 2003)

"The flute concerto BUTTERFLY was written by David Teie, an NSO and Eclipse cellist. It was named for the butterfly effect, the idea that a motion as small as the movement of a butterfly's wing might set off reactions far larger down the line. [T]he piece was...as pretty and light as the name might suggest, with a sinuously darting flute part gracefully handled by Alice Kogan Weinreb, another NSO player."

Anne Midgette, The Washington Post (February 23, 2010)

NSO first chair French horn player Abel Pereira becomes Music Director of the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra

2016