history

The New Brunswick Chamber Orchestra (NBCO) was founded in 1960 as a community, all-volunteer orchestra serving New Brunswick, New Jersey, and the surrounding areas. In the 1980s, the NBCO began hiring professional musicians to serve as section leaders, priming the way for its later transition into an all-professional orchestra around 1990. Beginning in 2002 under the artistic direction of Mark Trautman, the NBCO increased its scope by actively including more contemporary music on its programs. This initiative was later expanded in 2014 by the then artistic director, Mark Hyczko, and the orchestra continues to regularly program new and contemporary music on its programs under its present-day leadership.

The NBCO’s current artistic director, Julia Baumanis, is an assistant professor of music education and conducting, as well as the associate director for university bands, for Rutgers University–New Brunswick. She has led the NBCO’s artistic activities since 2023 and has spearheaded the orchestra’s ongoing efforts to “reframe classical music.”