Created in 1992 by its current musical director Daniel Kawka, the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain develops with pertinence and passion a diversified and original approach of contemporary music. It's an instrumental unit that gathers 15 to 35 musicians and performs in France and abroad. Collaborations with composers, artists, conductors and directors punctuate musicians’ life and enable them to create a lively and renewed music. The Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain is very active on French stages and abroad. Under the direction of Kawka the epicentre of activity for the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain focuses around the Rhône-Alpes (their seat residing in Andrézieux-Bouthéon), however the ensemble tours the entirety of France as well as abroad. It is regularly invited to festivals for contemporary music and otherwise, such as Festival Automne in Normandy, Festival Radio France et Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon, Musica à Strasbourg, Why Note in Dijon, Les Musiques in Marseille, 38e Rugissants in Grenoble, L’Eté musical dans la Loire, Musiques en scène in Lyon, Musica Nova in Brésil, Music Today in Séoul, and the Autumn Festival in Warsaw, Poland. In 2009-2010, the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain will celebrate its 17th season and continues sharing its artistic project for the great majority of people. It promotes “contemporary music” and its various forms such as instrumental concert, electro acoustic and instrumental concert and innovates by putting the nowadays composition into relation with other art forms such as poetry, vocal art, video, theatre. The event-driven dimension in concerts is a key idea for the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain. It attempts to turn each concert into an exchange between audience, artists and creators. Moreover educational work towards audiences can be lead in parallel with the concerts: master-class, conference, interview with the director and the musicians, public rehearsal, meeting with the conductor and the artists… The Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain offers all audiences to discover music from the 20th and 21st centuries including creations for soloist and ensemble. The musical ensemble perpetuates its artistic project thanks to the involvement and the enthusiasm of its musicians and reveals contemporary music as a means of communication and conveyor of shared experience.