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Among London's many small orchestral ensembles, the London Mozart Players are perhaps the oldest and certainly among the most prestigious. The group specializes not only in the music of Mozart but also in other works of the Classical period, featuring small forces similar to those that would have played the music in its own time, although modern rather than historical instruments are used.

The London Mozart Players were formed in 1949 by conductor and string player Harry Blech, who gathered musicians from the National Gallery Concerts he had mounted in the empty museum during World War II. Blech remained the conductor until 1984. At the time, it was Britain's only orchestra specializing in Classical-period music. The orchestra was popular from the beginning, partly because Blech insisted on touring smaller venues in rural Britain where top-notch orchestral playing was hard to find in the difficult postwar years. In London itself, the group appeared annually for many years at the Royal Festival Hall. An early digital recording appeared on the Chandos label in 1983 and featured symphonies by Muzio Clementi.

The London Mozart Players have served since the late '80s as the official resident ensemble of the Borough of Croydon, and in 2016, it took up residence at the borough's Fairfield Halls. Blech was succeeded in 1984 by Jane Glover, Matthias Bamert in 1992, Andrew Parrott in 2000, Gérard Korsten in 2010, and Howard Shelley in 2014. The orchestra enjoys noble patronage from the Earl of Wessex but, uniquely among British professional orchestras, delegates both financial and artistic leadership to the players themselves. Britain-wide tours have been followed by worldwide ones, including a tour in 2018 that included stops in Dubai and Hong Kong. The orchestra has long attracted prestigious soloists, from flutist James Galway in his heyday to Nicola Benedetti, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, and Thomas Trotter in the 2010s.

The London Mozart Players have recorded prolifically, mostly for Chandos, often committing to disc the music of rarely heard composers such as Leopold Kozeluch and Adalbert Gyrowetz. The group sometimes ventures beyond the Classical and early Romantic periods, joining the Colla Voce Singers for a recording of Roxanna Panufnik's Love Abide on the Signum Classics label in 2019. In 2021, the London Mozart Players joined the Choir of Royal Holloway, University of London, for a recording on Hyperion of the oratorio As We Are Changed by Carson Cooman and Euan Tait. By 2023, when the orchestra returned to Chandos for the world premiere recording of Hubert Parry's Scenes from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, its recording catalog comprised well over 50 items. ~ James Manheim

Although he has a solid reputation as a conductor of the standard repertory, Matthias Bamert is best known for his work on behalf of new music, obscure 18th century music, and neglected music from all eras (especially in a long series of recordings for Chandos). He is also known for his participation in provocative classical music videos directed by Adrian Marthaler. Bamert studied music in his native Switzerland, as well as in Darmstadt and Paris, falling in with the likes of Boulez and Stockhausen; these associations can be detected in his own compositions from the 1970s. He spent from 1965 to 1969 as principal oboist with the Salzburg Mozart Orchestra, but then switched to conducting. He assisted Stokowski at the American Symphony Orchestra in 1970 and 1971, then joined the Cleveland Orchestra's conducting staff. He was music director of the Swiss Radio Orchestra (1977-1983), then began making a wider reputation across Europe. He was principal guest conductor of the Scottish National Orchestra from 1985 to 1990. Bamert served as artistic director of the Lucerne Festival (1992-1998) (where he made inroads in thematic programming) and of the London Mozart Players (1993-2000). In 2000, he became principal guest conductor of the New Zealand Symphony. Bamert is known to be a quick study, able to master new scores in very little time, and bring off highly effective premieres in concert and on CD. His most notable recordings include symphonies of Gossec, concert music by Korngold, the orchestral works of Martin, and a series devoted to Stokowski arrangements.