Recent special events include a 2002 tour to Montreal, a 2004 performance of Peter Boyer's multimedia composition Ellis Island: The Dream of America at Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Providence featuring actors Barry Bostwick and Brown alumna Kate Burton, and a 2006-7 tour of China, which made the BUO only the second American college orchestra to tour China.

[4] Most recently, the orchestra toured Ireland in 2013, performed with the Paul Taylor Dance Company in 2017, and co-commissioned Tracy Silverman's electric violin concerto Love Song to the Sun in 2018, featuring an interactive multimedia display designed by Brown professor Todd Winkler.

Composers-in-residence hosted by the orchestra include Steve Reich, Steven Stucky, Michael Torke, Nico Muhly, Lukas Foss, Samuel Adler, Philip Glass, and Joan Tower.

Previous conductors of the orchestra have included Martin J. Fischer, Paul Phillips, and Brandon Keith Brown.

[10][11] In December 2006, Daniel Barenboim served as a guest conductor when he visited with the West-Eastern Divan orchestra.