Biography of John Eliot Gardiner

John Eliot Gardiner is one of the leading conductors in the active "authentic performances" movement in England, performing Baroque music but also extending his range into later repertoire. He first conducted at the age of 15, and after finishing school he studied at King's College, Cambridge. While still an undergraduate, he conducted the combined Oxford and Cambridge Singers on a 1964 tour of the Middle East and founded the Monteverdi Choir, which has consistently performed on his recordings since.After graduation, he went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger and then studied as a postgraduate at King's College, London, with early music leader Thurston Dart. His first notable engagement as a conductor was at a Promenade Concert in London in 1969 and he first conducted an opera in London (Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride) at Covent Garden in 1973.He had continued conducting the Monteverdi Choir, then founded the English Baroque Soloists, specializing in Baroque music played on original-style instruments. The EBS first appeared at the 1977 Innsbruck Festival of Early Music and has appeared with the Monteverdi Choir on many recordings.He made his American debut in 1979 leading the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, part of an active and often overlooked aspect of his career: conducting standard repertoire on modern instruments. This included a period as principal conductor (1980-1983) of the CBC Vancouver Symphony Orchestra; music director of the Opera de Lyon (1983-1988), which included founding an entirely new orchestra; and principal conductor of the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg (1991-1994). He expanded his activities in the original-style instruments movement by recognizing that from the Classical era and well into the Romantic age there were distinctly different instrument designs than those that are standard today. As a result, he founded another new orchestra, the Orchéstre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, to specialize in that period with authentic instruments.He has also been an active guest conductor, leading major orchestras of the world, including the Cleveland, Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, Vienna Philharmonic, and Philharmonia orchestras, and has conducted the Puccini opera Manon Lescaut at Glyndebourne. He led a cycle of all seven mature Mozart operas and has conducted over 250 recordings on Deutsche Grammophon and Erato labels. He and Herbert von Karajan share the record for the most Gramophone Awards in a single year (three), while Gardiner has won more of them over the years than any other artist.

Biography of Rodney Gilfry

Baritone Rodney Gilfry has become one of the best known American opera and recital singers.He was born in Covina, a suburb in the north of the Los Angeles area. His parents were teachers, who moved the family a few miles to another suburb, Claremont, where his father was the high school principal. The father, a brass player, was also the conductor of the high school band. His mother taught kindergarten and special education, and was also the church choir director. All the children in the family are musicians.After finishing his higher education, Gilfry began singing. In the 1980s he began singing professionally and soon established a reputation leading to his break-through year of 1986, when he made his debuts at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Royal Opera, Covent Garden of London, and Opéra Bastille of Paris. Unusually, each of these debut appearances was in an opera by Benjamin Britten, A Midsummer Night's Dream (as Demetrius) in New York and Billy Budd (in the title role) in the other two venues.He has a mellow rather than a dark baritone voice. That and his good looks have resulted in his concentration on lyric baritone roles. He has sung and recorded the major baritone parts in the three Mozart-Da Ponte operas, Marriage of Figaro (as the Count), Don Giovanni (as the Don) and Così fan tutte, and both Ravel operas (L'Heure Espagnole and L'Enfant et les Sortiléges). He appears in such roles as Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Marcello in La Bohème, Lescaux in Manon, Ford in Falstaff, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Papageno in The Magic Flute, Valentin in Faust, Belcore in L'Elisir d'amore, Dandini in Cenerentola, both Olivier and The Count in Strauss' Capriccio, Battone in L'Inganno felice, Zurga in The Pearl Fishers, and Enrico Ashton in Lucia di Lammermoor. He is also at home in lighter opera and American musicals. His roles in this realm include Count Danilo in The Merry Widow, Eisenstein in Der Fledermaus, Curly in Carousel, and Joey in Paint Your Wagon. He has an interest in twentieth-century opera. In addition to his Britten roles, he has sung Oedipus in Rihm's opera, Riolobo in Daniel Catán's Florencia en el Amazonas, and Stanley Kowalski in André Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire.Preparing to move into more dramatic baritone parts he has begun to sing in recital the "Credo," Iago's solo in Verdi's Otello.Gilfry's recital and concer appearances include Bach's B Minor Mass (which he sang under the baton of Carlo Maria Giulini), Haydn's The Creation, Carmina Burana, and the world premiere of Ancelin's Filius Hominis.In addition to the Mozart-Da Ponte operas, he has recorded Rossini's L'Inganno Felice, Schumann's Genoveva, and The Creation. Both The Creation and his portrayal of Don Giovanni earned Grammy nominations.He has appeared in major venues such as the Vienna State Opera, the Chicago Lyric Opera, the San Francisco Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Santa Fe Opera, and the opera houses of Frankfurt, Geneva, Munich, Toulouse, Dallas, and San Diego, but has been most closely associated with the Zürich Opera and the Los Angeles Opera. He was a member of the company of the former for six years, during which he lived in Zürich.His wife, Tina (his sister's best high school friend) and he decided after their years of residence in Zürich to make their home and professional base near their families, and moved to Rancho Cucamonga, California, which is close to Claremont. They say that their three children have inherited their musical abilities (Tina is a former singer), and regularly appear in school music productions.

Biography of Charlotte Margiono

No biography available

Biography of Monteverdi Choir

The Monteverdi Choir, a British ensemble with roots in the early music movement, did much to bring that music alive for general audiences. In recent years the group has broadened its repertoire beyond early music and has become one of the world's most renowned choral ensembles.The 1950s witnessed a sudden growth of interest in Baroque and earlier music, but to many, this wave of the early music movement tended toward a careful, academic quality in performances, with often dry and ascetic results.In March 1964 John Eliot Gardiner, then an undergraduate at Cambridge University, formed the Monteverdi Choir for a performance of Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 (the Vespro della beata Vergine) at King's College Chapel at Cambridge. His aim was to bring out the passion and color of Italian music within the solid British choral tradition. The choir made its debut in London with a 1966 appearance in Wigmore Hall.Since then the Monteverdi Choir has expanded its expertise in both directions from its base in the Baroque era, achieving a large and broad repertory. Often appearing with the English Baroque Soloists (a period-instrument orchestra founded by Gardiner), the choir is famous for rich, committed performances with a strongly vital rhythmic sense and amastery of style of various eras.It has performed and recorded Renaissance and early Baroque music (by composers such as Schütz, Gabrieli, Gesualdo, Carissimi, Campra, and Leclair), more familiar Baroque music (all of Bach's major choral works, most of Purcell's semi-operas, several Handel oratorios), Classical era masterworks (Mozart's Requiem and Mass in C minor, Haydn's Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons), Mozart's Thamos, König in Ägypten incidental music, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis), Romantic repertory (Berlioz's Roméo et Juliet, the choral music of Schubert, Verdi's Requiem and Falstaff, Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem, Léhar's The Merry Widow), and the modern era (Britten's Spring Symphony, Kurtág's Songs of Despair, and music of Percy Grainger).The choir frequently tours. One of its most notable trips, in 1989, marked its 25th anniversary and included a performance of the Monteverdi Vespers in St Mark's Basilica in Venice, the acoustic environment Monteverdi had in mind when he composed the work. In 1996 the group participated in the inaugural Lincoln Center Festival in New York, where it joined Gardiner's Orchestre Révolutionare et Romantique in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and Missa Solemnis. It has presented a series of concerts exploring little known chorus-and-orchestra masterworks by Robert Schumann, which it subsequently recorded.The Monteverdi Choir has recorded for DG Archive, Philips, Erato, Decca (London) and EMI.

Biography of English Baroque Soloists

Although the English Baroque Soloists was officially established as a chamber ensemble of period instruments in 1978, the group actually gave its first concert at the 1977 Innsbruck Festival of Early Music in a performance of Handel's Acis and Galatea. Founded by John Eliot Gardiner, the group regularly performs throughout England and Europe. It has given a number of concerts in two London halls, the Barbican and St. John's Smith Square. The English Baroque Soloists drew many of their original members from another group Gardiner had founded (in 1968), the Monteverdi Orchestra. Shortly after their founding, it was Bach and Handel who were largely the focus of the EBS. However, the EBS became closely associated with Mozart's music, mainly because of its numerous, generally highly acclaimed recordings of his works. In 1984, Gardiner and the EBS launched a series for the label Archiv Produktion devoted to Mozart's concertos for piano and orchestra with soloist Malcolm Bilson (using a fortepiano) and the first such cycle using period instruments. Two years later, with the concerto series ongoing, they launched another Mozart project, this one to cover the mature symphonies for Philips. In summer 1990, the EBS debuted at the Salzburg Festival, giving three concerts, all to critical acclaim. The group has since returned numerous times and has also subsequently toured Vienna and Innsbruck. With the release in 1990 of Piano Concerto No. 24 (K. 491) and No. 27 (K. 595), the piano concerto series was completed, but the EBS and Gardiner immediately set to work recording the seven mature operas of Mozart for Archiv Produktion. The first release in this cycle, Idomeneo, won Gramophone's Best Opera Award in 1991. In that same year. Gardiner, the EBS, and the Monteverdi Choir appeared in a live BBC television broadcast of Mozart's Requiem performed at the Palau de la Música Catalana. The last issue in the Gardiner/EBS Mozart operas series, Die Zauberflöte, was released in 1996, after which they turned to the music of Bach. In the late 1990s, a new series of recordings began with the release in 2000 of Bach's Cantatas No. 6 "Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend" (BWV 6) and No. 66, "Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen" (BWV 66). Along with the Monteverdi Choir, Gardiner and the EBS performed the entire cycle of 198 Bach cantatas throughout various European churches in 2000. But the EBS was hardly focusing on only Mozart or Bach in the 1990s: its performance at Covent Garden in 1995 of Haydn's Die Schöpfung (The Creation) was enthusiastically received and led to a successful 1997 recording on Archiv Produktion. Also in 1995, the EBS and the Monteverdi Choir performed the music for the film England, My England, a highly acclaimed movie directed by Tony Palmer, about English composer Henry Purcell. That same year, Gardiner, the EBS, and Monteverdi Choir issued a multi-disc set on the label Erato devoted to Purcell's music. The touring schedule of the EBS has been one of the busiest of any orchestra's. In 2002, for example, it included performances of Weber's Oberon in Paris and London; of sixteenth and seventeenth century church music in numerous cities throughout the U.K.; Bach cantatas in Utrecht, Köthen, and Wiesbaden; and numerous other performances in Brussels, Zurich, Baden-Baden, Vienna, Turin, and Athens. By 2002, the EBS appeared on about 70 recordings, making it one of the most heavily recorded orchestras over the years since its founding.

Biography of Alison Bury

No biography available

Biography of Julian Clarkson

No biography available

Biography of Eirian James

No biography available

Biography of Luba Orgonasova

Luba Orgonasova's home town of Bratislava has long been one of the major regional musical centers of Central Europe. She attended the Conservatory and the Music Academy of the city, where she studied piano and voice.She began her singing career at Bratislava's opera house, then was invited to sing as a guest at the Hagen Opera House in 1984. Following that appearance, she received a contract as a member of that company as its First Lyric Soprano, remaining there to the end of the 1988 season. While there she sang in many leading parts, including two for which she would become famous, Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata and Pamina in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. She sang Pamina at the Vienna State Opera and recorded it in 1989.Maestro Herbert von Karajan heard her sing and invited her to appear in the 1990 Salzburg Easter Festival and the summer Salzburg Festival in 1990, where she sang Marzelline in Beethoven's Fidelio. Later in that season she sang Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Vienna State Opera and Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Seraglio in Paris.Since then she has sung on all the major operatic stages of the world, and in concert performance with many of the great orchestras. Among her signature roles is that of Eurydice in Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice.

Biography of Christoph Pregardien

Tenor Christoph Prégardien began his musical education at the Limburg Cathedral Choir School. He went on to study at the Frankfurt Musikhochschule with Martin Gründeler, and later with Carla Castellani in Milan, Karlheinz Jarius in Frankfurt, and Alois Treml in Stuttgart.Prégardien has built up a major reputation as a concert artist, performing the oratorios and Passions of the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods. His repertoire also encompasses the works of seventeenth century composers Monteverdi, Schütz, and Purcell, and twentieth century composers Britten, Stravinsky, Killmayer, and Rihm. Among the conductors he has performed and recorded with are Brüggen, Gardiner, Harnoncourt, Herreweghe, Hogwood, Jacobs, Koopman, Kuijken, Leonhardt, and Rilling. As an operatic tenor, he has given performances in many major venues, among them London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Montpellier, and Tokyo. His roles have included such characters as Monterverdi's Ulisse, Mozart's Tamino and Don Ottavio, and Rossini's Count Almaviva.His special love is lieder, which he studied at the Frankfurt Musikhochschule in classes with Hartmut Höll. After the great success of his first lieder recordings he embarked on a major recording career. His outstanding achievements as lieder singer have been acknowledged by numerous awards, such as the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, Edison Award, Diapason D'or de l'année and the Cannes Classical Award, among others. Prégardien and Andreas Staier have performed together internationally since 1991, and in 1997 they signed an exclusive contract with Teldec. Their début CD for the label, Schubert's Winterreise, won numerous awards including the Caecilia Prize, the Edison Award, a Diapason d'Or, and a Choc du Monde de la Musique, as well as being chosen for the German Record Critics' Quarterly List. His other favorite piano partner is Michael Gees. Other releases by Prégardien have included a CD of songs by Beethoven and his contemporaries Nikolaus von Krufft and Franz Lachner, and Brahms' Die schöne Magelone.

Biography of David Watkin

David Watkin is one of the leading cellists in the period performance movement in London. As a boy he had thorough training in the cello including private lessons with Sharon McKinley and school lessons with Margaret Moncrieff and Amaryllis Fleming. He attended St. Catherine's College, Cambridge, as a choral scholar. This meant that he was an adult-voice member of the College's chapel choir and received thorough training in voice and interpretation and a scholarship to the college for singing daily services during the school term. While there, he also won an award for his cello playing. As a Cambridge student he studied with the great teacher William Pleeth.He played his debut recital in 1989 at St. John's, Smith Square. His accompanist was Howard Moody, who before and since has been Watkin's duo performance partner. They had already been friends for ten years, meeting in 1979 when they were both members of the National Youth Orchestra in Britain.Watkin believes in informing his music making with scholarship, and does considerable research into the history and performing practice of the music he plays. This has naturally led him into the "period" or "authentic" performance movement. He has appeared as a soloist with many of London's period instrument orchestras. His performance of Vivaldi cello sonatas on the Hyperion label won the highest possible rating in BBC Music Magazine. He has recorded with the English Concert, the Academy of Ancient Music, Collegium Musicum '90, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. One of his achievements was the thorough researching of the method used in the Baroque era by cellists in realizing figured bass, a practice more usually associated with keyboard players. After writing an article on the practice in Early Music magazine, he became the first cellist in the modern era to give a complete concert realizing figured bass, playing Corelli's Op. 5 Violin Sonatas, which he recorded on the Novalis label. (His partners in this endeavor were the Trio Veracini.)Watkin was principal cello in three leading period ensembles, the Academy of Ancient Music, the English Baroque Soloists, and L'Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. It may have been membership in the later that stimulated his interest in researching performance practice of the nineteenth century.While commentators have long realized that there were striking technological and interpretational changes from the Classical era to the Romantic era (a period generally exemplified by the career of Beethoven), Watkin came to accept that there had been an equally abrupt change about a century later. For instance, the eminent teacher Leopold Auer felt it necessary in 1919 to write an article urging violinists not to adopt the practice of Auer's most famous pupil, Jascha Heifetz, in using vibrato constantly. Vibrato, advocated Auer (doubtless reflecting the established earlier practice), was meant to be applied sparingly for expressive purposes. Watkin discovered also that the use of portamento (glides from one note to another on the same finger) was commonplace, and was documented in published performers' editions of Romantic music giving fingerings. Using such research he published an article on the performance of Beethoven Cello Sonatas and then recorded them in a highly acclaimed and radical performance. Gramophone Magazine wrote of it, "If you're not sure about the advantages of original-instrument performance of classical chamber music, try this disc!" In 1999, he joined the Eroica Quartet, which shared his interest in "performing the music of the Romantic period and rediscovering the style of its performance." He has written the Eroica Quartet's official mission statement, and with them, has recorded discs devoted to quartets of Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Robert Schumann.

Biography of Ildebrando D'Arcangelo

Ildebrando D'Arcangelo is an Italian baritone who began a successful operatic career during the last decade of the twentieth century. He is especially noteworthy in his Mozart roles. He made his professional stage debut as a contestant in the Toti dal Monte International Competition for Singers. Named in honor of the great opera star Toti dal Monte, this competition is unique in that after a series of competitive elimination auditions, a number of young singers are cast in leading roles in a series of staged performances of important repertory operas. D'Arcangelo won the competition in 1989 as Masetto in Mozart's Don Giovanni, and scored another victory in 1991 as Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte.D'Arcangelo has gone on to perform in major opera houses including Covent Garden, Salzburg, Pesaro, the Bastille Opera and the Champs-Elysées Theater in Paris, Teatro alla Scala of Milan, the Ravenna Festival, the Monte Carlo Opera, the New National Theater in Tokyo, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Vienna Festival, and the Metropolitan Opera of New York under the batons of conductors such as Sir Georg Solti, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Bernard Haitink, John Eliot Gardiner, and James Levine.Other roles in his repertory include Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro, Count Rodolfo in La sonnambula, Mustafà in L'italiana in Algeri, Moses in Moses in Egypt, and both Leporello and the Don in Don Giovanni.

Biography of Andrea Silvestrelli

No biography available

Biography of Steve Smith

No biography available