An orchestra is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments:
The Cleveland Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Cleveland, Ohio. Founded in 1918 by the pianist and impresario Adella Prentiss Hughes, the orchestra is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the "Big Five". The orchestra plays most of its concerts at Severance Hall. Its current music director is Franz Welser-Möst.
Trevor David Pinnock is a British harpsichordist and conductor.
Raymond John Leppard was a British-American conductor, harpsichordist, composer and editor. In the 1960s, he played a prime role in the rebirth of interest in Baroque music; in particular, he was one of the first major conductors to perform Baroque opera, reviving works by Claudio Monteverdi and Francesco Cavalli. He conducted operas at major international opera houses and festivals, including the Glyndebourne Festival where he led the world premiere of Nicholas Maw's The Rising of the Moon, the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera House. He composed film scores such as Lord of the Flies and Alfred the Great.
A Baroque orchestra is an ensemble for mixed instruments that existed during the Baroque era of Western Classical music, commonly identified as 1600–1750. Baroque orchestras are typically much smaller, in terms of the number of performers, than their Romantic-era counterparts. Baroque orchestras originated in France where Jean-Baptiste Lully added the newly re-designed hautbois (oboe) and transverse flutes to his orchestra, Les Vingt-quatre Violons du Roi. As well as violins and woodwinds, baroque orchestras often contained basso continuo instruments such as the theorbo, the lute, the harpsichord and the pipe organ.
John Holloway is a British baroque violinist and conductor, currently based in Dresden, Germany. He is a pioneer of the early music movement.
Gustav Maria Leonhardt was a Dutch keyboardist, conductor, musicologist, teacher and editor. He was a leading figure in the historically informed performance movement to perform music on period instruments.
A harpsichordist is a person who plays the harpsichord. Harpsichordists may play as soloists, as accompanists, as chamber musicians, or as members of an orchestra, or some combination of these roles. Solo harpsichordists may play unaccompanied sonatas for harpsichord or concertos accompanied by orchestra. Accompanist harpsichordists might accompany singers or instrumentalists, either playing works written for a voice and harpsichord or an orchestral reduction of the orchestra parts. Chamber musician harpsichordists could play in small groups of instrumentalists, such as a quartet or quintet. Baroque-style orchestras and opera pit orchestras typically have a harpsichordist to play the chords in the basso continuo part.
The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (PBO) is an American orchestra based in San Francisco. PBO is dedicated to historically informed performance of Baroque, Classical and Romantic music on original instruments. The orchestra performs its subscription series in the following cities and venues:
Daniel John Taylor, is a Canadian countertenor, conductor and early music specialist. Taylor directs the Trinity Choir, the Theatre of Early Music and is Professor of Opera, Voice and Early Music at the University of Toronto.
AVIE Records is a UK-based independent classical music recording company founded in 2002 by Simon Foster and Melanne Mueller who devised a unique business model based on artist ownership. Foster and Mueller continue to run the company together with executives Barry McCann and Steve Winn. The label maintains offices in the UK and US.
The Schulich School of Music is one of the constituent faculties of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 555, Rue Sherbrooke Ouest. The faculty was named after the benefactor Seymour Schulich.
Jaap ter Linden is a Dutch cellist, viol player and conductor. He specialises in performance of baroque and classical music on authentic instruments.
Boston Baroque is the oldest period instrument orchestra in North America. It was founded in 1973 by the American harpsichordist and conductor, Martin Pearlman, to present concerts of the Baroque and Classical repertoire on period instruments, drawing on the insights of the historical performance movement.
Indianapolis Early Music (IEM) is a non-profit organization established in Indianapolis in 1966 to organize concerts featuring music of the medieval, renaissance, baroque, and early classic eras. Since 1966, it has produced the annual Indianapolis Early Music Festival, the oldest continuous Early Music festival in the United States.
Martin Pearlman is an American conductor, harpsichordist, composer, and early music specialist. He founded the first permanent Baroque orchestra in North America with Boston Baroque in 1973–74. Many of its original players went on to play in or direct other ensembles in what became a growing field in the American music scene. He later founded the chorus of that ensemble and has been the music director of Boston Baroque from its inception up to the present day.
Jeannette Sorrell is an American conductor and harpsichordist. A GRAMMY Award winner, she is the founder and music director of Apollo's Fire Baroque Orchestra. She is the subject of the 2019 documentary by Oscar-winning director Allan Miller, PLAYING WITH FIRE: Jeannette Sorrell and the Mysteries of Conducting.
Eric Milnes is an American harpsichordist, organist and conductor, especially in the field of Baroque music. He began a series of recordings of all Bach cantatas with singers performing one voice per part and the Montreal Baroque Orchestra.
