| Arion Baroque Orchestra | |
|---|---|
| Orchestra | |
 Arion Baroque Orchestra in 2009 | |
| Native name | Arion Orchestre Baroque |
| Founded | 1981 |
| Location | Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Music director | Claire Guimond and Mathieu Lussier |
| Website | http://www.arionbaroque.com |
Arion Baroque Orchestra, founded in 1981, is a Canadian baroque orchestra based in Montreal, Quebec, specializing in music of the 18th century performed on period instruments.
Arion Baroque Orchestra was founded in Montreal in 1981 (first under the name of Arion Ensemble). Originally, it was a quartet whose members included flautist Claire Guimond, violinist Chantal Rémillard, harpsichordist Hank Knox, and viola da gamba player Betsy MacMillan. [1]
The ensemble's name comes from Greek mythology: Arion is a musician from antiquity who avoided drowning by charming a dolphin with his singing. It is also the name of a cantata by André Campra that was played at the first concert of the group.
Since the mid-1990s, the original quartet has expanded with the aim of developing into a baroque orchestra, and thus began to explore the repertoire from the 2nd half of the 18th century, most notably the music of Haydn and Mozart. [1]
Flautist Claire Guimond, was the sole artistic director of the orchestra from 1981 to 2019. During the 2019–2020 season, the artistic direction was shared with bassoonist Mathieu Lussier who succeeded her in the following 2020/2021 season. [2]
Arion Baroque Orchestra does not have a principal conductor and prefers to collaborate with invited soloists and leaders. Some of the collaborators Arion has shared the stage with over the years are sopranos Suzie LeBlanc and Karina Gauvin, recorder player Vincent Lauzer, violinists Stefano Montanari, Enrico Onofri, and Monica Huggett, cellist Jaap ter Linden, harpsichordists Christophe Rousset, Garry Cooper, and Alexander Weimann, flautist Barthold Kuijken, and clarinettist Lorenzo Coppola.
Arion Baroque Orchestra has toured Québec, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, [3] and Europe.
Arion has a residency at Bourgie Hall of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, where it has an annual subscription series of five programs. The orchestra also performs at other venues in Montreal, most notably through the Conseil des arts de Montréal touring program, but also at the main music festivals across Quebec and Canada such as Domaine Forget, the Montreal Bach Festival, the Ottawa Chamberfest, and the Lamèque International Baroque Music Festival in New Brunswick.
The orchestra has received several awards and distinctions for its recordings and concerts: 9 Prix Opus [4] , [5] of the Conseil Québécois de la Musique, 2 Félix Awards [6] , [7] of ADISQ, 1 Juno Award [8] of the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, and 1 Diapason d'Or [9] from the French music magazine Diapason.
The discography of Arion Baroque Orchestra comprises around thirty titles [10] on four labels: early-music.com, [11] ATMA Classique, [12] Analekta, [13] and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
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Georg Philipp Telemann was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. He is one of the most prolific composers in history, at least in terms of surviving oeuvre. Telemann was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the leading German composers of the time, and he was compared favourably both to his friend Johann Sebastian Bach, who made Telemann the godfather and namesake of his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, and to George Frideric Handel, whom Telemann also knew personally.
A concerto is, from the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The typical three-movement structure, a slow movement preceded and followed by fast movements, became a standard from the early 18th century.
Trevor David Pinnock is a British harpsichordist and conductor.
Hendrik "Henk" Bouman is a Dutch harpsichordist, fortepianist, conductor and composer of music written in the baroque and classical idioms of the 17th and 18th century.
The English Concert is a baroque orchestra playing on period instruments based in London. Founded in 1972 and directed from the harpsichord by Trevor Pinnock for 30 years, it is now directed by harpsichordist Harry Bicket. Nadja Zwiener has been orchestra leader (concertmaster) since September 2007.
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin is a German chamber orchestra founded in East Berlin in 1982. Each year Akamus gives approximately 100 concerts, ranging from small chamber works to large-scale symphonic pieces in Europe's musical centers as well as on tours in Asia, North America and South America.
Musica Angelica is an internationally renowned Baroque orchestra based in Long Beach, California and led by music director Martin Haselböck, award-winning organist, conductor, and composer. Musica Angelica is dedicated to the historically informed performance of Baroque and early Classical music on period instruments. Its programs include a mixture of known masterworks by composers such as Bach, Handel and Vivaldi, along with rarely heard ‘musical gems’ by lesser-known composers.
Suzie LeBlanc is a Canadian soprano and early music specialist. She taught at McGill University from 2016 to 2020 and became the Artistic and Executive Director of Early Music Vancouver in 2021. She was named a member of the Order of Canada in 2014 for her contributions to music and Acadian culture.
Lars Ulrik Mortensen is a Danish harpsichordist and conductor, mainly of Baroque solo music, chamber music and early music repertory. He was a professor in Munich in 1996–99 and has since then been artistic director of Concerto Copenhagen. He received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize in 2007.
A triple concerto is a concerto with three soloists. Such concertos have been composed from the Baroque period, including works by Corelli, Vivaldi, Bach and Telemann, to the 21st century, such as two works by Dmitri Smirnov. The most famous example is Beethoven's Triple Concerto for violin, cello and piano. His combination of solo instruments, a piano trio, was often used also in later works.
Maurice Steger is a Swiss recorder player and conductor, mostly in Baroque music.
Monica Huggett is a British conductor and leading baroque violinist.
The Diapason d'Or is a recommendation of outstanding (mostly) classical music recordings given by reviewers of Diapason magazine in France, broadly equivalent to "Editor's Choice", "Disc of the Month" in the British Gramophone magazine.
The Atlanta Baroque Orchestra (ABO), founded in 1997 in Atlanta, Georgia, is the first and oldest professional orchestra in the Southeastern United States of America dedicated to historically informed performance, of music from the Baroque era on period instruments. The Atlanta Baroque Orchestra gave its premiere concert in January, 1998. The first director of the ABO was lute and theorbo player Lyle Nordstrom, who departed in 2003. John Hsu, noted performer on the viola da gamba and baryton, took the title of artistic advisor, becoming artistic director in July 2004; he continued through the 2008/2009 season. From 2004 through 2011, the resident director was founding member Daniel Pyle, harpsichordist and organist, instructor of music at Clayton State University, and organist and choir director at the Anglican Church of Our Saviour in Atlanta. Violinist, Baroque dancer and choreographer Julie Andrijeski became artistic director in February, 2011.
Michael Schneider is a German flautist, recorder player, conductor and academic teacher. He is especially connected with later Baroque repertoire such as the works of Telemann and with early Classical repertoire such as the works of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and founded the orchestra La Stagione to perform and record such repertoire.
Les Voix Baroques is a Canadian vocal ensemble specializing in early music. The ensemble was founded in 1999 by Matthew White (countertenor), Chloe Meyers (violinist) and Amanda Keesmaat (harpsichordist).
Alexis Kossenko is a French contemporary flautist, conductor and musicologist.
Bolette Roed is a Danish-born recorder player based in Copenhagen.
Claire Guimond is a Canadian flute player, founding member and former Artistic Director of Arion Baroque Orchestra.
early-music.com is a Canadian record label, based in Montreal. It is dedicated to the promotion of early music performance on period instruments.
