Nicholas McGegan

Last updated

James Nicholas McGegan [1] OBE (born 14 January 1950 in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, England) is a British harpsichordist, flutist, conductor and early music expert.

Contents

Biography

McGegan received his early education at Nottingham High School. He subsequently studied music at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and at Magdalen College, Oxford. McGegan has participated in some of the earliest "authentic-performance" recordings during the 1970s as a baroque flautist, [2] including Christopher Hogwood's seminal recordings of Mozart symphonies. He has taught music at such UK institutions as King's College, Cambridge, Oriel College, Oxford, and the Royal College of Music. From 1993 to 1998, he was Principal Guest Conductor of the Scottish Opera in Glasgow.

In the US, McGegan has served as artist-in-residence at Washington University in St. Louis, beginning in 1979, when he was initially scheduled for one semester in residence, but continued until 1985. [3] McGegan first guest-conducted the St. Louis Symphony in 1986, and has since returned continuously as a guest conductor. [4] In 1985, McGegan became music director of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in San Francisco and Berkeley, California. [5] In 1988, he served as Music Director of the Ojai Music Festival alongside Peter Maxwell Davies and Diane Wittry. Since 2013, he has been Principal Guest Conductor of the Pasadena Symphony. In October 2018, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra announced that McGegan is to stand down as its music director after the 2019–20 season, becoming music director laureate. [6]

From 1991 to 2011, McGegan was Artistic Director of the Göttingen International Handel Festival. [7] He was music director of the Irish Chamber Orchestra from 2002 to 2005. In 2014, he became Artist-in-Association with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. [8] He has also held long-term appointments with the Drottningholm Theatre, where he served as principal conductor from 1993 to 1996, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. McGegan also founded the chamber music group the Arcadian Academy.

McGegan has made more than 100 recordings, including many with Philharmonia Baroque and singers such as Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and Lisa Saffer, for such labels as Philharmonia Baroque Productions and harmonia mundi. [9] In 2023, he conducted Cantata Collective's performance of Bach's St John Passion for Avie Records. [10]

McGegan resides in Berkeley, California and Glasgow. [2] He has collected a number of honors, including an honorary degree from the Royal College of Music in London; the Handel Prize from the Handel Festival in Halle, Germany; the honorary medal of the Friends of the Drottningholm Theatre; the Order of Merit of the State of Lower Saxony (Germany); the Medal of Honor of the City of Göttingen; and a declaration of Nicholas McGegan Day by the mayor of San Francisco in recognition of his work with Philharmonia Baroque. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours. [11] He was nominated for a Grammy Award for his 2011 release on the orchestra's label of Joseph Haydn's Symphonies nos. 88, 101, and 104.

Related Research Articles

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Manze</span> British conductor and violinist

Andrew Manze is a British conductor and violinist, noted for his interpretation of Baroque violin music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Masaaki Suzuki</span> Japanese organist, harpsichordist, and conductor

Masaaki Suzuki is a Japanese organist, harpsichordist, conductor, and the founder and music director of the Bach Collegium Japan. With this ensemble he is recording the complete choral works of Johann Sebastian Bach for the Swedish label BIS Records, for which he is also recording Bach's concertos, orchestral suites, and solo works for harpsichord and organ. He is also an artist-in-residence at Yale University and the principal guest conductor of its Schola Cantorum, and has conducted orchestras and choruses around the world.

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:

Roy Goodman is an English conductor and violinist, specialising in the performance and direction of early music. He became internationally famous as the 12-year-old boy treble soloist in the March 1963 recording of Allegri's Miserere with the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, under David Willcocks.

Concentus Musicus Wien (CMW) is an Austrian baroque music ensemble based in Vienna. The CMW is recognized as a pioneer of the period-instrument performance movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Egarr</span> British conductor

Richard Egarr is a British conductor and keyboard player.

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.

Robin Blaze is a British countertenor.

Paul Goodwin is an English conductor and former oboist.

Phoebe Carrai is an American cellist.

Maurice Steger is a Swiss recorder player and conductor, mostly in Baroque music.

Matthew White is a Canadian countertenor.

Alan Bennett is an American lyric tenor known mostly for his performances in concert and oratorio work. He is particularly admired for his interpretations of the works of Bach, George Frideric Handel, and Mozart.

John Butt is an English orchestral and choral conductor, organist, harpsichordist and scholar. He holds the Gardiner Chair of Music at the University of Glasgow and is music director of the Dunedin Consort with whom he has made award-winning recordings in historically informed performance. He is a prolific scholar, conductor and performer of works by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Judith Anne Nelson, née Manes was an American soprano, noted for her performances of baroque music at the beginning of the "early music revival" of the 1970s and 1980s.

Les nuits d'été, Op. 7, is a song cycle by the French composer Hector Berlioz, setting six poems by Théophile Gautier. The cycle, completed in 1841, was originally for soloist and piano accompaniment. Berlioz orchestrated one of the songs in 1843 and did the same for the other five in 1856. The cycle was neglected for many years, but during the 20th century it became, and has remained, one of the composer's most popular works. Of the many recordings made in the 20th and 21st centuries, most are of the orchestrated version and are sung by a soprano or mezzo-soprano.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susanne Rydén</span> Swedish soprano (born 1962)

Susanne Ingegerd Rydén is a Swedish soprano who has been called "Sweden's most renowned singer specialising in early and classical music". She has performed across Europe and abroad. She is currently the preses (chairman) of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sunhae Im</span> South Korean soprano (born 1976)

Sunhae Im is a South Korean soprano. She has been described as a bright and versatile lyric soprano with lightness and coloratura. She first gained her reputation in the field of early music and now performs a wide range of classical and non-classical music.

Riccardo Minasi is an Italian violinist and conductor in the field of historically informed performance.

References

  1. ↑ St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, pre-concert talk by Nicholas McGegan and Amy Kaiser, 31 January 2015.
  2. 1 2 Andrew Clements (1 August 2005). "Baroque star". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 October 2009.
  3. ↑ Jason Victor Serinus (29 September 2015). "Nicholas McGegan: 30 Years and Counting with Philharmonia Baroque". San Francisco Classical Voice. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  4. ↑ Sarah Bryan Miller (1 October 2016). "Conductor Nicholas McGegan brings all-Mozart program to SLSO". Saint Louis Post-Dispatch. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  5. ↑ Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim (5 August 2014). "Like a Jazz Band, but 18th Century". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  6. ↑ Michael Cooper (2 October 2018). "Maestro of the Influential Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra to Step Down". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  7. ↑ Michael Schäfer (30 December 2010). "Händel-Festspiele: Ära McGegan geht zu Ende". Göttinger Tageblatt. Archived from the original on 5 October 2011. Retrieved 12 June 2011.
  8. ↑ Ilona Wallace (16 September 2014). "Adelaide Symphony Orchestra 2015 program released". The Adelaide Review. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  9. ↑ James R Oestreich (26 October 2012). "Brahms: Serenades". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  10. ↑ Manheim, James. "Cantata Collective, Nicholas McGegan - Bach: St. John Passion Album Reviews". AllMusic . Retrieved 19 June 2023.
  11. ↑ "No. 59446". The London Gazette (Supplement). 12 June 2010. p. 24.
Cultural offices
Preceded by
Laurette Goldberg
 Music Director, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
1985–2020		Succeeded by
Preceded by Artistic Director, Göttingen International Handel Festival
1991–2011		Succeeded by
Preceded by
Fionnuala Hunt
 Music Director, Irish Chamber Orchestra
2002–2005		Succeeded by
Anthony Marwood (Artistic Director)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.