John Eliot Gardiner

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Gardiner 2007 in Warsaw

Sir John Eliot Gardiner , CBE (born April 20, 1943 in Fontmell Magna , Dorset , England ) is a British conductor , choir director and Bach specialist .

life and work

John Eliot Gardiner gained his first experience at the conductor's desk at the age of 15. As a junior student at Cambridge University , he led the Oxford and Cambridge Singers on a tour of the Middle East before founding the Monteverdi Choir in 1964 . During his studies he learned darts from Thurston in London and from Nadia Boulanger in Paris. After the Monteverdi Choir , he founded the Monteverdi Orchestra in 1968 .

Gardiner made his London operatic debut in 1969 with The Magic Flute at the English National Opera , and in 1973 he gave a guest role at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden with Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride . On his first appearance in the USA in 1979 he conducted the Dallas Symphony Orchestra .

John Eliot Gardiner celebrated his main success through his performances and recordings of early music . Around 1978 the English Baroque Soloists , made up of members of the Monteverdi Orchestra , appeared for the first time at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music with a performance of Handel's Acis and Galatea with historical instruments.

From 1980 to 1983, Gardiner was chief conductor of the CBC Vancouver Orchestra . From 1983 to 1988 he formed a new orchestra as musical director of the Opéra National de Lyon , which today is one of the best in France. From 1981 to 1990 he was artistic director of the Göttingen International Handel Festival and from 1991 to 1994 chief conductor of the NDR symphony orchestra in Hamburg. As a guest, Gardiner u. a. the Philharmonia Orchestra , the Cleveland Orchestra , the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Vienna Philharmonic , the Berlin Philharmonic , the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Gewandhausorchester .

In 2010 and 2013 he conducted the Venice New Year's Concert .

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Monteverdi Choir , Gardiner undertook a world tour in 1989 with performances of Monteverdi's Virgin Mary Vespers from 1610, which was also recorded as a film, video and CD production. The French newspaper Le Monde recognized the achievements of this vocal ensemble with the words: "If there were a Nobel Prize for choral singing, it would go to the Monteverdi Choir ."

In 1990 Gardiner founded another orchestra for historical instruments to authentically perform classical and romantic music, the Orchester Révolutionnaire et Romantique . In the same year he conducted the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists on their debut at the Salzburg Festival , where he has been a regular guest ever since.

On February 13, 2014, Gardiner took over the office of President of the Leipzig Bach Archive Foundation .

Outstanding recordings under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner were initially made during his time at PolyGram on the labels Deutsche Grammophon , Philips and Decca Records . In 2004 Gardiner founded his own record label Soli Deo Gloria , which only publishes recordings by his own ensembles, including all of Johann Sebastian Bach's church cantatas in live recordings from 2000, the 250th year of the composer's death.

The recordings of the great vocal works by Johann Sebastian Bach ( St. Matthew Passion , St. John Passion , Mass in B minor , Christmas Oratorio , Magnificat ) as well as his recordings with works by Hector Berlioz , Georg Friedrich Handel and the operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , as well as the Recordings of Ludwig van Beethoven's nine symphonies with the Orchester révolutionaire et romantique .

In addition to his job as a musician, he runs an organic cattle and sheep farm at Springhead near Fontmell Magna , in North Dorset . He is the son of Rolf Gardiner and Marabel Hodgkin and the grandson of Alan Gardiner , a famous Egyptologist of the early 20th century.

Awards

The recordings brought him numerous awards, including Artist of the Year 1994 ( Gramophone Award ), Conductor of the Year 1995 ( Echo Klassik ) and Best Conductor 1995 (Cannes Classical Award). He was awarded the German Record Critics' Prize in 1994 as Classical Artist of the Year .

Publications

Web links

Commons : John Eliot Gardiner  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Flyer with a program preview for the Nikolaisaal in Potsdam for August and September 2011; Announcement of the choir performance with Bach motets on September 30, 2011
  2. ↑ cf. Article on www.mdr-figaro.de ( Memento from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Interview by Stephen Pritchard, Guardian, Jan. 28, 2007
personal data
SURNAME Gardiner, John Eliot
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British conductor and choirmaster
DATE OF BIRTH April 20, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Fontmell Magna , Dorset , England