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Sorrell made her New York Philharmonic debut in 2021 and returns to the orchestra for the fourth time in 2026/27 to conduct The Messiah. In the US, she works regularly with orchestras such as St Paul Chamber, Seattle Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber orchestra and Philharmonia Baroque. Elsewhere she has conducted the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Hallé Orchestra and Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León and in the coming seasons looks forward to several European debuts including the DSO Berlin with whom she will conduct her ground-breaking programme Mozart’s Requiem: A Tapestry which interweaves works by living Black composers into the Requiem.
Sorrell is the Founder and Artistic Director of Apollo’s Fire. In addition to their hugely popular subscription series in Cleveland and Chicago, Apollo’s Fire tours regularly across the US including several visits to Carnegie Hall. In Europe, they recently had a residency at London’s St Martin-in-the-Fields where they collaborated with the English Baroque Soloists and in the coming seasons their international tours will take them to Brussels, Paris, Düsseldorf, Lisbon and elsewhere. They also have a huge on-line presence with over 24 million views on YouTube.
With Apollo’s Fire, Sorrell has recorded music by composers ranging from Monteverdi and Biber through to Mozart. Her recordings of the Bach's St John Passion and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons were chosen as best in the field by The Sunday Times of London (2020 and 2021) and her Monteverdi's Vespers recording was chosen by BBC Music Magazine as one of "30 Must-Have Recordings for Our Lifetime" (2022). She is also the subject of the documentary by Oscar-winning director Allan Miller, titled Playing With Fire: Jeannette Sorrell and the Mysteries of Conducting, commercially released in 2023.
Bridging the period-instrument and symphonic worlds from a young age, Sorrell studied conducting under Leonard Bernstein, Roger Norrington and Robert Spano at the Tanglewood and Aspen music festivals and harpsichord with Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam. She holds an Artist Diploma from Oberlin Conservatory, an honorary doctorate from Case Western University and an award from the American Musicological Society. Passionate about guiding the next generation of performers, Sorrell is the architect of Apollo’s Fire’s Young Artist Fellowship programme, which has produced many of the nation’s leading young professional baroque players.
2025/26 season / 495 words. Not to be altered without permission.