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Sir John Eliot Gardiner

Conductor
Founder and Artistic Director, Springhead Constellation
Music Director, The Constellation Choir & Orchestra

  • Sir John Eliot Gardiner stands as an international leader in today's musical life, respected as one of the world's most innovative and dynamic musicians, constantly at the forefront of enlightened interpretation. In September 2024, Gardiner announced the foundation of Springhead Constellation, which includes the formation of their flagship groups The Constellation Orchestra and The Constellation Choir. With Gardiner at the helm, the ensembles embark on their first tour of world-renowned concert venues in December 2024. Gardiner’s work as Founder and Artistic Director of the Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique has marked him out as a central figure in the early music revival and a pioneer of historically informed performance. As a regular guest of the world's leading symphony orchestras, such as the London Symphony Orchestra, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and Berlin Philharmonic, Gardiner also conducts repertoire from the 17th to the 20th century.

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  • The extent of Gardiner's repertoire is illustrated in the extensive catalogue of award-winning recordings with his own ensembles and leading orchestras including the Vienna Philharmonic on major labels (including Decca, Philips, Erato, and more than 30 recordings for Deutsche Grammophon), as wide-ranging as Mozart, Schumann, Berlioz, Elgar, and Kurt Weill, in addition to works by Renaissance and Baroque composers. Since 2005 the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras have recorded on their independent label, Soli Deo Gloria, established to release the live recordings made during Gardiner's Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000, for which he received Gramophone's 2011 Special Achievement Award and a Diapason d'or de l'année 2012. His many recording accolades include two GRAMMY awards, and he has received more Gramophone Awards than any other living artist.


    Gardiner's long relationship with the LSO has led to complete symphony cycles and numerous recordings on LSO Live, most recently of Mendelssohn and Schumann; in June 2022, he conducted the LSO with soloist Maria João Pires at the Barbican and LSO St Luke’s and on tour to Granada Festival. Guest conducting highlights this season include invitations to the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (Haydn, Weber, and Schubert), Philharmonia (Mendelssohn, Elgar, and Dvořák), Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France (Chabrier, Debussy, and Stravinsky), Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg (Brahms choral works and Dvořák Symphony No. 5), and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Brahms symphonies).


    Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras performed regularly at the world's major venues and festivals, including Salzburg, Berlin and Lucerne festivals, the Lincoln Center, and the Royal Albert Hall; in 2022, Gardiner made his 61st appearance at the BBC Proms conducting Beethoven’s supreme spiritual testament Missa Solemnis. 2023 marks Gardiner’s 80th birthday year, which the MCO celebrate with performances of Bach’s Mass in B minor on tour around Europe. In 2017, the MCO celebrated the 450th anniversary of the birth of Monteverdi, for which they were awarded the RPS Music Award and Gardiner named Conductor of the Year at the Opernwelt Awards. Gardiner has conducted opera productions at the Wiener Staatsoper, Teatro alla Scala, Opéra national de Paris, Royal Opera House, and most recently at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 2021 with Verdi’s Falstaff. From 1983 to 1988 he was artistic director of Opéra de Lyon, where he founded its new orchestra.


    Sir John Eliot Gardiner is also an accomplished writer; his book, Music in the Castle of Heaven: A Portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach, was published in October 2013 by Allen Lane, leading to the Prix des Muses award (Singer-Polignac). From 2014 to 2017 Gardiner was the first ever President of the BachArchiv Leipzig. Among numerous awards in recognition of his work, Sir John Eliot Gardiner holds honorary doctorates from the Royal College of Music, New England Conservatory of Music, the universities of Lyon, Cremona, St Andrews and King’s College, Cambridge where he himself studied and is now an Honorary Fellow; he is also an Honorary Fellow of King's College, London and the British Academy, and an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, who awarded him their prestigious Bach Prize in 2008; he became the inaugural Christoph Wolff Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Harvard University in 2014/15 and was awarded the Concertgebouw Prize in January 2016. Gardiner was made Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 2011 and was given the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2005. In the UK, he was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1990 and awarded a knighthood for his services to music in the 1998 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

    2024/25 Season / 696 words. Not to be altered without permission.

Performances

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Gardiner conducted with almost ferocious energy. Rhythms were exactingly precise, textures beautifully illuminated, shifts in mood immaculately judged... It was impossible not to be swept away by it all... 

Guardian, September 2019

To anyone who has been unfamiliar with Monteverdi until now, this trilogy should be heard. It will open up a whole new world.

Frankfurter Allgemeine, July 2017

It was Gardiner’s own galvanising approach that mattered most. A score sometimes dismissed as diffuse and uneven suddenly seemed like one of the mightiest cornerstones of romanticism.

Times, July 2016

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Intermusica represents Sir John Eliot Gardiner for guest conducting worldwide

Stephen Lumsden
Chief Executive
+44 20 7608 9900

Jessica Barra
Artist Manager
+44 20 7608 9942
jbarra@intermusica.com

Tracy Cheung
Assistant Artist Manager

tcheung@intermusica.com

All artists

Chansonnier

HK Gruber

Counter-tenor

Tim Mead

Harpsichord

Richard Egarr

Piano accompanist

Roger Vignoles

Saxophone

Jess Gillam

Contralto

Avery Amereau